TGB Reefing on MacBook

#1 It's normal. You notice this sort of thing more on a laptop, since the fans are close to you. Download a good fan control program and play around with it. Here's the one I use;
www.derman.com/MacBook-Pro-Fan-Control

You'll also hear them kick into high gear when Spotlight is re-indexing, Xcode is compiling etc. :)

#2 Thanks Ronny. I've got it running and it so far seems to max out a 70°C, which is still pretty hot but not damagingly so. It does mean I can't work on Torque with it on my lap... What's the phrase Penny Arcade used? A "penis panini"?

Anyway. Thanks for the heads-up.

#3 Yeah, cooking your genitals is not recommended. Not that I've tried, but I have done extensive research.

If you set the minimum tolerated temperature low enough, and the minimum fan speed high enough, you should be able to keep it around 50-55˚ during normal work. Compilation…don't do it too often :)

I use my MacBook (first unibody) with an external monitor and keyboard, so it's not a huge problem. I recommend something like that if the laptop is your only Mac.

#4 I have an iMac that I use for most of my development. What's been interesting is that playing shooters and doing graphics development on the machine hasn't caused much issue, but just letting TGB sit there (just sitting there!) uses like 25% of both CPUs. Pretty crazy.

#5 Not crazy. TGB isn't just sitting there, it's rendering as fast as it can. It's not a business app, even the editor is running under a game-engine e.g. treat the editor as a game. It'll render as fast as it can and therefore peg the cpu high. Also, TGB is a single-threaded app, it'll only use a single CPU.

Why is using a CPU a problem? Isn't that what they're there for? ;)

#6 Hey Rob,

Are you by any chance able to run TGB on your MAC at full screen ?
I don't mean the editor, i mean any demo that comes with TGB 1.7.5 ?

thanks,
Bruno

#7 @Bruno: Actually, yes... and notably, I get a temperature decrease of about 15°C when actually playing TGB-made games, even with TGB minimized (but still running). As soon as TGB comes back into focus, though, the heat is on. The temperature difference literally occurs over a few seconds (I guess the fans are very effective when they're actually spinning).

I'm sure there's a reason for this heat, and it's only mildly inconvenient, so I'm not complaining. With some further testing and fan tweaking I've managed to max out the temperature at 70°C or so, so long as the MacBook is well-ventilated.

#8 Hah, I'm seeing temperatures up to 75˚ while compiling T3D. Your puny attempt at meltdown does not frighten me :)

#9

Quote:I'm sure there's a reason for this heat, and it's only mildly inconvenient, so I'm not complaining.

Yes, CPU doing work. :)

Seriously though, nearly all non-casual games use as much CPU as they can to get as high a frame-rate as they can. It's nothing out the ordinary. When TGB is not in focus it updates very slowly but when its in focus it tries to get as high a frame-rate as possible.