New World’s launch may have been bigger than many expected. Despite issues with the beta for it, many are finding much to love about the new MMO and are having a lot of fun with it. No game launch, however, isn’t perfect. New World has received criticism for its lack of swimming animations, weapon clipping issues, and more. Yet, there is one issue that seemingly continues to rear its head and leave many worried about the game.
Since that initial beta, it seems New World has had an issue with overheating GPUS. Amazon Games has looked into it, and in the past, the tech giant issued a comment on the matter. With the launch, though, there are new reports, and for those who are concerned, here’s what fans should know.
New World GPU Issues in the Beta
It didn’t take more than a day after the last New World beta for reports to pile in regarding various technical issues. These even began at the New World menu because its frames-per-second wasn’t capped. This led to weird noises, hot GPUs, game crashes, and more. They expanded beyond the menu, with the 2060-3080s reportedly making the game unplayable or, at worst, seriously damaging these GPUS. Of all the issues, though, it seemed at the time that it was worse among 3090 owners and, more specifically, the EVGA 3090.
Many reports indicated, even among high-profile streamers, that the EVGA 3090 FTW3 was completely bricking during the New World beta. Some didn’t make it past the menu, some only made it a few minutes, and others lasted hours. Due to it seemingly being focused on the EVGA 3090, many were quick to point out that it may be a manufacturing issue, but it’s not clear if this is true, whether it was resolved, or what more specific issues were taking place with New World and the 3090.
Regarding this potential issue, Amazon Games did issue this official statement at the time:
"Hundreds of thousands of people played in the New World Closed Beta yesterday, with millions of total hours played. We’ve received a few reports of players using high-performance graphics cards experiencing hardware failure when playing New World. New World makes standard DirectX calls as provided by the Windows API. We have seen no indication of widespread issues with 3090s, either in the beta or during our many months of alpha testing. The New World Closed Beta is safe to play. In order to further reassure players, we will implement a patch today that caps frames per second on our menu screen. We’re grateful for the support New World is receiving from players around the world, and will keep listening to their feedback throughout Beta and beyond."
EVGA also issued a statement on the matter, indicating there was a batch of RTX 3090s that had poor soldering, causing various issues at high load points. It stated this was a very small batch, having received less roughly 24 dead GPUs in relation to the New World beta. All in all, it seems to have been incredibly limited and not necessarily related to New World itself.
New World GPU Issues at Launch
Now, it seems these GPU issues have reared their head again. Notably, however, the GPU issues were quickly spotted by the fledgling New World community during the beta, and reports have been slower this time around. In other words, in line with Amazon’s previous statement, this does seem to be happening but not to a necessarily widespread degree.
According to custom PC manufacturer PowerGPU, it has received a handful of cards that have bricked or dealt with other serious technical issues due to New World playtime. The EVGA 3090 still seems to be the main issue, though reports have also identified the Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti as another with serious issues. Beyond the menu, it seems it has something to do with high load GPU spikes when changing New World’s graphic settings.
PowerGPU was quick to note that this is indicative of the same mechanical problems as before, just now impacting those who didn’t play the New World beta. In other words, it still appears to be a limited hardware issue and the numbers are much less than the first time around. If using an EVGA 3090 or a Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti, it may be good to be aware that there are potential issues when playing New World, but they are not widespread and the chances of being okay are quite good despite this.
Ultimately, it’s a very limited issue related to Amazon's new game but not necessarily due to New World, and that bodes well for those who want to jump into this popular MMO.
New World is available now on PC.