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Suden game performance issues, Any game drops to low fps after 10-15min

L

LaDirection

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Hello,

I'm hoping someone else has gone through this problem and found what the problem is.

I have a Macbook pro 17" with NVIDIA 330M and 8GB of RAM, running 10.8.2 since its release.

For the past 2 days, ANY game I play (official Steam releases of L4D 1 or 2, Call of Duty Black oPS, Non steam Aspyr's COD 4 ), start off nice and smooth, but begin cutting down to very low fps after maybe 10 or 15 mins to the point where it's unplayable. I have been playing L4D for over a year on this system without a hitch before.

I usually restart the system and relaunch the game. It works fine for the same length of time and slows to a crawl again.

My automatic graphic card switching is off (I just doubled check). If I don't restart the computer, even if I relaunch the game the problem is still there. I checked with Activity monitor and besides the main game which takes like 60 to 85% of CPU there's nothing else that takes any real resources.

The problem started appearing on the same day I downloaded both the Mac Gamestore .app and Call of Duty Black ops. I don't see how that could have done anything, but I can't see anything else that might have caused this either.
 
Where are you playing?
Do you have an external monitor?

If the FPS drop, try to wait a few minutes until the machine cooled down again (no restart) and then check again...
 
I've tried with all the games i mentioned, its actually occurring in any games.

I just tested it on l4d 1 and Call of Duty Black ops. No ext monitor attached.

The macbook isn't hot at all, the fan doesn't spin like crazy either. Its just regular warm.

The problem started 2 or 3 days ago and seem to only affect games, not other heavy duty programs like Photoshop or final cut pro.
 
I had this problem really bad, I'm talking every game unplayable bad, the fan wasn't spinning abnormally fast, and the computer wasn't very hot. I reset SMC,PRAM and disk permissions, nothing helped, I got fed up and opened the macbook and cleaned all the dust out with compressed air and swabs. and the macbook which has a 256mb video card, was running smooth without the framerate slowing down over time at all, it was like I doubled the VRAM, just saying you never know I would clean it if I were you. hoped I helped. http://www.powerbookmedic.com/ <-- site that helped me safely perform open heart surgery on my macbook.:apple:
 
LaDirection said:
Hello,

I'm hoping someone else has gone through this problem and found what the problem is.

I have a Macbook pro 17" with NVIDIA 330M and 8GB of RAM, running 10.8.2 since its release.

For the past 2 days, ANY game I play (official Steam releases of L4D 1 or 2, Call of Duty Black oPS, Non steam Aspyr's COD 4 ), start off nice and smooth, but begin cutting down to very low fps after maybe 10 or 15 mins to the point where it's unplayable. I have been playing L4D for over a year on this system without a hitch before.

I usually restart the system and relaunch the game. It works fine for the same length of time and slows to a crawl again.

My automatic graphic card switching is off (I just doubled check). If I don't restart the computer, even if I relaunch the game the problem is still there. I checked with Activity monitor and besides the main game which takes like 60 to 85% of CPU there's nothing else that takes any real resources.

The problem started appearing on the same day I downloaded both the Mac Gamestore .app and Call of Duty Black ops. I don't see how that could have done anything, but I can't see anything else that might have caused this either.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a classic overheating issue, although I know the 10.8.2 update has loads of side effects on some cards.

Edwin
 
Ok all, makes sense, I'll try opening silver boy and cleaning the dust out. Also the SMC , PRAM & disk permissions, which never hurt.
 
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