High Sierra - THE UPDATE THAT SCREWED ME OVER!

[BambooBob]

I updated my Macbook Pro to High Sierra so I could play Fortnite Battle Royale and because I thought an update would be nice. I get like 10-20 FPS in Fortnite with frequent 1-3 second lag spikes. Then I check my Minecraft to see if it is just my graphics card not being able to handle Fortnite. It turns out, my Minecraft is running at 30 to at most 50 fps. Before the update I was getting over 250 fps if I turn off my FPS cap, and I am pretty sure I could get upwards of 500 fps on Singleplayer with low settings. But after the update that all changed. It is not a hard drive problem, as I have about 500 gigs remaining. I have a feeling it is my ram. Is there anything about the update that changes ram allocation, or a setting, or anything that would cause a performance change and make my gaming experience crap?

Just so you know, it is a 2012 Macbook Pro with 2.9ghz (really 3.6 since the mac turbo boost by default) Intel i7 processor, 8 gigs of ram, and the only bad thing really, an Intel 4000 graphics card.
*Also note that I checked Activity Monitor and I have plenty of spare ram and CPU is fine.

 

[rikmac111]

Mine has also slowed down tremendously on all levels. Mid 2012 macbook pro.

 

[BambooBob]

Man that stinks, what the heck did this update do to us. I am begging for someone to help me out here. This just plain sucks, I can't play my games, and I really want to play Fortnite Battle Royale.

 

[Nixir]

Even from the early days of OSX, it was NOT advisable to update to the latest OS asap. The old wisdom was to wait till the mid cycle update, but since that was on a ~24months release schedule, "mid cycle" from back then is equivalent to the .5/.6 release today. Many people here, myself included, feel nostalgic for 10.6.8, but the fact remains that 10.6 was a buggy mess on release, and it took till 10.6.3 for the OS to stabilize, and 10.6.8 represents 2 years of hard work on perfecting an OS.

 

[Wreckus]

doesn't the apps/games need to be updated to take advantage of the updated features of High Sierra?

 

[Nixir]

doesn't the apps/games need to be updated to take advantage of the updated features of High Sierra?

Yes. This was the other reason for waiting on for the mid cycle. The OS "hopefully is" stable by then and all the software developers have had time to update their code.

 

[Spudlicious]

Man that stinks, what the heck did this update do to us. I am begging for someone to help me out here. This just plain sucks, I can't play my games, and I really want to play Fortnite Battle Royale.

Are you really in the position that you can't rollback? No backup to restore from, no clone of your drive?

 

[Fishrrman]

OP asks:
"Is there anything about the update that changes ram allocation, or a setting, or anything that would cause a performance change and make my gaming experience crap?"

Why not go back to where you were before you upgraded?

 

[leman]

This could be messed up power management that doesn't boost your GPU, resulting in bad performance in games. Did you try resetting the SMC?

 

[iop]

Even from the early days of OSX, it was NOT advisable to update to the latest OS asap...

This piece of advise is especially relevant when the new OS comes with a relatively untested file system. A couple of years is not enough time to prove the robustness of APFS.

 

[BambooBob]

Here is my problem: I needed Sierra to play certain games, and all they had was high sierra, so I went for it. You guys are right, it is probably the new file system, my hardware seems fine after running a few diagnostics. Steam updated after I switched to High Sierra and it appears that my Steam games perform as good as they did before the update. I shouldn't have to wait long for Minecraft and Fortnite to adapt to 10.13, as they are highly developed games. I also noticed that main stream mac programs like Onyx say they haven't updated to 10.13 yet, so there is probably good reason.

 

[Mr. Dee]

The way I feel about High Sierra, I'm thinking of skipping it all together an just upgrade only with a new Mac. I don't want to break any of my apps; especially Adobe CS6 and I don't want any unexpected surprises. APFS has translated well to Apple's devices, but I think it will take a few releases before it really matures enough for it to be considered something I can confidently use.

 

[yukari]

Ah yes, update making otherwise good applications useless. That's why I stopped upgrading. El Capitan was the worst in the beginning with making Outlook unusable until MS fixed it. Ever since then, I am weary on adopting any new OS update.

 

[iop]

When I upgraded to Sierra, a USB-UART converter (CH340G) started causing kernel panic. Fortunately, it was easy to determine the culprit, and there was a kext available for Sierra. However, there was no telling if there were any silent/dormant issues after the upgrade. That was last spring, over 6 months since the release. Things could get much worse with High Sierra. Personally, I find it way too risky upgrading at the moment or any time before April. It's best to wait and let the worst bugs get ironed out. To be honest, I can't figure out why Apple insists on yearly updates. Macos is very mature, and there have been no major changes since Yosemite (besides APFS). I think a 2-year release cycle would be more fitting.

 

[jerryk]

Macos is very mature, and there have been no major changes since Yosemite (besides APFS). I think a 2-year release cycle would be more fitting.

Don't forget Metal 2, a major update to the graphics subsystem. It is new with High Sierra.

 

[BambooBob]

Don't forget Metal 2, a major update to the graphics subsystem. It is new with High Sierra.

Actually Metal 2 won't be added to High Sierra till Spring 2018, if the OS is stable by then, it will definitely be worth the update, my Macbook Pro performs well, except for the fact that I have to keep shadows off in almost any game I play. I could use the shader and GPU boost.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Apple should have made Sierra a LTS (Long Term Service) release for customers who don't have the hardware to effectively run it or refuse to upgrade. Couldn't hurt.

 

[thefriendshipmachine]

mine always kernel panics coming out of sleep now

 

[jerryk]

Actually Metal 2 won't be added to High Sierra till Spring 2018, if the OS is stable by then, it will definitely be worth the update, my Macbook Pro performs well, except for the fact that I have to keep shadows off in almost any game I play. I could use the shader and GPU boost.

I thought that Metal 2 was in the the High Sierra release. What was not available until Spring was the support for Thunderbolt 3 egpu's.

At least, that is what I get from https://www.macrumors.com/2017/09/25/apple-releases-macos-high-sierra/ where it says "Metal 2, Apple's next-generation Metal graphics API, is included in High Sierra, offering a range of improvements to games, apps, and overall animations on the Mac. Metal 2 brings support for machine learning, external GPUs (coming in Spring 2018), and VR content creation for the first time."

 

[guitartattooman]

I updated my Macbook Pro to High Sierra so I could play Fortnite Battle Royale and because I thought an update would be nice. I get like 10-20 FPS in Fortnite with frequent 1-3 second lag spikes. Then I check my Minecraft to see if it is just my graphics card not being able to handle Fortnite. It turns out, my Minecraft is running at 30 to at most 50 fps. Before the update I was getting over 250 fps if I turn off my FPS cap, and I am pretty sure I could get upwards of 500 fps on Singleplayer with low settings. But after the update that all changed. It is not a hard drive problem, as I have about 500 gigs remaining. I have a feeling it is my ram. Is there anything about the update that changes ram allocation, or a setting, or anything that would cause a performance change and make my gaming experience crap?

Just so you know, it is a 2012 Macbook Pro with 2.9ghz (really 3.6 since the mac turbo boost by default) Intel i7 processor, 8 gigs of ram, and the only bad thing really, an Intel 4000 graphics card.
*Also note that I checked Activity Monitor and I have plenty of spare ram and CPU is fine.

Same here! High Sierra is really messing up my whole system. This is crazy! I hate this update with a passion. People, PLEASE keep SCREAMING at APPLE!!!

 

[Hater]

HS works great for me. I get more FPS in Minecraft than I did before, also with an HD4000

 

[SarcasticJoe]

Apple should have made Sierra a LTS (Long Term Service) release for customers who don't have the hardware to effectively run it or refuse to upgrade. Couldn't hurt.

Apple, being a consumer oriented company, has never had LTS versions of their OS. The reason why companies like Canonical make LTS versions of their OSs is mostly because of corporate users for whom upgrading to a new version of an OS is always a major hassle, even when it doesn't require any hardware upgrades.

In all seriousness Apple really needs to either get their software teams in order, hiring more people and/or getting rid of incompetent people (depending on what the underlying problem actually is), or then move back to the older model where new versions came out every second year. Because the lack of polish OSX has been showing for the last couple of years will tarnish their brand and together with their other screw-ups lead to them to the same rut they were in the first half of the 90s and this time Microsoft won't be there to save them when they can use Linux to protect themselves from antitrust lawsuits.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Apple, being a consumer oriented company, has never had LTS versions of their OS. The reason why companies like Canonical make LTS versions of their OSs is mostly because of corporate users for whom upgrading to a new version of an OS is always a major hassle, even when it doesn't require any hardware upgrades.

In all seriousness Apple really needs to either get their software teams in order, hiring more people and/or getting rid of incompetent people (depending on what the underlying problem actually is), or then move back to the older model where new versions came out every second year. Because the lack of polish OSX has been showing for the last couple of years will tarnish their brand and together with their other screw-ups lead to them to the same rut they were in the first half of the 90s and this time Microsoft won't be there to save them when they can use Linux to protect themselves from antitrust lawsuits.

Well, I haven't experienced any problems with Sierra and the last few versions that I had installed. My Mac originally came with 10.10, upgraded to 10.11 and now 10.12. All have worked just fine, but High Sierra different under the hood. Older applications are compiled to work effectively with the new APFS file system.

I get access to Office 2016 for free through my work, but Adobe CS6 is mine which I purchased out of pocket in 2012. I don't want a subscription or upgrade just to get guaranteed support. For the little I do with it, its enough. If Adobe released a perpetual version of CC, I probably would pick up an upgrade just for Photoshop. Sierra is working fine otherwise and I am sure all the other third party apps like Chrome, Firefox, Office will continue to do so for the next few years.

 

[William Payne]

I have no idea what's going on with your guys stuff. I'm running high Sierra on a 2009 Mac Pro and no problems what so ever.

 

[Nixir]

Here's one more reason you should wait to upgrade to the latest OS:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/13-month-out-of-bound.2092892/

Can't be good for the health of SSDs.