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

AidanBoy132

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 1, 2022
7
1
Roblox isn't optimized for M1 yet, so it's using Rosetta. Whenever I use it there's no frame drops or anything, its just gets warm and the battery drains a bit faster. All I'm wondering is if its doing any damage to the computer while gaming with rosetta. Thanks,
 
Since the M1 MBA overheats (as it starts to throttle when playing games), the battery health will be hit if you keep doing this most likely.

However a battery replacement is not so expensive, so I'd say use your machine the way you want to use it.
 
Roblox isn't optimized for M1 yet, so it's using Rosetta. Whenever I use it there's no frame drops or anything, its just gets warm and the battery drains a bit faster. All I'm wondering is if its doing any damage to the computer while gaming with rosetta. Thanks,
The way Rosetta 2 works is the first time an x86-64 app is run Rosetta translates the Intel instructions to Arm instructions. Then it saves that translation in a disk cache. Then the application (in this case Roblox) run is just another M1 application. No different than any other M1 app except for how the instructions to the CPU were generated.

In other words a Rosetta 2 app is exactly the same as any other app and won’t harm your computer in any way. Getting warm is a characteristic of running both the CPU cores and GPU cores simultaneously. The M1 SoC is designed to do this and Apple engineered the MacBook to handle it.

You needn’t worry and just use your computer as you want.
 
Are you running on Roblox on full graphics? any tests of the really graphically intense games like frontlines or the canyon? would be curious to hear what frame rate performance or if the fans spin faster under harder conditions.

also, anyone tested roblox performance on the mac studio? thinking of using it for roblox dev on roblox studio / blender but have heard roblox studio still isn't optimized for apple chips and crashes frequently.
 
Sorry for the late reply, No, Roblox (via Rosetta) will not do anything bad to your computer, Rosetta is like a translator that makes it able to run Intel Apps since Roblox is not able to run natively on Apple Silicon Yet. Now based on performance, the M1 will have FPS hiccups from not being Native and a worse battery life but it will work perfectly otherwise. I recommend the 16GB if you want to multitask or are trying to steam. This is annoying in Studio, where many Devs complain about crashes on the Studio version with Rosetta due to not being able to process commands properly.
 
The CPU runs code. It's built to run code. It cannot be damaged by running code.
Unfortunately there's a battery, and that doesn't like heat. I wouldn't worry about it unless he's using it non stop for hours and hours. I've had batteries swell up if they get too hot too long, especially with Apple laptops.
 
Unfortunately there's a battery, and that doesn't like heat. I wouldn't worry about it unless he's using it non stop for hours and hours. I've had batteries swell up if they get too hot too long, especially with Apple laptops.
The M2 MacBook Air's battery stays pretty cool even when the CPU & GPU ramp up for long periods. I think the M1 was similar but don't have that MBA in front me at the moment. When the CPU & GPU temperature is in a steady state at about 108 °C the battery sensor still reads about 30 °C (about 86 °F). Luckily the battery temperature sensor is one of the few that is a clearly labeled M2 sensor name.

Edit: After letting my M2 MacBook heat saturate where the CPU/GPU temperatures sensors now reach only a little below 90 °C the battery sensor is still at 32 °C and the IOReg battery temperature is at 33 °C. Clearly still in the safe range for the battery considering that the ambient temperature can be higher.
 
Last edited:
The M2 MacBook Air's battery stays pretty cool even when the CPU & GPU ramp up for long periods. I think the M1 was similar but don't have that MBA in front me at the moment. When the CPU & GPU temperature is in a steady state at about 108 °C the battery sensor still reads about 30 °C (about 86 °F). Luckily the battery temperature sensor is one of the few that is a clearly labeled M2 sensor name.
My M1 MBA ran *HOT* for my work load. I sold it 2 months after purchase because I knew it was only a matter of time.

Anyway, just commenting that there is a risk running hot because I've seen laptops die.
 
My M1 MBA ran *HOT* for my work load. I sold it 2 months after purchase because I knew it was only a matter of time.

Anyway, just commenting that there is a risk running hot because I've seen laptops die.
That doesn't mean that the battery got hot. It's something that can be measured so no need to guess.
 
Did you measure it? What was its temperature at the hottest or are you guessing?
Yes, I did. I no longer have any records of it, I traded it back in to Apple a long time ago. (I ordered it the first day it was first released)

Just give it up, you have no basis for your arguemnet, my M1 MBA ran hotter than 108C, the battery got hotter tan 30C. I remember my CPU got up to 118C frequently, but the battery is a lesser concern, so I have no record of it.

You don't trust my argument, ignore it, I know I'll be ignoring yours from now on.
 
Yes, I did. I no longer have any records of it, I traded it back in to Apple a long time ago. (I ordered it the first day it was first released)

Just give it up, you have no basis for your arguemnet, my M1 MBA ran hotter than 108C, the battery got hotter tan 30C. I remember my CPU got up to 118C frequently, but the battery is a lesser concern, so I have no record of it.

You don't trust my argument, ignore it, I know I'll be ignoring yours from now on.
You are fear mongering without any reason. It is unfair to the original poster to imply that playing a game on his well-designed computer is going to damage his battery. So no, I won't ignore it. You are simply wrong and it is pretty easy to prove since we can measure the battery temperature at any time. Without some evidence that your battery reached a dangerous temperature you are simply repeating your speculation that playing a game or any other long term power intensive task might damage the battery.

Who cares if the spot temperature on one of the SoC sensors reached 118 °C? What does that mean? Does it imply that the case reached 118 °C? Of course not. Temperature is not heat. The MBA throttles to limit the amount of heat in the chassis long before the heat becomes dangerous to the user or the rest of the computer—including the battery.

Unless you have evidence that you can show rather than just speculate about, I'm not trusting anything you have reported because it doesn't make a lot of sense.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tagbert
You are fear mongering without any reason. It is unfair to the original poster to imply that playing a game on his well-designed computer is going to damage his battery. So no, I won't ignore it. You are simply wrong and it is pretty easy to prove since we can measure the battery temperature at any time. Without some evidence that your battery reached a dangerous temperature you are simply repeating your speculation that playing a game or any other long term power intensive task might damage the battery.

Who cares if the spot temperature on one of the SoC sensors reached 118 °C? What does that mean? Does it imply that the case reached 118 °C? Of course not. Temperature is not heat. The MBA throttles to limit the amount of heat in the chassis long before the heat becomes dangerous to the user or the rest of the computer—including the battery.

Unless you have evidence that you can show rather than just speculate about, I'm not trusting anything you have reported because it doesn't make a lot of sense.
Maybe, but the lack of a fan means that you cannot play some games without it limiting performance. Heat is important as it could be concentrated on the SoC. It's still better than any intel Mac though
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.