Gaming on 16 inch MacBook pro

[imrazor]

I've got Bootcamp set up and running. I tried out Control (sort of a shooter, but in a weird, trippy way) and didn't notice any ghosting. However, that game has a lot of bloom and fancy lighting effects, so I may not be able to perceive motion blur anyway.

I also want to get the AMD capture software running, which I think comes with the "Red" package on bootcampdrivers.com. However, the "Blue" package is recommended for the MBP 16". So I guess that leads to two questions:

1) Is it important to run the Red driver and only the Red driver for the MBP? Any consequences?
2) Does the "Blue" package come with AMD Relive (the video capture software?)

 

[BuCkDoG]

The Red package is optimized for content creation and the Blue Package is for Gaming. When I had my machine for roughly a couple days before I returned it, the drivers didn't matter to me because again of the Motion Blur. When I ran WoW, I just moved my mouse around and could absolutely see the blur. I play on a 5k iMac and played on a 2013 15" rMBP and don't have anywhere near that level of blur that it had. Now if your not gaming on this, its awesome but personally for that price tag, I want to be able to gam on the side and just personally couldn't deal with that Blur. I noticed it right away and wasn't even trying to hard to look for it.

 

[Merode]

The Red package is optimized for content creation and the Blue Package is for Gaming.

I think you've got it the other way around. On the website it says:

• Red Gaming Edition
• Blue Enterprise Edition

And yeah, it says blue is recommended for 16" MBP. Doesn't say why.

 

[MrGunnyPT]

The Red package is optimized for content creation and the Blue Package is for Gaming. When I had my machine for roughly a couple days before I returned it, the drivers didn't matter to me because again of the Motion Blur. When I ran WoW, I just moved my mouse around and could absolutely see the blur. I play on a 5k iMac and played on a 2013 15" rMBP and don't have anywhere near that level of blur that it had. Now if your not gaming on this, its awesome but personally for that price tag, I want to be able to gam on the side and just personally couldn't deal with that Blur. I noticed it right away and wasn't even trying to hard to look for it.

Red is for gaming, but I know what you mean.

Whenever I use the 16" I have to hook it up to an external monitor to play due to the ghosting.. It's very noticeable in both Diablo and WoW

 

[imrazor]

Tried both the Red and Blue packages, but each time got black desktops in games (well, Control anyway.) So I had to reinstall the November '19 "Pro" driver. But even with that driver, I'm noticing performance tank after 30 - 45 minutes of gameplay. This might be power throttling, but thermals seem the more likely culprit. If the MBP had an older processor, I'd undervolt it. But I understand that's not an option on these newer processors. Is there any other way to manage thermals?

 

[ctjack]

I'm noticing performance tank after 30 - 45 minutes of gameplay. This might be power throttling, but thermals seem the more likely culprit. If the MBP had an older processor, I'd undervolt it. But I understand that's not an option on these newer processors. Is there any other way to manage thermals?

Technically it is not throttling, it just don't sustain Turbo. Problem is that system restrictions on output is 100w, so you either have a full blast with CPU only, or full blast GPU. Both can't work together while delivering maximum performance.
So overall it is bad thermals, hot Intel CPU, and mac is not for gaming.

 

[Viamusic10000]

Tried both the Red and Blue packages, but each time got black desktops in games (well, Control anyway.) So I had to reinstall the November '19 "Pro" driver. But even with that driver, I'm noticing performance tank after 30 - 45 minutes of gameplay. This might be power throttling, but thermals seem the more likely culprit. If the MBP had an older processor, I'd undervolt it. But I understand that's not an option on these newer processors. Is there any other way to manage thermals?

I dont get drops like this with the Red or Blue drivers so I think this is indeed the drivers.

 

[BuCkDoG]

I think you've got it the other way around. On the website it says:

• Red Gaming Edition
• Blue Enterprise Edition

And yeah, it says blue is recommended for 16" MBP. Doesn't say why.

Yes your correct sorry I mixed up the colors lol. But you know what I meant so it’s all good.

Red is for gaming, but I know what you mean.

Whenever I use the 16" I have to hook it up to an external monitor to play due to the ghosting.. It's very noticeable in both Diablo and WoW

Yes your correct sorry I mixed up the colors lol. But you know what I meant so it’s all good.

 

[Alex W.]

Why game on a MBP? what you're going to do it destroy the system battery and thermally kill your unit over time imo.

What you should do is get Playstations Now or Geforce Now IMO - Dual boot a windows 10 Lite copy, then run it from there with a controller.

Macs imo are for work. A solid desktop with an RTX card for gaming.

 

[imrazor]

Why game on a MBP? what you're going to do it destroy the system battery and thermally kill your unit over time imo.

What you should do is get Playstations Now or Geforce Now IMO - Dual boot a windows 10 Lite copy, then run it from there with a controller.

Macs imo are for work. A solid desktop with an RTX card for gaming.

I already have a decent gaming rig. However, I frequently spend long, boring hours away from the house and would like to game. Yes, I could get a gaming laptop, but generally prefer macOS. I already have a PC laptop for light gaming and a MacBook Air for general use. With a MBP I get "One Laptop to Rule Them All".

As far as, thermally killing the laptop, well, that's why I set my own fan curve with Macs Fan Control, and got AppleCare for extra insurance.I also don't game unless I'm within easy reach of an outlet.

 

[iMelhado]

generally prefer macOS.

Whenever I mention if I play a game on Mac. Someone always tells me to purchase a window machine. I do not generally like Windows. I prefer MacOS for a plethora of reasons. I have an iPhone 11 Pro, Apple Watch and a 16" base MacBook Pro. It can do everything I want and more!

I play Civilization 5: Complete here and there when I'm bored and honestly, it's good to be able to even play a 10 year old game. I do have Windows 10 dual boot as well but I rarely go into it. It's funny because Windows 10 is esntialy free. (Of course you must buy a license if you want to get rid of watermarks in settings For notifications here and there but it is fully functional.)

For those wondering about the base model 16 gaming capacity? I can play Battlefield 4 maxed out at the highest resolution and easily get 38-50FPS. For some reason, any lower resolution will just make it run in windowed mode.

All in all, the 16" MacBook base is capable for photographers, video editors, music designers and even game designers. The best part? Don't be afraid to download steam and play a game.

You can GAME smoothy on the 16" MacBook.

If it fits all your needs, get it.

Cheers

 

[ctjack]

With a MBP I get "One Laptop to Rule Them All".

That is always terrible compromise. Had that experience with Dell Xps 15. So i've learnt that you could play games on slick premium(metal) rigs, but it won't be pleasant and full of compromises.

 

[imrazor]

That is always terrible compromise. Had that experience with Dell Xps 15. So i've learnt that you could play games on slick premium(metal) rigs, but it won't be pleasant and full of compromises.

A compromise, yes, but hardly a terrible one. With some tweaking, a 16" Macbook Pro is fully capable of gaming. That is, as long as you're not expecting RTX 2080 performance out of it.

 

[Alex W.]

I already have a decent gaming rig. However, I frequently spend long, boring hours away from the house and would like to game. Yes, I could get a gaming laptop, but generally prefer macOS. I already have a PC laptop for light gaming and a MacBook Air for general use. With a MBP I get "One Laptop to Rule Them All".

As far as, thermally killing the laptop, well, that's why I set my own fan curve with Macs Fan Control, and got AppleCare for extra insurance.I also don't game unless I'm within easy reach of an outlet.

Yep 100% smart move with AppC and gaming. Have you installed windows yet?

I just learned about playstation now, which is basically every playstation game streamed to you and a controller.
Basically most hotel wifi was good enough for it for me, for basic gaming. Should check it out, I was impressed they had it for windows 10.

Basically turns any crappy pc into a PS4, without the thermal load and killing the battery in an hour.

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[iMelhado]

A compromise, yes, but hardly a terrible one. With some tweaking, a 16" Macbook Pro is fully capable of gaming. That is, as long as you're not expecting RTX 2080 performance out of it.

I concur!

If someone gets a MacBook Pro for a primary use of gaming, they will be disappointed because of compatibility and potential capability.

I would never get a windows saying this will be everything I need just to be depressed because it isn't MacOS.

 

[simonmet]

Plenty of people can only justify one computer, and prefer it to be a laptop. For these people, a jack-of-all-trades laptop that is good at most things but perhaps not best at any is still the best choice overall. This is the niche that MacBook Pro occupies and does very well in. Graphics performance is fine for me.

The biggest weakness is the slow screen, so hopefully that gets addressed.

 

[imrazor]

Yep 100% smart move with AppC and gaming. Have you installed windows yet?

I just learned about playstation now, which is basically every playstation game streamed to you and a controller.
Basically most hotel wifi was good enough for it for me, for basic gaming. Should check it out, I was impressed they had it for windows 10.

Basically turns any crappy pc into a PS4, without the thermal load and killing the battery in an hour.

Yes I have Windows installed, and have already taken measures to make sure thermals don't get out of hand (ThrottleStop + Macs Fan Control for Bootcamp). I've also used MSCONFIG.EXE to limit the number of threads to 8 to also reduce power and thermals. (Most games will run fine with 4C/8T.)

So far most of my testing has resolved around the game Control, since that's what I've been playing recently. I've been getting 40 - 55 fps on a mix of low/medium settings, and high textures. It did take a fair bit of tweaking to get there though.

I've been skeptical of game streaming services. I've used "in home" streaming with Steam, and I wasn't terribly impressed with it on a LAN. I can only imagine how much worse the latency and lag spikes would be over the Internet.

 

[fokmik]

What you play on your macs lately?

 

[Morien]

Has anyone updated their graphics drivers recently? New Red and Blue drivers released on the 18th of the month. I keep getting crashes on them. Whole computer locks up and shuts down. Usually on a load screen or when launching a game.

 

[Viamusic10000]

Has anyone updated their graphics drivers recently? New Red and Blue drivers released on the 18th of the month. I keep getting crashes on them. Whole computer locks up and shuts down. Usually on a load screen or when launching a game.

Yeah I updated to April red, haven’t had any problems.

 

[christcc2]

If you're primarily gaming at your desk - then I would not invest in the upgraded dGPU, get more RAM, and then invest in an eGPU - that way you can upgrade your graphics card every 2-3 years to keep up with the titles you're playing - an i7 or i9 will be more than adequate for your CPU, and 16GB of RAM is more than plenty. But where you need the most flexibility over time is with your GPU. I believe an eGPU allows you to get more years out of your hardware since you will be able to upgrade your GPU over time - instead of buying another MBP every 2 years that already has a poor GPU for gaming.

 

[imrazor]

@Morien Yeah I kept getting crashes on both Blue and Red for April. Switched back to Nov. '19 drivers for now.

 

[Arizor]

Yep, just chiming in another vote for an eGPU, if you can at all afford it and want to play the latest games on your Mac. Mine (razer core x, vega 64) runs all the latest games in 1440p maxed out settings. Love it.

 

[PTLove]

Hey guys, looking for some help / advice.

I just installed Windows and bootcamp for the purposes of gaming on my Macbook Pro 16" base model (ala this video:

).

My problem is that the changes made to the TPL settings of the CPU via throttlestop are sticking through reboots - even into OSX! My Cinebench scores in OSX fell once I made those changes, so I booted back into windows, deleted throttlestop settings, and loaded it back up - still the same override values (48).

Could anyone please give me the default values they see on Throttlestop for the TPL screen with a Macbook Pro 16" base model (i7-9750H)? I did not realize I would be overriding a core system thing through reboots and would lose those defaults!

 

[imrazor]

Hey guys, looking for some help / advice.

I just installed Windows and bootcamp for the purposes of gaming on my Macbook Pro 16" base model (ala this video:

).

My problem is that the changes made to the TPL settings of the CPU via throttlestop are sticking through reboots - even into OSX! My Cinebench scores in OSX fell once I made those changes, so I booted back into windows, deleted throttlestop settings, and loaded it back up - still the same override values (48).

Could anyone please give me the default values they see on Throttlestop for the TPL screen with a Macbook Pro 16" base model (i7-9750H)? I did not realize I would be overriding a core system thing through reboots and would lose those defaults!

Typically a soft reset (aka a simple reboot) typically will not clear changes made to voltages, clock speeds, etc. You will probably need to do a complete shutdown in order to reset to the default values in the Mac's EFI.