Deathloop loading screens make PS5s sound terrible

Death loop is a good video game and it makes my brain go to “brrrrrrrrr”. Unfortunately, this also causes the PS5s to become “SCREEEEEEEE” whenever the game is loaded. It is not ideal.

Death loop was one of the strangest and most anticipated releases of the year. Developed by Arkane Lyon and published by Bethesda (now owned by Microsoft), the game launched exclusively for console on PS5, although it is, again, developed by a studio owned by Microsoft. The ability-laden, time-looping first-person shooter is also notable for the intense press and audience reactions after its announcement. People have wanted this very strange and ambitious video game for a long time. It is therefore in this climate of fiery anticipation that Death loop unleashes and inflicts one of the worst sounds I have ever heard from a machine. Although the problem seems rare, some PS5s are screaming across all loading screens in the game. Reports of audio issues on the loading screen are starting to appear in some forums, and on social networks.

No one really knows why this is happening, but some Reddit users theorized that the phenomenon is caused by “unlimited uncapped frame rates” on loading screens. It’s already arrived, especially with Rainbow Six Siege. In Seat some gamers have shown their frame rate to jump up to 999 fps while loading screens, putting an extreme load on their GPUs. The frame rate then drops to a more reasonable 150 FPS once the matches actually start. The solution was to cap the game frame rate at the system level to avoid straining the GPU while loading screens. Unfortunately, PS5 Death loop players do not have this option.

I tested this theory using my own PC version of the game (where the game has a whole different set of problems), and it looks solid. Turn off the system-wide frame rate cap I set on my PC and enter any Death loop the loading screen, sees the frame rate skyrocket to over 400 fps, at which point my GPU starts screaming. Once I successfully load into the game the frame rate drops to a more reasonable 60-80 FPS and the screams subside. Re-enabling my precious frame rate cap results in much more reasonable frame rates on loading screens and a happy GPU.

While some users aren’t too concerned with the sound, being that it only lasts a few seconds and isn’t a problem elsewhere, I think the peace of mind your console brings not making a new and terrible noise is well worth the effort to be fixed.