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new 750M mbp - gaming drains the battery

F

Freyqq

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 13, 2004
4,038
181
I recently purchased one of the new rMBPs with the 750M. After about an hour of gaming in bootcamp, while plugged in, the battery drops to about 82%. Is this common among others with this laptop, or is mine damaged in some way? Not sure why they don't simply ship it with a bigger power brick.
 
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Do you mean that this happens while the computer is plugged into the wall? If so, it wouldn't be the first time that a MacBook Pro can draw more power than the brick can supply. My previous and current MacBook Pros have done this under heavy load.
 
Polymorphic said:
Do you mean that this happens while the computer is plugged into the wall? If so, it wouldn't be the first time that a MacBook Pro can draw more power than the brick can supply. My previous and current MacBook Pros have done this under heavy load.
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Yeah, while plugged in. I was using the 2 prong adapter. I'm going to try the 3 prong adapter instead. Maybe it will draw more power that way.
 
Generally the macs aren't seen as gaming computers, but they can handle it. Gaming is just consistent use of the GPU which on any computer is a major source of battery drain. 18% drain per hour is normal for this use, that 5.6 hours of usage which is pretty reasonable if we are talking about non-stop gaming. You won't get anywhere near 9 hours with non-stop gaming for 2 reasons, the tests for battery uses are done under more conventional conditions (web browsing, video playback, etc.) not really gaming. And second the battery life apple now advertises utilizes the efficiency of OSX Mavericks, since you are running bootcamp/windows, the macbook isn't utilizing the efficiency and therefore the 9 hours also no longer applies

Misunderstood the OP, yeah thats weird that it drains more than it supplies. Try doing some gaming on OSX and see if it still drains at the same rate or not.
 
Normal. In cases where the 85W supplied by the power adapter is insufficient, the MBP draws additional power from the battery.

I remember thinking that was pretty weird when I first heard about it... but it's also pretty cool!

Say, how are you liking your new toy, overall? Is it living up to your expectations?
 
johnnylarue said:
Normal. In cases where the 85W supplied by the power adapter is insufficient, the MBP draws additional power from the battery.

I remember thinking that was pretty weird when I first heard about it... but it's also pretty cool!

Say, how are you liking your new toy, overall? Is it living up to your expectations?
Click to expand...

From what i came from before, the thing is a beast. My only concern is that, based on benchmarks I've seen and my own testing, there was virtually no speed increase in gaming or much else vs last years model. Kinda makes me feel silly waiting for so long for it lol. On the bright side, 802.11ac and pcie storage will keep this thing futureproof for a while.

I'd like to see apple allow us to choose which GPU to use manually in OSX, though. Iris Pro is adequate for when you are mobile, but the NVIDIA graphics comes on way too often. Even some web sites trigger it (ex. netflix).

Also, in bootcamp, I'm seeing about 3.5-4 hrs of estimated battery life. Coming from a 2010 MBP, that's about an extra hour of battery life in windows. I think that's a combination of all the battery saving tech in haswell, lower clocked iris pro in idle, and a bigger battery.
 
Freyqq said:
From what i came from before, the thing is a beast. My only concern is that, based on benchmarks I've seen and my own testing, there was virtually no speed increase in gaming or much else vs last years model. Kinda makes me feel silly waiting for so long for it lol. On the bright side, 802.11ac and pcie storage will keep this thing futureproof for a while.

I'd like to see apple allow us to choose which GPU to use manually in OSX, though. Iris Pro is adequate for when you are mobile, but the NVIDIA graphics comes on way too often. Even some web sites trigger it (ex. netflix).
Click to expand...

Coincidentally, here's a thread that talks about the power adapter + battery tandem: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1660753/

As for the somewhat lacklustre jump in performance, it was to be expected. Truly revolutionary updates--i.e. the ones you would actually notice a major performance bump--are few and far between. That's why I always like to wait as long as possible to upgrade--improvements always seem more drastic when you're upgrading from a four-year-old computer.

Also, you probably know this already, but gfxCardStatus is totally crucial for any MacBook with two GPUs. It's free, and lets you switch off the dGPU when you're on battery power in order to prolong battery life. Apple (and 3rd party developers') graphics-switching algorithms are still inconsistent, so having the ability to tell your computer when to use a particular GPU is pretty crucial.

Anyway, enjoy the machine, and don't forget that the performance is likely to improve a bit over the next few months as Apple make tweaks to Mavericks. We might even see updated drivers from nVidia (for the Windows gaming side of things) which could also help.
 
Does anyone know how to force the use of the iris pro gpu on bootcamp?
I think the drivers have not even been installed for the internal gpu, only the 750m can be use

(sorry for my english this is not my primary language)
 
@Polymorphic

are you sure ?

because i think if we install the bootcamp drivers of the mbpr 15" without dgpu on the mbpr with dgpu it will probably made the iris pro usable.
 
sidfik said:
@Polymorphic

are you sure ?

because i think if we install the bootcamp drivers of the mbpr 15" without dgpu on the mbpr with dgpu it will probably made the iris pro usable.
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it's a firmware thing. Windows can't even see the iGPU.
 
sidfik said:
@Polymorphic

are you sure ?

because i think if we install the bootcamp drivers of the mbpr 15" without dgpu on the mbpr with dgpu it will probably made the iris pro usable.
Click to expand...

I am not sure. However, on my Windows PC with both integrated and discrete graphics, changing between them is done in the BIOS. I don't know how one would accomplish the equivalent on a Mac with Boot Camp.
 
Freyqq said:
From what i came from before, the thing is a beast. My only concern is that, based on benchmarks I've seen and my own testing, there was virtually no speed increase in gaming or much else vs last years model. Kinda makes me feel silly waiting for so long for it lol. On the bright side, 802.11ac and pcie storage will keep this thing futureproof for a while.

I'd like to see apple allow us to choose which GPU to use manually in OSX, though. Iris Pro is adequate for when you are mobile, but the NVIDIA graphics comes on way too often. Even some web sites trigger it (ex. netflix).

Also, in bootcamp, I'm seeing about 3.5-4 hrs of estimated battery life. Coming from a 2010 MBP, that's about an extra hour of battery life in windows. I think that's a combination of all the battery saving tech in haswell, lower clocked iris pro in idle, and a bigger battery.
Click to expand...

650m was rebranded as 750m. Vram is higher this round. It might be clocked higher (not sure). The chip is the same. Bootcamp drivers are poorly optimized in terms of power (as always). This has been a problem. Apple doesn't really optimize for discrete graphics use, as seen with their power adapters. This was significant in 2011 cmbps.
 
thekev said:
650m was rebranded as 750m. Vram is higher this round. It might be clocked higher (not sure). The chip is the same. Bootcamp drivers are poorly optimized in terms of power (as always). This has been a problem. Apple doesn't really optimize for discrete graphics use, as seen with their power adapters. This was significant in 2011 cmbps.
Click to expand...

Vram will not affect the 750m's performance (I think the clocks are the same). It already has tons of bandwidth. It is for sure clocked higher, 750m base is 967 mhz with boost (generally boost runs at 1058 on most PC's).

85W adapter is going to hold the system back a little.
 
cirus said:
Vram will not affect the 750m's performance (I think the clocks are the same). It already has tons of bandwidth. It is for sure clocked higher, 750m base is 967 mhz with boost (generally boost runs at 1058 on most PC's).

85W adapter is going to hold the system back a little.
Click to expand...

I didn't suggest it would. It would for some things other than gaming, but it's usually not an issue of raw performance. It's an issue of what you can actually do. Larger framebuffers are used to accommodate higher resolutions assuming driver support, high texture resolution (might be relevant in gaming), and sometimes computation with large amounts of data. I'm drifting way out of notebook usage cases though. I didn't know it was clocked that much higher.
 
Quick question - how long does the macbook with the 750m actually last on battery with the 750m running? Just wondering what to expect from running cad in windows on battery?!
 
Freyqq said:
I recently purchased one of the new rMBPs with the 750M. After about an hour of gaming in bootcamp, the battery drops to about 82%. Is this common among others with this laptop, or is mine damaged in some way? Not sure why they don't simply ship it with a bigger power brick.
Click to expand...

The problem is your in Bootcamp running Windows. The hardware isn't optimized for that software and vice-versa. If you were playing a game specifically designed for OSX you'd have a difference experience. A great comparison would be Diablo 3. I learned this from experience.
 
Freyqq said:
I recently purchased one of the new rMBPs with the 750M. After about an hour of gaming in bootcamp, the battery drops to about 82%. Is this common among others with this laptop, or is mine damaged in some way? Not sure why they don't simply ship it with a bigger power brick.
Click to expand...
Freyqq said:
Yeah, while plugged in. *I was using the 2 prong adapter. *I'm going to try the 3 prong adapter instead. *Maybe it will draw more power that way.
Click to expand...
It's normal for your MBP to draw power from both AC and battery during periods of extreme demand, such as gaming or other multimedia operations. This can cause your battery to stop charging or even drain, even though it's plugged in. Read the AC POWER section of the following link.
​
The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.
 
Scott7975 said:
Then what does it use when your laptop doesn't have dGPU?
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Bootcamp doesn't offer graphics switching. I'm not sure whether any other oems have created their own versions of it, but bootcamp drivers are just set up to use the most powerful gpu in the list. In my opinion these things are designed with integrated graphics in mind. I would prefer to see better integrated graphics when it comes to notebooks rather than buggy graphics switching, way too much heat, and batteries that drain while plugged into the wall due to Apple's obsession with thin chargers.
 
thekev said:
Bootcamp doesn't offer graphics switching. I'm not sure whether any other oems have created their own versions of it, but bootcamp drivers are just set up to use the most powerful gpu in the list. In my opinion these things are designed with integrated graphics in mind. I would prefer to see better integrated graphics when it comes to notebooks rather than buggy graphics switching, way too much heat, and batteries that drain while plugged into the wall due to Apple's obsession with thin chargers.
Click to expand...

Yes I understand it doesn't offer graphics switching. I guess that I just didn't understand that it doesn't see the iGPU at all. If that was the case then notebooks without a dGPU wouldn't run in bootcamp at all. Maybe I caught something that you said to explain that though... "uses most powerful GPU in the list. That makes more sense then "doesn't see it at all"
 
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