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Mortal Kombat X - Wrecking my phone?

CasuallyDressed

CasuallyDressed

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 16, 2014
368
155
Bournemouth, UK
I've got an iPhone 6 on 8.3. I play a fair amount of games but none make my phone into a hot rock as much as MKX does...

-Phone becomes alarmingly hot
-When app is force closed the phone remains hot
-When app is force closed the phone won't charge

I'll play the game for 20 minutes and it'll eat about 30% of my battery while getting hot. I'll shut the app down and put the phone on charge. The phone stays hot and while plugged in will actually discharge (tried various at home chargers, official sync lead from my PC and my car charger, all do the same thing). Seems the only way my phone will cool down and allow me to charge it is if I reboot it. Also, before rebooting, the screen will dim by about 25% and no amount of me using the brightness slider will get it back up.

Anyone else having this problem? I read on another forum that a user was experiencing similar problems so took his phone to his local Apple store and they told his him mobo was fried and they had to replace it. I'm still within warranty for a few more months so this doesn't overly concern me. I'll just make sure to make backups daily now.
 
The phone "should" protect itself and throttle down the CPU if it gets too hot. Getting hot with a processor intensive game is normal.

If you phone is hot it will not charge until it cools down.:apple:
 
"Too hot to handle, too cold to hold
They're called the Ghost busters and they're in control
Had 'em throwin' a party for a bunch of children
While all of the while the slime was under the building"

-Bobby Brown
 
CasuallyDressed said:
Already got one, thanks. It has this annoying trait of not being very portable though, and Mortal Kombat having cross platform unlockables.
Click to expand...

If a game was clearly unsuitable for my phone then I wouldn't be playing it. I know that games are possible on smartphones but if they are taxing it to the limit then I would save those certain games for my console. Just my opinion.
 
sunking101 said:
If a game was clearly unsuitable for my phone then I wouldn't be playing it. I know that games are possible on smartphones but if they are taxing it to the limit then I would save those certain games for my console. Just my opinion.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry, but what? Mortal Kombat X is available on the App Store. Under 'compatibility' it lists iPhone 6. I'm not trying to play a PS4 game on a Sega Saturn here. The game was developed and released for play on an iPhone 6.

Now whether this is a problem that Warner Bros or Apple should deal with is left in question, but your response is beyond naive.
 
CasuallyDressed said:
I'm sorry, but what? Mortal Kombat X is available on the App Store. Under 'compatibility' it lists iPhone 6. I'm not trying to play a PS4 game on a Sega Saturn here. The game was developed and released for play on an iPhone 6.

Now whether this is a problem that Warner Bros or Apple should deal with is left in question, but your response is beyond naive.
Click to expand...

Playing hardware-taxing games is bound to heat up the device, drain the battery and cause longevity issues. As for apps in the App Store, plenty are unfit for purpose, crash, or are plain crappy. It is no real seal of approval.
 
sunking101 said:
Playing hardware-taxing games is bound to heat up the device, drain the battery and cause longevity issues. As for apps in the App Store, plenty are unfit for purpose, crash, or are plain crappy. It is no real seal of approval.
Click to expand...
Heat up the device and drain the battery - Yes. Cause longevity issues? Sure, I guess on the battery. No app should be showing immediate bad device performance. Either something is wrong with my device, which is feasible, or this game is actually causing it to break.

Being unfit for purpose, crashing, or plain crappy =/= causing hardware malfunctions.

Each app submitted to the App Store is scrutinised by Apple. This isn't Android. If it shows up on the App Store then it has the Apple seal of approval.

If you played a PS4 game on a PS4, and the game caused your PS4 to malfunction, to what would you attribute the cause? The game, or the console? Because you certainly can't say "Well this PS4 game is clearly too much for my PS4 so I should obviously stop playing it", which is essentially what you're saying here.
 
CasuallyDressed said:
Heat up the device and drain the battery - Yes. Cause longevity issues? Sure, I guess on the battery. No app should be showing immediate bad device performance. Either something is wrong with my device, which is feasible, or this game is actually causing it to break.

Being unfit for purpose, crashing, or plain crappy =/= causing hardware malfunctions.

Each app submitted to the App Store is scrutinised by Apple. This isn't Android. If it shows up on the App Store then it has the Apple seal of approval.

If you played a PS4 game on a PS4, and the game caused your PS4 to malfunction, to what would you attribute the cause? The game, or the console? Because you certainly can't say "Well this PS4 game is clearly too much for my PS4 so I should obviously stop playing it", which is essentially what you're saying here.
Click to expand...

I've bought loads of crappy apps from the App Store. Do you seriously think that anyone from Apple plays these games?
Loads of purchased and especially free apps have crashed or been buggy. A large game stands a high chance of being buggy.
As for the longevity thing, heat is destructive and not just to batteries. People fry laptops all the time due to playing games. If you buy a laptop with a decent graphics card and just browse the web on it, the device will last MUCH longer than if you game on it all the time. Heat kills.
 
sunking101 said:
I've bought loads of crappy apps from the App Store. Do you seriously think that anyone from Apple plays these games?
Loads of purchased and especially free apps have crashed or been buggy. A large game stands a high chance of being buggy.
As for the longevity thing, heat is destructive and not just to batteries. People fry laptops all the time due to playing games. If you buy a laptop with a decent graphics card and just browse the web on it, the device will last MUCH longer than if you game on it all the time. Heat kills.
Click to expand...

Whether or not they play them is irrelevant really. They're meant to be there as a buffer to protect us from bad apps. Otherwise what's the point of the approval process?

Like I said, crashing and general bugginess isn't the same as causing hardware issues. The game itself is buggy; audio glitches and occasional crashing. I accept this as the game hasn't seen a proper update since 8.3 came out. Bugs and crashes aren't harmful to my device though.

I get what you're saying. Extended play time will affect my device etc etc. But this isn't happening after I've been playing for 3 hours. I'm talking within 20 or so minutes. That's not right.
 
These are excessive expectations for a CPU and graphics intensive game on a phone. Intensive software and gaming has come a long way but is still in its infancy in optimization for mobile devices. Battery life should be expected to reduced greatly as it is for other battery powered devices performing intensive tasks. Yes there could be better optimizations in place for this game. Mobile gaming is largely limited by the ability of the hardware which it lags behind computers.
 
OP,

It's just a very graphically taxing game for a phone. I have it as well and love the aspect of cross-platform unlockables, but it does the same with my iPhone 6 and iPad Mini 3. I would say NRS didn't optimize the game well enough for iOS devices (wish they would have used Metal, but I realize this may have been in development prior to Metal's release).

If you weren't aware, the GPU is the largest part of the die on the A8 (and probably any mobile SoC), therefore, it will heat up more and drain more battery life pushing graphically intensive games.

In regards to the phone not charging properly, that is an entirely different story...
 
I'll play through my one team usually, so about five rounds of fights, and on my 6 Plus it will kill about 15-20% of the battery and get really hot but I don't have the other issues you talk about. The game doesn't cloud sync well across iOS devices either as the main game will 75% of the time save for me but Test Your Luck continually resets to day 1.
 
skar316 said:
I'll play through my one team usually, so about five rounds of fights, and on my 6 Plus it will kill about 15-20% of the battery and get really hot but I don't have the other issues you talk about. The game doesn't cloud sync well across iOS devices either as the main game will 75% of the time save for me but Test Your Luck continually resets to day 1.
Click to expand...

This is a, er, "feature". People have been taking advantage of it to get endless Test Your Luck and bonus challenges rather than having to wait 24hrs.

For now I think I'm just going to reset the phone after I play, it seems to initiate instant cooldown and allows me to charge.
 
sunking101 said:
I've bought loads of crappy apps from the App Store. Do you seriously think that anyone from Apple plays these games?
Loads of purchased and especially free apps have crashed or been buggy. A large game stands a high chance of being buggy.
As for the longevity thing, heat is destructive and not just to batteries. People fry laptops all the time due to playing games. If you buy a laptop with a decent graphics card and just browse the web on it, the device will last MUCH longer than if you game on it all the time. Heat kills.
Click to expand...

This is pretty naive.
Heat does kill. Heat within specs however does not and has little to no impact on longevity (except for battery due to excessive recharge cycles and slight drops in efficiency but still shouldn't be for years).

Been doing electronic repair for so long that if a laptop die from heat, unless it's badly designed, 99% of the times it's due to clogged or blocked ventilation. (using on lap, blankets, pillows etc).
 
Luis G. said:
This is pretty naive.
Heat does kill. Heat within specs however does not and has little to no impact on longevity (except for battery due to excessive recharge cycles and slight drops in efficiency but still shouldn't be for years).

Been doing electronic repair for so long that if a laptop die from heat, unless it's badly designed, 99% of the times it's due to clogged or blocked ventilation. (using on lap, blankets, pillows etc).
Click to expand...

I've had lots of laptops die earlier than anticipated and they haven't been used on anything but a desktop. Playing games runs everything at max, the fan is running at max and the whole thing wears out quicker than if you weren't using it at full throttle all the time. That's a fact. Same with a car, same with anything. Rag the nuts off it and failure will come quicker.
 
Your phone is a fixed device. The CPU, GPU, and ram can't be changed. When the game was developed it should have been tested on hardware exactly like yours. Blaming the phone for poorly developed software is not logical.
 
CasuallyDressed said:
I'm sorry, but what? Mortal Kombat X is available on the App Store. Under 'compatibility' it lists iPhone 6. I'm not trying to play a PS4 game on a Sega Saturn here. The game was developed and released for play on an iPhone 6.

Now whether this is a problem that Warner Bros or Apple should deal with is left in question, but your response is beyond naive.
Click to expand...

I actually agree with him. I think that some games are simply not meant to be played on touchscreen devices. Naturally, devs will release it on app stores because they can make money from them.

basically, if the game requires must beyond basic tapping and swiping, I don't think it should be played on a smart phone.
 
a.guillermo said:
I actually agree with him. I think that some games are simply not meant to be played on touchscreen devices. Naturally, devs will release it on app stores because they can make money from them.

basically, if the game requires must beyond basic tapping and swiping, I don't think it should be played on a smart phone.
Click to expand...
But the iOS versions of these games only require the basic tapping and swiping.
 
C DM said:
But the iOS versions of these games only require the basic tapping and swiping.
Click to expand...

Well then, count me as oblivious. I personally prefer a controller and a tv for games. I'll play something like flappy bird while it's in, but anything much beyond that is for a tv, in my opinion.

We are both right in this sense. It's up to personal preference.
 
Dimming the screen and limiting or disabling charging are all valid methods to manage thermals since they introduce heat. Overheating seems to be a common issue with 20nm TSMC that the A8X is built on and the same issue that afflicted the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810. Right now the best performing gaming SoC that doesn't heat up is 14nm Exynos 7420 in the Galaxy S6 series. Apple is expected to switch back to Samsung fab for the next iPhone SoC so overheating will be a non-issue then.
 
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