I have had my 2015 15" Macbook Pro with dedicated AMD graphics for about 3 weeks now, everything about it is brilliant so far, apart from the windows/gaming side of things. I am running Windows 8.1 in Bootcamp. It does have a powerful GPU and it shows, I get high frame rates on F1 2014, The vanishing of Ethan Carter, and F1 2015. I can run these all at 1080p medium graphics. However, I get massive and completely random lag spikes. Huge FPS drops, it can go from around 50-60fps to 15fps just randomly, these games do not do this on my other windows computer. Could it be a driver problem? Minecraft is the only game that does not have this issue, that has a constant fps to it. I would appreciate any help, whether it's a driver or a hardware problem. Thank you.
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2015 15" Macbook Pro Windows 8.1 Gaming Lag Spikes and FPS drops
- Thread starter Yuddy
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Is your "other computer" running Windows 8? Also, are you running Win8 under Boot Camp or as a VM under VMWare or Parallels?
My other computer, which is less powerful than my Macbook Pro in both the CPU and GPU areas, is also running Windows 8.1. And I am running Windows 8.1 through Bootcamp on my Macbook.
Try elevating the rMBP and keeping air moving under it. Does this reduce the occurrence of the lag? I'm guessing the GPU is hitting it's temperature limit and throttling back for a moment. Macs aren't really designed for gaming.
Hmm, I was thinking that was the issue, it gets extremely hot within a minute of opening any game, I just tried Outlast and had the same issues. I do have it in a cool environment with a fan on it. I haven't head of these issues with other models though? Especially as the r9 m370x runs at the same temp's as the 750m in the previous model.
Sounds definitely like throttling. The rMBP actually has better cooling than its predecessors. My old 15" cMBP never throttled and no one has ever reported(that I know of) the 650M or 750M models throttling. Probably have a faulty unit.
This sounds like throttling.
But you say that the lag spikes occur at random so I can't be sure.
Try to take note next time whether the lag kicks in after a certain amount of time.
If it takes a while before lagging it's definitely throttling.
However if the performance goes to hell even while the GPU is "cold" this could be another issue altogether.
It must be noted that throttling is a well known nuisance under Bootcamp, see this Notebookcheck review for some info on the matter: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-Retina-15-Mid-2015-Review.144402.0.html
But you say that the lag spikes occur at random so I can't be sure.
Try to take note next time whether the lag kicks in after a certain amount of time.
If it takes a while before lagging it's definitely throttling.
However if the performance goes to hell even while the GPU is "cold" this could be another issue altogether.
It must be noted that throttling is a well known nuisance under Bootcamp, see this Notebookcheck review for some info on the matter: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-Retina-15-Mid-2015-Review.144402.0.html
Hello, thank you for your reply.
I have been testing it for the past few hours now, it still happens on both F1 2014 and 2015, however, it does not happen on outlast, I have had consistent frame rates on outlast with over 30 minutes gameplay. The MacBook is very hot but there is no thermal throttling. Could It possibly be that the drivers aren't quite there yet, as it is a brand new gpu and some games haven't taken advantage of it yet? It mainly happens on F1 when there is a build up of cars or multiple vehicles on screen at once.
I wish I could tell you for certain but I am not very familiar with either of those games.
And from a few cursory web searches I can't really comment on the "optimization" of the games.
-it seems F1 2015 at least gets some flak for running somewhat poorly for some; crashes and such.
Could be that the F1 games simply tax the hardware more, thereby necessitating throttling.
It is a sim game, I think it might be a little CPU-intensive compared to Outlast; lots of physics calculations.
So if it makes both the CPU and GPU sweat the machine could probably heat up faster.
Does Outlast offer a framerate cap?
It could be that the game is locked at 30 frames per second, this could in theory make the game less intensive.
Outlast takes place in small enclosed corridors and the graphical fidelity isn't staggering, so it could be a way less demanding game than the F1s.
Or something! I'm really just thinking out loud here...well, typing as I think.
Bottom line, I think you might not be seeing lag in Outlast because it is less demanding than F1.
Then again the M370X probably still has some way to go driver wise.
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