Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Air gamers, how's the heat?

niuniu

niuniu

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Mar 29, 2009
2,311
1
A man of the people. The right sort of people.
Been lookin around today at the Air i5 & i7s running games - quite impressive.

How's the heat though? I game on a Macbook Pro 13inch 2010 at the moment (my 15inch MBP is nearly dead) and the only time I have problems is when running 2 instances of a game (like multi-boxing on an MMO for example). The problem isn't the processor or graphics card.. they run it decent enough to be playable.. but the heat. As soon as it gets hot.. everything throttles down and FPS dies. I can solve this by homemade cooling (icepacks under it) it's a hassle.

Luckily I don't multibox often, or even play often right now, but I will again in the future and the future looks to be a Macbook Air 15 or 17 inch if rumors are to be believed. I like the sound of that. More than fast enough to work on and lighter too.

But I'm worried about the heat. If my MBP 13 inch and 15inch got so hot that they started to slow down, then the Air surely must be worse.

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text - but figured the Air owners that actually run games would be the best guys to ask. I've never used an i5 or i7 machine.. just Core 2 Duos..
 
This is a goofy response to your question but, the hardest I've driven by 13" i5 is with Diablo 3 and it does heat up significantly but the heat mainly comes from near the 'ESC' key, that corner. So I've got fingers on the 1-5 keys and I'll feel a little bit of warmth there, but if I move my fingers 'up' the keyboard towards the Fn keys it gets EXTREMELY hot. Goofy response because, I actually like it and I kind of touch that area while I'm playing just for fun.

Also goofy is that, the heat is so much on the left side, that I notice my left hand will start to sweat after long periods of computing, and my right won't.

Overall though I believe it gets less hot than any of the myriad MBP's I've owned including the latest generation.

Another note is that the MBA seems to get COLD so easily. If it's sitting on a table and I put it on my lap it'll be freezing cold to the touch against my knees or whatever. Really weird. Its like they built ice in to it ;)

Love the MBA...
 
^ Ditto
The most intense game I think I play is Starcraft 2 on it, and it does get very hot in the upper left corner.
Of course it gets hot for any game I play, such as Portal 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Torchlight.
I do try and take breaks from playing too long, to let it cool down a bit, then start it up again.

But I have never noticed it causing any problems though, like slowing the game down.
The only time I get lag or something, is when I don't have enough RAM available, I try to have 2gb available when I play any game...
 
I can't even have old PS2 or Gamecube emulator working correctly on my fall 2010 Macbook whereas it works well on my crappy 3 years old computer...
 
niuniu said:
Been lookin around today at the Air i5 & i7s running games - quite impressive.

How's the heat though? I game on a Macbook Pro 13inch 2010 at the moment (my 15inch MBP is nearly dead) and the only time I have problems is when running 2 instances of a game (like multi-boxing on an MMO for example). The problem isn't the processor or graphics card.. they run it decent enough to be playable.. but the heat. As soon as it gets hot.. everything throttles down and FPS dies. I can solve this by homemade cooling (icepacks under it) it's a hassle.

Luckily I don't multibox often, or even play often right now, but I will again in the future and the future looks to be a Macbook Air 15 or 17 inch if rumors are to be believed. I like the sound of that. More than fast enough to work on and lighter too.

But I'm worried about the heat. If my MBP 13 inch and 15inch got so hot that they started to slow down, then the Air surely must be worse.

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text - but figured the Air owners that actually run games would be the best guys to ask. I've never used an i5 or i7 machine.. just Core 2 Duos..
Click to expand...

No need to worry about the heat....but it does get too hot to rest on your bare lap while gaming....I always game on a desk...so its not a big deal....occasionally qwer will get quite hot to the touch, but not so much that its unplayable. The internals are rated to run a lot hotter than it peaks at tho..so you shouldn't worry about using your computer. It's a really great portable gamer btw! Make sure you update the drivers tho! New drivers just released for Intel HD Series graphics and it made things run really well.
 
If you have the correct game settings, you shouldn't have any issues with heat. The goal is to try to have your computer running at about 70% of its max capabilities.

For instance, in World of Warcraft, I set the graphics to medium/high with low shadows & water textures and medium to high draw distance. Then I cap the framerate at either 30 or 40 fps. This does 2 things. It keeps the game running smoothly without any hiccups due to graphics intensive situations and it also keeps the computer running cool. I hardly ever have the fan even get high enough to hear it and this is with the game sound turned all the way down.
 
macguy360 said:
For instance, in World of Warcraft, I set the graphics to medium/high with low shadows & water textures and medium to high draw distance. Then I cap the framerate at either 30 or 40 fps. This does 2 things. It keeps the game running smoothly without any hiccups due to graphics intensive situations and it also keeps the computer running cool. I hardly ever have the fan even get high enough to hear it and this is with the game sound turned all the way down.
Click to expand...

I do the same thing, although I have the 2010 Air that runs cooler than the 2011 one. With WoW running on max framerate I can get really good framerates, but the computer gets up to 85:ish degrees. When capping the framerate to 30, the game feels just as smooth but the temperature usually hovers around 70. I guess both those numbers are a but higher for the 2011 Air that runs hotter, but capping framerates helps a lot if you're having heat issues.
 
Thanks for the replies. WoW is comparatively easy to run these days. I wouldn't have any problems with that. Next-gen MMOs are a lot more intensive graphically, especially when running multiple instances of the game and are doing something like sieging (400+ people).

I expect heat, I expect the components to roast near their upper limit but it's the throttling down that's the problem. So I know that the MBP 2010 just can't handle that sort of intensity heatwise. However the power is definitely there (which I find surprisingly nice).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back