Guild Wars 2

Hello there fellow mac gamers. Im using the macbook pro 15" Early 2011 model.

After about a months worth of playing Gw2 mac beta it has been pretty good and hasn’t had any serious problems, all apart from the heat.

I’ve gone and looked in to this a little and as every game usually uses a lot of CPU usage the computer usually gains a lot of heat. But this is a bit ridiculous as the heat literally burns my very fingers. So i went along and used the program “Activity Monitor” to find out how much CPU usage is Gw2 using. Quoting from this link http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1473 , “If any process is taking more than 70% of the CPU it is considered to be putting a significant load on the system.”

So i opened the application activity monitor and opened up the game. Just upon opening the game, the CPU usage gradually goes up to 100%, i proceed to playing the game killing mobs etc. The CPU usage is now 200%. The game is pretty much taking over.

So to conclude Gw2 is using a lot of CPU usage and making my macbook pro extremely hot. How is everyone else doing with heat? and if so have you found a way to lower the heat?

It’s normal.

15char…..

Yep, pretty mich how it is, it’s a resource hog!

I’ve picked up a lap desk cooling fan type thing for mine recently. It doesn’t keep the system from getting hot, but it allows air to flow under the bottom of the system preventing it from getting much hotter. This way, you aren’t trapping all that heat under the system, it allows the air to circulate underneath. The top left of the keyboard will still get super hot and the left vent will still heat your home in the winter, but my CPU rarely gets over 89C.

Good luck.

I see thank you very much, i’ll have to go find something like yours.

In the graphic options, there’s a setting called ‘Frame Limiter’. Set it to 30, that should help with keeping temperatures a bit lower.

Also on Notebook and yes it gets really hot. My solution was/is to put a thirsty stone hot cup holder under each back corner of the notebook lifting it up about 1/2 inch. More are flow, plus a slightly tilted keyboard, helped heat and wrist fatigue.

Been playing this an other games for some time, and no detrimental damage to system due to excessive heat. Though I am using only SSHD vice conventional RPM Hard Drives.

I had mine raised up nearly 1/2 inch using 2 hi-polymer erasers (cheap, but effective lol). That also helped quite a bit and that is what I use for traveling rather than carrying the cooling fan bit with me… So that could work too in a pinch if you don’t want to invest in the lap desk thing.

Any time Graphics User Switching is activated on the Mac, it’s going to get hot. GW2 is obviously and definitely going to activate it. I would make sure you don’t have many (or any) other applications running at the time to put a lighter load (relatively) on the GPU. A cooling fan is always a great idea as well. Definitely be sure the MacBook Pro is not on any type of blanket, pillow, couch, lap, etc. as all these things reduce the computer’s ability to dissipate heat effectively. The suggestion above of lowering the maximum frame rate (and effectively reducing GPU load) is also a great idea.