Hi all,

I have a 2017 non-touchbar MacBook Pro with basic specs (2.3GHZ, 8gb ram). All but one of the games I've tried so far cause it to heat up very rapidly to the point where the case is uncomfortably hot and the fan is on maximum. So far I've tried - Sid Meier Alpha Centauri, Shadowrun returns, Overland (not on GOG), and Pillars of Eternity. The only game that seems to run OK is FTL.

Does anyone else here game on a non- touchbar MacBook Pro? Do you have the same issues? Can you recommend anything that I can play without the overheating? I'm after some strategy, RPGs, rogue likes, tycoon games etc. Just something low-spec to play when I'm travelling.

I think I need to be looking at native Mac apps that don't involve any complex 3D graphics. Was really looking forward to playing SMAC again but I think the Wine wrapper may have caused the overheating.

Cheers, Nathan.

I don't have any game suggestions, but I do have an idea that might allow you to play the games you have:

Put your laptop into power saving mode; this will reduce performance, but also reduce the heat produced. Some games are rather wasteful of system resources, and will still run fine in power saving mode despite otherwise causing overheating.

Actually, I do have one idea; since you like roguelikes, you could try some of the more traditional ASCII roguelikes. Games like Nethack, for example, shouldn't be doing any processing when waiting for input, and therefore should not heat up the laptop. There's others, like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, and even the original Rogue if you are into ancient games.

Tangledeep is awesome and out in 1.2. Now is in early access and totally playable. What is more important is that it works on my low end laptop really well.

Yeah, that ain't gonna happen with the integrated Intel graphics anyway. Although I'm surprised SMAC should give you trouble. I don't have any problems with it on my '14 Mac mini. Neither with Shadowrun Returns. Then again, heat is not so much issue when I don't have to actually touch the machine or sit it on my lap, and the heat dissipates fairly quickly after running on load. Fan noise is pretty much negligible as well even when it's put to stress. *shrug*

I doubt any of the Avernum games (Spiderweb stuff in general) or DRODs should give you any trouble. Most of the adventure p'n'cs should be fine. Terraria, Stardew Valley, Steamworld Dig... any older FPS like Blake Stone, Rise of the Triads, Shadow Warrior, Doom via GZDoom (without fancy effects). Frankly I'd imagine you should be able to pretty much play any game that run on my mini.

I don't know if SMAC has such issues, but some (older) 2D games do have some issues or design choices that may manifest themselves as overheating on e.g. laptops. Two I recall seeing or hearing about:

1. Some games might display even some static menu screen with unlimited refresh rate.

2. The old (classic) Infinity-engine RPGs like Baldur's Gate 1-2, Icewind Dale etc. which for some reason always try to use 100% of your CPU cycles. The remakes by Beamdog don't have this same unwelcome feature.

https://www.gog.com/forum/baldurs_gate_series/baldurs_gate_12_enhanced_editions_also_100_or_50_cpu_usage/page1

What dtgreene suggested (running the laptop in a low-power mode) worked for me at least with those Baldur's Gate games, back when I played some of them on an older single-core laptop that would easily overheat.

I recall also when I tried some graphics enhancement mod for the original Quake, I was puzzled why my gaming laptop's fans would start screaming at full speed, as if the game was very demanding or something (which it wasn't). Turned out that by default that mod had vsync off so it was calculating as many frames per second as it could. I was getting something like thousand(s) of frames per second, which was kinda excessive I guess. :) So when I enabled vsync (or a frame limiter, not sure which) to 60 fps, then the fans went quiet even though the game still ran butter smooth at 60 fps.

Creeper World games
Gunpoint
Morphblade
Gemcraft - Chasing Shadows
One Finger Death Punch
Delver
Blocks that matter
Faerie Solitaire

Sorry, but I really can't help but say it: Apple computers are not gaming machines. They weren't designed to be so. Blame Cupertino's asspunks for their fixation with their "design" bullshit over, well everything...

[url=https://www.gog.com/games?devpub=spiderweb_ software]Another vote for the games of the Spiderweb Collection[/url]

This this this. Best roguelike is best, and there is a Mac (and Linux) version. OP: I have this thing with a processor. As every other thing with a processor, it can run software, and games are software, so which good games can I run on it?
You: It is my solemn civic duty to provide this piece of uniquely important info that there are games you can't run on it, for which crime the manufacturer should be strung up in the Hague. Sign my petition.

Grim Fandango
Syberia I & II
The Last Door
Beneath a Steel Sky (free game)
VVVVVV
Papers, Please
Undertale
FTL
Another World

interesting you should mention this. PCGAMER has a list just for you and it came out on Jan 4th, 2018. So its recent info.

Here is the link. Click the photo above the short article to scroll through their picks.

http://www.pcgamer.com/best-laptop-games/

Welcome.

These games are low-spec, run on Mac and are on sale now: https://www.gog.com/promo/20180131_spiderweb

some fo thsoe like Pilars of Eternity WILL overheat or have low FPS on a laptop though

What I wrote earlier about even older games overheating pretty new laptops without vsync, that just happened to me yesterday with Age of Empires 3 (Complete, Steam version).

It is not a new game anymore (AoE3 was originally released in 2005) and my gaming laptop can run it fine at 60fps... but I did notice that my laptop's fan(s) started spinning probably at max speed whenever I played that game, as if it really maxes out my laptop and the CPU or GPU works overtime. It seemed to heat up my laptop much more than playing something like Team Fortress 2 with all graphical goodies and higher resolution too (yeah, I am running AoE3 on 1024x768).

Only today I noticed that by default vsync is off in the game's graphics options (it looks like it is enabled (option lit), the user interface is not so clear). Now that it is enabled that the game really restricts the game to calculate and draw max 60 frames per second (instead of "as high as you can"), the fans slow down and temperatures keep low.

So yeah, if you want to avoid overheating, the first thing is to try to force vsync on, even if it is an old game. Not all games necessarily allow that so I am unsure if it is possible to force vsync from the graphics driver options for everything. Or at least if the game can be run in a window, then I presume it will have to abide to the vsync settings of your graphics driver?