New MBP Gaming Issues

[cg165]

nope, no tweaks, no nothing
just installed windows, updated it as per usual, and thats it.
No fan controls, new video drivers or anything.
Ill install fraps now and let you know how it goes with frames.

Actually...I just went into left4dead (on windows vista ultimate 64 bit) and messed with some settings. I noticed when I put AA and AF to 16x it was about 10 FPS which was unplayable. I then changed the vertical sync to triple buffered (it was at double) and for whatever reason, my frames jumped a whole lot. I was trying this with the command line "-dx9" when I launched left4dead. I then decided to try in directx 10 so I changed it to say "-dx10" in the launch options. I had everything set to high except shaders which let me select very high, vertical sync triple buffered and everything maxxed. I was averaging 30 fps or so but would get some drops and noticed slight stuttering with action. I just lowered AA to like 2x and AF to 4x and now I'm averaging 45 - 60 FPS which is really smooth.

There must be something with that triple buffered vertical sync I guess? I'm pretty clueless but it runs even better than it did so I'm happy

 

[Trivial rock]

I had this same problem, I play Tomb Raider Anniversary for about 5 seconds and it will give me the BSOD, however I can play COD4 for atleast an hour without a problem. l can play RA3 for 2-3 hrs, no probs (both with med - high graphics). All of these in Windows XP.

Spore has graphics maxed out in OSX and no issues. (Sorry these are the games I have and play, just trying to help out / add to the data we are all collecting)

My GPU in OSX idles at 45 degrees.

After installing SMC fan controller and setting left fan to 6000 and right hand fan to 4500, restart in Windows to play and no problems. Keeps it much cooler.

I personally believe it is a heat issue not an issue with the chipset. Windows is clearly not managing heat / fans and so the GPU is getting too hot and shutting down, hence the BSOD.

 

[TheSVD]

Actually...I just went into left4dead (on windows vista ultimate 64 bit) and messed with some settings. I noticed when I put AA and AF to 16x it was about 10 FPS which was unplayable. I then changed the vertical sync to triple buffered (it was at double) and for whatever reason, my frames jumped a whole lot. I was trying this with the command line "-dx9" when I launched left4dead. I then decided to try in directx 10 so I changed it to say "-dx10" in the launch options. I had everything set to high except shaders which let me select very high, vertical sync triple buffered and everything maxxed. I was averaging 30 fps or so but would get some drops and noticed slight stuttering with action. I just lowered AA to like 2x and AF to 4x and now I'm averaging 45 - 60 FPS which is really smooth.

There must be something with that triple buffered vertical sync I guess? I'm pretty clueless but it runs even better than it did so I'm happy

hm ima go check that out.
also, what settings are in your nvidia control panel?

 

[TheSVD]

Yeah, just as i thought.
Ran fraps with it, get around 30-40 fps.
27 LOWEST when action and huuuge hordes happen, but other than that, pretty much 35 on average when roaming, shooting, fighting etc. b who thinks this is a bad framerte or 35 is unplayable, thats crap - its perfectly playable, and do remember its at the 16xQ CSAA AA, with everything at blummin full!
Very impressed i am

 

[Fidgetyrat]

I personally believe it is a heat issue not an issue with the chipset. Windows is clearly not managing heat / fans and so the GPU is getting too hot and shutting down, hence the BSOD.

The fans and cooling should be controlled by the hardware SMC, not the OS directly. SMCFanControl for example sets a higher default fan speed in the SMC itself, but you never actually control the fans. This is why the fans still work when rebooting.. You are technically outside of the OS but they still function properly..

Odds are the windows heat issues are windows related in that windows may be making higher processing use vs. OSX even when idle. There may be differences in drivers, or possibly windows not disabling the 9400 when using the 9600 causing both to run hot.. Could be a number of things.

Whatever the case, the SMC is not monitoring heat properly.. The fans should always increase proportionally to the heat, which is not always the case it seems.

 

[nicfargo]

The fans and cooling should be controlled by the hardware SMC, not the OS directly. SMCFanControl for example sets a higher default fan speed in the SMC itself, but you never actually control the fans. This is why the fans still work when rebooting.. You are technically outside of the OS but they still function properly..

Odds are the windows heat issues are windows related in that windows may be making higher processing use vs. OSX even when idle. There may be differences in drivers, or possibly windows not disabling the 9400 when using the 9600 causing both to run hot.. Could be a number of things.

Whatever the case, the SMC is not monitoring heat properly.. The fans should always increase proportionally to the heat, which is not always the case it seems.

That's nice and all, but what about all the people who are experiencing the problem in OS X? Windows wouldn't explain that at all. There's got to be more to this problem then NVIDIA/Apple are letting onto. Conspiracy theorists...lets hear your thoughts!

 

[Fidgetyrat]

That's nice and all, but what about all the people who are experiencing the problem in OS X? Windows wouldn't explain that at all. There's got to be more to this problem then NVIDIA/Apple are letting onto. Conspiracy theorists...lets hear your thoughts!

Um.. I agree.. There's a problem thats not OS related... Hence why I said fans are not being controlled BY the OS Directly.

After my logic board replacement, still no BSOD.. Either its something that develops with time, or there really are defective 9600s in circulation.

 

[TheSVD]

I still really dunno guys, cause my fans run accordingly to what im doing.
Intensive gaming > lots of fan noise.
Back into OS > fans slowly decrease rpm.
Now it cant be that many defective machines, surely?
Who else is running xp home SP2?
Cause thats what i have with no problems.

 

[Fidgetyrat]

I still really dunno guys, cause my fans run accordingly to what im doing.
Intensive gaming > lots of fan noise.
Back into OS > fans slowly decrease rpm.
Now it cant be that many defective machines, surely?
Who else is running xp home SP2?
Cause thats what i have with no problems.

The fans DO speed up and slow down, just not proportionally and not at the right speed. Temps shouldn't reach 100C before they start to rev up.. My machine can hang in the 100C range for almost a minute before it starts to cool down as the fans increase.

They should be increasing AS temperature increases, not AFTER.

Thats really the problem, at least on my machine.

 

[TheSVD]

The fans DO speed up and slow down, just not proportionally and not at the right speed. Temps shouldn't reach 100C before they start to rev up.. My machine can hang in the 100C range for almost a minute before it starts to cool down as the fans increase.

They should be increasing AS temperature increases, not AFTER.

Thats really the problem, at least on my machine.

ahh mine rise as temperature gets hot, as in you can slowly hear them getting faster as the game starts. It ust be soething simple, surely this many people cant be having defective machines?!
people, post your OS and service pack, see if we notice anything...
even if your not having problems, post that info!

 

[nicfargo]

OS: OS X 10.5.6.
Game: WoW
Problem: None now, but I did have some BSOD after the update to 10.5.6 but haven't had one in a couple of weeks. Fans seem to speed up as CPU hits 75° and GPU hits ~65°

 

[Chris F]

I tried the 180.84 drivers last night. Played WAR for about 3 hours. No black screen. As usual with the fans pre-set to 5000 temps stayed below 75C for GPU and CPU.

As far as I can tell there are two sources of black screens:

1. Apple's shoddy SMC control software which for many people won't kick the fans on in time to prevent an overheat shutdown and is generally extremely non aggressive with speeding up the fans even in OSX.
2. Nvidia drivers. In the case of WAR the standard Apple driver on the CD worked quite well, very rare black screen. The 'official' nvidia driver was terrible, it would black screen constantly. The 180.84 seems about the same as the original driver.

People playing games in windows please do two things:
1. Use smcfancontrol in OSX to set your fans to 5000rpm before you reboot to Windows.
2. Use GPU-Z in windows to log your GPU temp to a file. You will quickly find out if its overheating or not.

 

[n8236]

I didn't read thru the whole thread, but I'm not experiencing what the OP has. Here is the issue I am experiencing.

OS: XP
Drivers: From Leopard DVD
Hardware: Uni-body MBP 9600m GT w/ 512mb

Issue: After hours of gaming, the game would just cease up completely. At times I would have to shut the computer down while others I would just receive some kind of exception error w/ a bunch of crashed address or code on it.

 

[Wolfpup]

I tried the 180.84 drivers last night. Played WAR for about 3 hours. No black screen. As usual with the fans pre-set to 5000 temps stayed below 75C for GPU and CPU.

As far as I can tell there are two sources of black screens:

1. Apple's shoddy SMC control software which for many people won't kick the fans on in time to prevent an overheat shutdown and is generally extremely non aggressive with speeding up the fans even in OSX.
2. Nvidia drivers. In the case of WAR the standard Apple driver on the CD worked quite well, very rare black screen. The 'official' nvidia driver was terrible, it would black screen constantly. The 180.84 seems about the same as the original driver.

That could just be because the hardware's getting pushed harder and the fan control doesn't work. Doesn't have to mean there's anything wrong with the drivers.

 

[Maven1975]

All of my games are crashing now. I reverted back to the stock driver from the Apple install disc without luck.

Left 4 Dead / Steam games will play for a few minutes and then minimize and crash. Gears Of War, COD5, COD4 all crash or cause a BSOD as well.

Damn...

 

[cg165]

All of my games are crashing now. I reverted back to the stock driver from the Apple install disc without luck.

Left 4 Dead / Steam games will play for a few minutes and then minimize and crash. Gears Of War, COD5, COD4 all crash or cause a BSOD as well.

Damn...

Are you running windows?
What version of windows if so?
What drivers are you using?
Are you up to date with windows update / apple update?
Have you tried using SMC Fan Control on osx making the fans 6,000 then restarting into windows?

Please give more information...

 

[Maven1975]

Are you running windows?
What version of windows if so?
What drivers are you using?
Are you up to date with windows update / apple update?
Have you tried using SMC Fan Control on osx making the fans 6,000 then restarting into windows?

Please give more information...

Win XP SP3
Drivers from the Bootcamp disc currently
Software up to date
Yes, tried SMC - Fans have not been a issue for me

 

[TheSVD]

Okay, lets try this again guys, this could solve it!

everyone post your OS (be specific, not just xp, say "vista ultimate 64 bit sp2", which graphics driver your using, problems, games affected, and MBP specs.

this way we can try spot a pattern in something, as i bet its windows!

I have XP home SP2 32 bit, stock graphics driver, i have no fan/overheating/blackscreen problems, no games are affected and i have baseline mbp.

Comon guys!

Also, does anyone have sp2 home on their mbp? do they have these issues?
I seem to be the only one who doesnt atm! aha

 

[theNEOone]

I remember there being an issue where Nvidia admitted to shipping faulty chips in the early 2008 MBP. It was originally thought that the manufacturing flaw wasn't carried over into the late MBPs, but I read an article where someone busted out an EM microscope to prove that there were some similarities between the way the new chips and the old chips were assembled. I think this "discovery" was laid to rest and it was eventually determined that the same flaw that affected early MBPs with Nvidia chips wasn't carried over into the new "material set." However, considering Nvidia f-ed things up the first time around (and didn't admit it until several months and 10s of thousands of notebooks later), how are we to know that a new flaw isn't plaguing the current generation of MBPs?

It would seem to me that the problem is Nvidia's. I know people here are trying to find a pattern, but from what I've read, all operating systems are being affected (OSX, XP, Vista) as well as different sets of drivers, as well as all different kinds of games. It seems to me that the only common thread that can be woven through all of the issues is that they're all affected by the same Nvida chip. Potentially, a faulty Nvidia chip.

=|

 

[Chris F]

Since installing the 180.84 drivers I have had a total of one black screen crash in about 20 hours of WAR play. The 'official' NVIDIA beta drivers would black screen almost certainly within 1-2 hours of play. So for me changing the drivers definitely has a strong effect on things.

XP32 SP3 - fans pre-set to 5000rpm min using smcfancontrol

 

[TheSVD]

Since installing the 180.84 drivers I have had a total of one black screen crash in about 20 hours of WAR play. The 'official' NVIDIA beta drivers would black screen almost certainly within 1-2 hours of play. So for me changing the drivers definitely has a strong effect on things.

XP32 SP3 - fans pre-set to 5000rpm min using smcfancontrol

xp pro?
and again, is ANYONE else using home sp2 32 bit?

 

[glmonte]

Maybe the "Revision" information from GPU-Z could be useful to identify the problematic graphics cards?

I have a 2.53GHz MBP with a 9600GT from revision C1, and so far no problems while playing Crisis. I'm running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 with the official (beta) drivers from nVidia.