MBP 2010 GPU DEAD? SC2 @ Everything LOW = 20-30 FPS...

ShootingStars said:

T_T What happened... I tried to force quit EVERYTHING too... everything was fine a week ago... then when I try to play SC2 now, it's choppy with everything even low, I used to get 70-100 FPS on EVERYTHING low in settings... and I have tried using GFXcardstatus to force discrete GT330M... Please help anyone...

This is at 1680 x 1050 resolution, the resolution i always play at.

I have the Mid-2010 MBP 15" with i7 and high-res. AG screen.

With Intel HD Graphics, I get 10~ FPS with everything on the low setting.
With my discrete GPU, the GT330M, I get 20-25 FPS.

Something is wrong... is my GPU fried? The computer seems fine other than gaming... ._.

I have already tried several restarts and still the same problem.

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Interesting issue, I personally recommend a reinstall of OSX. Most likely a reinstall will fix the issue however it may be you have a problem with your GPU (Not Rendering it Dead but still aa problem obviously), Probably your best bet is to take it to your local Genius.

Try restting the SMC:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US

This used to happen all the time on my 2009 MBP, gfx card would perform about 3x slower. No idea why it would happen but when i did an SMC reset always fixed it.

*edit*
Actually I'm not sure I posted the right link. You just have to hold the power button down on startup until the light starts blinking quickly. I always thought that was an smc reset.

Did you recently update your version of OSX to 10.6.7? There were several threads about the latest update severely decreasing performance in games if it was installed using the automatic update.

I had a problem with my old MBP (8600M GT) where it suddenly became really bad at gaming (Had to play CNC3 on low, when usually it could cope with high). I was able to irrefutably identify it as a damaged GPU by opening System Profiler, selecting the Graphics/Displays, and checking the PCIe Lane Width. It should have said x16, but it said x1.

Checking mine, I'm surprised to see my 6750M is only connected through x8 PCIe. Is that normal? It seems odd that a new performance graphics card would be given half the bandwidth of a 4 year old mainstream card.

Erasmus said:

Checking mine, I'm surprised to see my 6750M is only connected through x8 PCIe. Is that normal? It seems odd that a new performance graphics card would be given half the bandwidth of a 4 year old mainstream card.

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I knew I read this somewhere

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4340/27inch-apple-imac-review-2011/3

In the 2011 MacBook Pro Apple used four of these lanes for Intel's Thunderbolt controller, leaving the discrete AMD GPU with a x8 interface. Even high end desktop GPUs aren't limited by a x8 PCIe 2.0 interface so there was no real performance penalty.

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Hey ShootingStars, did you try the hold down power button for 5+ secs on boot? I'm not just giving random vague information.

In my case my 8600GT 512mb on my macbook pro would very often run very slowly, usually about 1/3 of the speed. Games would limp along at a frame rate that didn't change no matter what graphics setttings/resolution you would use, which was the first thing that told me something was up. That and the fact that it used to run lots faster!

Anyway after trying everything to no effect, the smc reset fixed it immediately. The problem would return every few days, and always doing the smc reset again would return the card to full performance. I ended up just doing it every time I booted into bootcamp (as most of my gaming was done on win7).

I know you're on a newer macbook + gfx card than the 8600GT, but it's worth a shot no?

Make feel like a big task, but just do a reinstall it might take you a while but if its still faulty afterwards you got a hardware issue or co or if it doesn't stuff up you've fixed the problem and have got that nice new feeling a computer has when you first get it.

I agree with those telling you to reinstall. If that doesnt fix it, you know its a hardware issue and you need to bring it to apple.

It may be that the macbook is overheating and throttling the card?

I'm having the same issue too. Yesterday my sc2 was running smoothly, but today the fps dropped to 20 for some reason. I didn't make any changes to my mbp, so I have no idea why this is happening. Please let me know if you figured out a solution...

you could also try using bootcamp to see how the performance on windows