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unity3d overheating macbook

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by lesfundi, Aug 12, 2009.

  1. lesfundi

    lesfundi

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2009
    Posts:
    628
    i have the 13 inch macbook, when i run a game in the unity3d software my macbook fans are runing like crazy.

    Is that normal? or is there something wrong with my mac?
     
    lesfundi, Aug 12, 2009
    #1

  2. zumwalt

    zumwalt

    Joined:
    Apr 18, 2007
    Posts:
    2,287
    The macbooks use shared memory for the games, so there is tons of swapping going on for graphics but in macbook pro's the memory is dedicated so less fan activity.. anything graphics intensive will cause that fan of yours to go nuts, because the processor is also doing shared processing for video and normal cpu, you don't have a dedicated gpu, thats the major difference between a macbook and a macbook pro, dedicated video memory and dedicated video processor vs shared..
     
    zumwalt, Aug 12, 2009
    #2

  3. Quietus2

    Quietus2

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2008
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    2,058
    I would suggest installing IstatMenus. It's a nifty little app that will show you things like cpu load, fan speed and cpu/gpu temperature. You can then see exactly what Unity is doing to your Mac.

    It's not overheating if the fans turn on to keep things cool. It's overheating if it actually shuts down on you. That's only happened to my MacBook Pro once, when playing Eve Online under XP.
     
    Quietus2, Aug 12, 2009
    #3

  4. zumwalt

    zumwalt

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    Apr 18, 2007
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    Yea, I can't remember my Macbook Pro ever overheating even while playing WoW with max settings (runs better than my stinking PC :()
     
    zumwalt, Aug 12, 2009
    #4

  5. dawvee

    dawvee

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2008
    Posts:
    276
    I had a heat issue in my iMac's graphics card for a while - interestingly it showed up more often when running Unity than any games. With games it showed up as graphical glitches like parts of models being stretched off into infinity, but in Unity it locked up the whole computer (except the mouse cursor, strangely), requiring a hard reboot. So if you had a heat issue and not just 'more heat', you'd probably have more problems than just the fan going.
     
    dawvee, Aug 12, 2009
    #5

  6. Dreamora

    Dreamora

    Joined:
    Apr 5, 2008
    Posts:
    26,601
    unity is heavier than most mac games (must have to do something with the fair share of intels cpu to dvi adapters in previous generation)

    you can heat up even a mac book pro pretty easily as it is heavy for cpu and gpu in the editor
     
    Dreamora, Aug 12, 2009
    #6

  7. aaron-parr

    aaron-parr

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2007
    Posts:
    577
    Yes, I have a similar experience. I picked up a 2006 Macbook (for free) for porting games to iPhone and it tends to run hot when I have the usual apps going (photoshop, cheetah, unity) at the same time.

    Its good to hear that this is normal of these computers. This was someone else's castoff computer that I got going by replacing ram and the hardrive. I was beginning to suspect that something else might be wrong with it, but I wouldn't know what else to do for it.
     
    aaron-parr, Aug 14, 2009
    #7