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Intensive 3D games freeze Macbook Pro.

T

TheStranger55

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 26, 2007
40
0
Hi, I got the Santa Rosa 2.2 ghz Macbook Pro and when I play graphic intensive games like Prey on Mac OS X or Supreme Commander on Vista via Bootcamp after a while the games just freeze after a random time playing.

This happens when the macbook pro gets really hot so I'm suspecting it's a heat issue which causes the games to lock up.

I purchased a laptop cooling mat but the macbook pro still gets hot and freezes.

Is there something I'm doing wrong because it would be a shame if I can't play games on my new computer even though it has the technology to run them but can't play for long due to a heat issue.

Thanks.
 
Windows' heat management, at least in my experience, is pitiful. Since there is no software like smcFanControl or similar to control the MBP's fans for Windows (yet), the easiest way to deal with this issue is to manually set your fans to a high RPM (probably the maximum for intensive games, 6000 RPM) before rebooting into Windows. Of course it isn't an ideal solution, but for now that's all we've got. Future versions of the Boot Camp drivers may better address the heat management problems. Hopefully. For now though this is a problem with Windows improperly handling hardware cooling, nothing on Apple's side.
 
Thanks but how do I set my fans manually before going into windows?

I'm not just getting this problem in windows but it is happening to games like Prey when I play them on Mac OSX and my mbp gets really hot and freezes.
 
TheStranger55 said:
I'm not just getting this problem in windows but it is happening to games like Prey when I play them on Mac OSX and my mbp gets really hot and freezes.
Click to expand...
If these issues are occurring within Mac OSX, you have a legitimate temperature regulation problem.

It should NOT be overheating. I'd recommend taking the notebook into an Apple Store and having them reapply the thermal paste. There are plenty of issues you can live with, but this shouldn't be one of them.
 
While running Prey in OSX, why not get a temperature reading from iStat Pro? Gradually watch the widget as you play; see what temperatures you're reaching. If you can provide some solid numbers, you'll definitely have more evidence for support.
 
Hi,

I played through Prey, start to finish, on my 2.33ghz Mac Book Pro under winXP without an issue. I know that folks say the heat management on Windows is dicey but I did not see it. Maybe the geforces run hotter than the old x1600 ?
 
TheStranger55 said:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/317195/

Seems like this guy has the same problem as me but with different games like WOW for mac but he has a santa rosa mbp like me too. But his thread never got resolved though. I wonder if Apple knows about this problem with their new mbp?
Click to expand...

Any machine that has heat management problems to the point of crashing (if that is really the problem) under World of Warcraft, much less something more graphics intensive, needs to be immediately repaired or replaced.

Edit: I read through the thread you linked, and it looks like I also posted in there and never got a reply. Can you check for the following error message (or any error message that includes the phrase "NVChannel") either in your past system.log files (open up "/var/log" on the left sidebar and look through all the system.log prefixed entries) or the next time it crashes? You can access them in Console.

See if you can find this...
Jun 24 19:36:27 ******** kernel[0]: NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0xd = GR: SW Notify Error
Jun 24 19:36:27 ******** kernel[0]: 0000000c
Jun 24 19:36:27 ******** kernel[0]: 00200000 00005097 0000047c 00000000
Jun 24 19:36:27 ******** kernel[0]: 00000486 00000f10 00000000 00000003
Jun 24 19:36:27 ******** kernel[0]: 00000000 00000000 00000002
 
BlueArctos said:
If these issues are occurring within Mac OSX, you have a legitimate temperature regulation problem.

It should NOT be overheating. I'd recommend taking the notebook into an Apple Store and having them reapply the thermal paste. There are plenty of issues you can live with, but this shouldn't be one of them.
Click to expand...

Mmmhmm. I can play HL2 (Granted, not the newest of games) on full settings and my MBP never has problems with heat (it doesn't get that hot either).
 
This sounds like a legitimate, computer-specific heat issue to me. I've been running my MBP through its paces (Dawn of War on the PC side for long periods of time, World of Warcraft on Maximum graphics setting in a 25-man Serpent Shrine Cavern raid) and so far I've seen no problems.

What kind of surface are you working on?
 
Ok I decided to download SMC fan control and set it to the maximum 6000 rpm and played supreme commander and the game was getting really hot and then it froze. I rebooted into MAC OS X opened smc fan control and it said my temperature was over 60 degrees celsius.

Is 60 degrees celsius too hot for a mac book pro when the fan is going at 6000 rpm? Cause that's my temperature when playing supreme commander.
 
TheStranger55 said:
Ok I decided to download SMC fan control and set it to the maximum 6000 rpm and played supreme commander and the game was getting really hot and then it froze. I rebooted into MAC OS X opened smc fan control and it said my temperature was over 60 degrees celsius.

Is 60 degrees celsius too hot for a mac book pro when the fan is going at 6000 rpm? Cause that's my temperature when playing supreme commander.
Click to expand...

Your MBP should not crash at 60c, in fact up to 95c is "just right" for your laptop, http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html
 
TheStranger55 said:
Ok I decided to download SMC fan control and set it to the maximum 6000 rpm and played supreme commander and the game was getting really hot and then it froze. I rebooted into MAC OS X opened smc fan control and it said my temperature was over 60 degrees celsius.

Is 60 degrees celsius too hot for a mac book pro when the fan is going at 6000 rpm? Cause that's my temperature when playing supreme commander.
Click to expand...

60˚C is nowhere near enough to start causing problems for your hardware, that's normal operating temperature with a good bit of activity going on. If you're only hitting 60˚C, heat is not your problem. Don't give temperatures a second thought until you hit 90˚C or above.

@above poster: While Apple may classify 95˚C as "Just Right" (and its on the very top end of the spectrum), hardware should not be getting that hot unless you're running everything at maximum capacity. You will eventually damage your hardware by running at 95˚C over long periods of time.
 
Well I was reading the supreme commander forums and another guy with the same notebook as me is having the same problems.

I'm guessing Supreme commander doesn't like the Apple Bootcamp drivers for the Geforce 8600M GT.
 
I am having these problems too!

Sorry to bump this thread after 4 months, but i'm having this problem too and was wondering if there was any resolution to it?

Is there any way to update the 8600M drivers to work better with SupCom? I can't find any downloads on the Nvidia Website.

Thanks!
 
just dont run your fan on 6000rpm for more than an hour or more

because my friend did

and after around a week or so ( where he kept playing heavy stuffs with 6000rpm fan ) his fan got really noisy even at the speed of 4800rpm

his fan just cracked :D
 
Don't feel bad

I have the Mac Pro Desk top dual 3 gigahertz meaning it has four processors in it running at L4 cache, 4 gigs of ram, with the bad ass ATY,RadeonX1900 graphics card and if this monster can't handle it then it is not your mac book pro.

Prey locks up on me with in the first two minutes of playing it. I e-mailed Asypr and they said it's Apples fault, B.S.! ASYPR needs to come out with an update to Leopard. I am assuming your using Leopard.

And their sure is not over heating with this desk top.

So it's not your stuff, it's their software.
 
I can play Crysis (albeit low graphics) and COD4 with no problems.
 
I'm not sure if this issue ever got resolved but my 17" MacBook Pro C2D (Oct 2006) always crashes when playing Dawn of War after about 30-minutes. I had thought that this was a Boot Camp driver issue that would be fixed at Leopard's release but the same problem continued to occur. Oddly, I tried the Half-Life 2 demo and that ran for hours without issue so I don't think the problem is gaming in general on the MacBook Pro, and I don't think that DoW is a more taxing game. This is a considerable shame since it was the only game that I used to play on my old PC, which I threw out shortly after the MBP arrived.

Does anyone else play Dawn of War, preferably on a MBP with ATI X1600 graphics? If so, does it crash for you?
 
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