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Suddenly bad gaming/graphical performance

Der Kommandant

Der Kommandant

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 25, 2012
33
2
The Netherlands
Hi,

I have a iMac mid 2011 which suddenly slowed down a lot in gaming and graphical performance. The first time I noticed this
was while running Skyrim on Bootcamp Windows 8. The FPS dropped from around 60-30 like it used to be, to around 5. It became unplayable...
I tried lowering settings and resolution, but the problem remained. After trying different games I noticed the same extreme fps drop.

After that I'd scan for malware, nothing found. I checked temperatures, nothing wrong. I changed graphics drivers, no difference, I reinstalled Windows 8, no difference. I installed Windows 7, still no difference... As a last resort I tried resetting SMC and PRAM, but the problem remains.
The gaming performance also seems to have dropped in OS X, DIRT 2 for Mac also is unplayable now....

I ran an Apple Hardware test, no problems found. I reinstalled OS X Mountain Lion, still the same problem...

What can be the cause of this?

Thanks in advance
 
This if its effecting other games than skyrim, is being caused by the heat build up slowing the CPU/GPU to avoid damage,

Thats assuming your not running a mod that gives you 11million chicken followers or something.

Try launching a different PC game of a similar graphical load, (Try Batman Arkham City), if that also runs slow then its the heat issue, if not, its something you have in skyrim, remove all your mods and try it again,
 
Nightarchaon said:
This if its effecting other games than skyrim, is being caused by the heat build up slowing the CPU/GPU to avoid damage,

Thats assuming your not running a mod that gives you 11million chicken followers or something.

Try launching a different PC game of a similar graphical load, (Try Batman Arkham City), if that also runs slow then its the heat issue, if not, its something you have in skyrim, remove all your mods and try it again,
Click to expand...

Thanks for your response,

I already reinstalled Skyrim and tried it without mods, it was still unplayable. I will try Batman Arkham City, but I am sure it will be slow. If it's a heat issue how can I fix this?
 
I had a 2011 iMac and it ran extremely hot when gaming. I had to resort to SMC fan control to try and keep the GPU from going into meltdown.
I'm guessing that you've fried something on the GPU, probably power related which is why you're getting such bad performance.
You haven't noticed any odd smells coming from the top vents?
I would also say that if the inside of you Mac has never been cleaned out, there's probably a build up of fluff on the heatsinks which will make the problem worse. You might need to crack the case to clean everything out.
Have you noticed the fans being more noisy than usual?
 
Georgio said:
I had a 2011 iMac and it ran extremely hot when gaming. I had to resort to SMC fan control to try and keep the GPU from going into meltdown.
I'm guessing that you've fried something on the GPU, probably power related which is why you're getting such bad performance.
You haven't noticed any odd smells coming from the top vents?
I would also say that if the inside of you Mac has never been cleaned out, there's probably a build up of fluff on the heatsinks which will make the problem worse. You might need to crack the case to clean everything out.
Have you noticed the fans being more noisy than usual?
Click to expand...
No actually I almost never hear them. I also tried using SMC fan control, but running fans at maximum speed did not make any difference in performance. A few minutes ago I tried iStat menus, to see what load my GPU was on. According to IStat Menus my GPU was on 100% load while in idle. Maybe this has something to do with the performance
 
Der Kommandant said:
No actually I almost never hear them. I also tried using SMC fan control, but running fans at maximum speed did not make any difference in performance. A few minutes ago I tried iStat menus, to see what load my GPU was on. According to IStat Menus my GPU was on 100% load while in idle. Maybe this has something to do with the performance
Click to expand...

if your GPU is running full tilt all the time, is this just under bootcamp, or also under Mac OS X?

Do you have any Mac OS 3d games to try (perhaps assassins creed, borderland 2 or something else in steam like portal or half life ? )

if you have no issues under Mac OSX but issues under windows i would suggest grabbing the latest driver for the video card for windows,

im using this one at the moment http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst13-6WINBetaDriver.aspx, you want the normal one, not the mobility one.

See if that helps,
 
Nightarchaon said:
if your GPU is running full tilt all the time, is this just under bootcamp, or also under Mac OS X?

Do you have any Mac OS 3d games to try (perhaps assassins creed, borderland 2 or something else in steam like portal or half life ? )

if you have no issues under Mac OSX but issues under windows i would suggest grabbing the latest driver for the video card for windows,

im using this one at the moment http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst13-6WINBetaDriver.aspx, you want the normal one, not the mobility one.

See if that helps,
Click to expand...
I just tried running Batman Arkham City on OS X and did a Benchmark. The average fps was 11, so same problem again. I tried Dirt 3 on Bootcamp, it also ran extremely slow even after installing the drivers. Strangely enough the GPU load is not 100% when idle in Bootcamp, while in OS X it is 100% when idle. I uploaded some screenshots of GPU-Z, maybe it shows something.
 

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Well, it sounds like it could certainly be a faulty graphics card/logic board. Is it under warranty? Either way, take it into an authorized service provider and get them to check it out.
 
I'm genuinely surprised that the 6700M could ever handle Skyrim at a decent FPS whether in Bootcamp or OSX. I'm using a 6750M in a 2011 iMac and I can barely get 60 FPS out of Borderlands 2 on Lowest settings on OSX. Similar story with DOTA 2.

I've been trying to avoid gaming on this machine any how, it's my productivity machine, if I wanted gaming power I'd have stuck with my desktop monster.
 
Commy1 said:
I'm genuinely surprised that the 6700M could ever handle Skyrim at a decent FPS whether in Bootcamp or OSX. I'm using a 6750M in a 2011 iMac and I can barely get 60 FPS out of Borderlands 2 on Lowest settings on OSX. Similar story with DOTA 2.

I've been trying to avoid gaming on this machine any how, it's my productivity machine, if I wanted gaming power I'd have stuck with my desktop monster.
Click to expand...

i have the 6770 model in my imac, runs skyrim perfectly, on ultra, with a ton of enhancement mods on at 1600x900 res.

at native res things get a little slow at times, but rarely less than 24fps, to keep things at the 45+ i had to drop the rez

but the 6770 runs almost every game ive tried so far with no problems at 1600x900 or 1920x1080

under boot camp gaming is supurb, under macOS it sucks, but then, dated drivers, unoptimized code and shoddy mac conversions are going to hit gaming performance.

even things like diabo III which are mac native run far better under windows on the same machine
 
Nightarchaon said:
i have the 6770 model in my imac, runs skyrim perfectly, on ultra, with a ton of enhancement mods on at 1600x900 res.

at native res things get a little slow at times, but rarely less than 24fps, to keep things at the 45+ i had to drop the rez

but the 6770 runs almost every game ive tried so far with no problems at 1600x900 or 1920x1080

under boot camp gaming is supurb, under macOS it sucks, but then, dated drivers, unoptimized code and shoddy mac conversions are going to hit gaming performance.

even things like diabo III which are mac native run far better under windows on the same machine
Click to expand...
Hmm that is interesting, I suppose I'm underestimating my GPU. I've been an Nvidia man forever and understand the cards inside and out, AMD shouldn't be much different. I'll do some more research, what Nvidia card is comparable to the 6750? GTX 650 or less?
That the drivers are probably outdated makes sense on OSX, I wish they weren't OSX incorporated.
 
forty2j said:
Erm, less. AMD's 6750m is roughly equivalent to Nvidia's 635M.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6750M.43958.0.html
Click to expand...

That's what I thought. I looked up a comparison and they compared it to the GTX 540, coming out on top by a nice lead. I'd say running it with the property drivers the 6750 equates to a 550/555M or a 630M. Kinda cruddy when you look at it like that. But oh well, my productivity college machine isn't meant for gaming, probably best off this way. For now Muahahahaha :D
 
Remove Windows from the equation and find a comparable OSX version of a modern game; Guild Wars, Diablo 3, Civ5. If they run fine under OSX and suck under Windows, it's a driver thing. If they suck all over, it's a hardware thing.
 
Der Kommandant said:
Hi,

I have a iMac mid 2011 which suddenly slowed down a lot in gaming and graphical performance. The first time I noticed this
was while running Skyrim on Bootcamp Windows 8. The FPS dropped from around 60-30 like it used to be, to around 5. It became unplayable...
I tried lowering settings and resolution, but the problem remained. After trying different games I noticed the same extreme fps drop.

After that I'd scan for malware, nothing found. I checked temperatures, nothing wrong. I changed graphics drivers, no difference, I reinstalled Windows 8, no difference. I installed Windows 7, still no difference... As a last resort I tried resetting SMC and PRAM, but the problem remains.
The gaming performance also seems to have dropped in OS X, DIRT 2 for Mac also is unplayable now....

I ran an Apple Hardware test, no problems found. I reinstalled OS X Mountain Lion, still the same problem...

What can be the cause of this?

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...



I had the same problem with my 2011 iMac under bootcamp and windows 8. It turned out to be drivers and went away when I used the new version 5 of bootcamp...
 
I have exactly the same problem

MacBook Pro
15 inches, early 2011
Processor 2 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon HD 6490M 256 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5


I made the latest update today and all the sudden my favorite game stoped working properly: Dirt 2 (on Mac OS X)

I did try most of the ideas you guys had (fans control, change resolution).

This is bad!


the fact is the the fans are off.

Usually when I run the game it inmediatly turned on the fans and keep it like that all the time
 
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