Bootcamp gaming woes. Begging for help.

Joined
Aug 24, 2007
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I'm going to post this on a few forums to get the biggest audience possible - sorry if you see it a few times!

I have a MacBook Pro 2.33 C2D, with 2GB RAM. When I play games in bootcamp, after about 5-10 minutes, the picture freezes, sound loops and computer restarts. This is 99% of games. Oddly enough, Company Of Heroes, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R work perfectly for hours.

I, today, downloaded bootcamp 1.4, wiped my partition, reinstalled bootcamp + windows. No luck. I have tried the 'modded' drivers, the AMD ones, the Omega ones. I have tried underclocking the card with ATiTool.

I am totally at a loss what to do here. I play WoW in MacOSX with no probs.

I have a cooling pad + fans on the computer, and have aircon all day...if that helps at all.

Anyone have ANY idea what do to? Many, many thanks in advance.
 
Joined
Feb 9, 2005
Messages
842
Reaction score
10
Points
18
I dont have an answer to this, but do keep in mind that bootcamp is still in Beta.
 
Joined
Nov 18, 2006
Messages
4,934
Reaction score
207
Points
63
Location
Anytown, USA
Your Mac's Specs
27" iMac 2.7GHz Core i5, iPhone 6, iPad Air 2, 4th gen Apple TV
Do you play with the MBP closed or open? Even with a cooling pad, keeping it closed turn the LCD into an insulator and holds in a lot of heat that would otherwise be disbursed through the keyboard area.

If you haven't tried yet, open the LCD and play to see what happens. Other than that, I can't imagine what it would be. I play CS Source all day long with the LCD open and no kind of cooling pad or any other means of assisting cooling.
 

dtravis7


Retired Staff
Joined
Jan 4, 2005
Messages
30,133
Reaction score
703
Points
113
Location
Modesto, Ca.
Your Mac's Specs
MacMini M-1 MacOS Monterey, iMac 2010 27"Quad I7 , MBPLate2011, iPad Pro10.5", iPhoneSE
Do you play with the MBP closed or open? Even with a cooling pad, keeping it closed turn the LCD into an insulator and holds in a lot of heat that would otherwise be disbursed through the keyboard area.

If you haven't tried yet, open the LCD and play to see what happens. Other than that, I can't imagine what it would be. I play CS Source all day long with the LCD open and no kind of cooling pad or any other means of assisting cooling.


Agreed, it really does sound like a heat issue. Getting way too hot and going crazy.
 
OP
J
Joined
Aug 24, 2007
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Points
1
thanks very much for your replies.
I play with the mbp open, using my screen. I don't think it is a heat issue, as I said I can paly games such as Company of heroes, Stalker, MS flight sim 2004 and Oblivion (and WoW in OSX) for hours without problems....

Any other suggestions? Tried switching off indexing, no luck. I'm stumped!
 
OP
J
Joined
Aug 24, 2007
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Ok, I did a bit more testing, with a heat monitor. When I start playing IL-2, the temperatures go up to ~60C. I put the fans on full throttle, put my cooling pad on, and point my aircon at the computer itself, and get the temps down to ~53C. It sill freezes after about 10 mins.

EDIT: Did some more testing, I run WoW at around 61-8C in Mac OSX, and have zero freezing problems.
 

bobtomay

,
Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
26,561
Reaction score
677
Points
113
Location
Texas, where else?
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Would try lowering the resolution in the games having issues.
If you've been running them all at 1440x900, give em a try at 1024x768 and 800x600. Have not done much hardcore gaming in recent times myself, but have read many other posts about this helping out.

While it sounds like a heat issue, the temps you're reporting should not be a problem. Have played a few 6 hour+ sessions of WoW and seen temps at the 68-70C mark pretty consistently.
 

dtravis7


Retired Staff
Joined
Jan 4, 2005
Messages
30,133
Reaction score
703
Points
113
Location
Modesto, Ca.
Your Mac's Specs
MacMini M-1 MacOS Monterey, iMac 2010 27"Quad I7 , MBPLate2011, iPad Pro10.5", iPhoneSE
Ok, I did a bit more testing, with a heat monitor. When I start playing IL-2, the temperatures go up to ~60C. I put the fans on full throttle, put my cooling pad on, and point my aircon at the computer itself, and get the temps down to ~53C. It sill freezes after about 10 mins.

EDIT: Did some more testing, I run WoW at around 61-8C in Mac OSX, and have zero freezing problems.


Back in my Windows gaming days, things like that were sometimes caused by Video drivers in XP. I remember all the users at Anandtech Forums having freezing issues in Games and a lot of time it was the Video Driver for the Video card. Do you have the latest drivers in Windows installed for the Graphics Card in the Mac?

Temps sound ok.
 

bobtomay

,
Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
26,561
Reaction score
677
Points
113
Location
Texas, where else?
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Back in my Windows gaming days, things like that were sometimes caused by Video drivers in XP. I remember all the users at Anandtech Forums having freezing issues in Games and a lot of time it was the Video Driver for the Video card. Do you have the latest drivers in Windows installed for the Graphics Card in the Mac?

Temps sound ok.

agreed - just from all my reading - the best success has seemed to come from the drivers created by Boot Camp rather than the Omega drivers and others. And our vcard is already underclocked by Apple from the retail version of the card.
 
OP
J
Joined
Aug 24, 2007
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Points
1
So my temp is ok. I am using the bootcamp drivers, atm, I have not touched anything since I did a clean install of bootcamp (1.4).

Any possibilities throw me off because of the games that work ok....

Any other ideas of something I could trY? Please stick with my guys, you've been great so far!
 

bobtomay

,
Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
26,561
Reaction score
677
Points
113
Location
Texas, where else?
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
All the same first steps you would take on your windows box.

Have you tried lower resolutions - lowered colors to 16 bit;
in AtiTools, changed hardware acceleration to none - adjusted 3d settings for Direct3D or OpenGL and moved the slider all the way to the left for performance

What about in game video performance settings - lowered those?

IL-2 has several updates, including one that has bug fixes for both ATI and NVidia drivers - didn't read all the info. but at least a couple of them have to be applied individually and in order - also if you playing a networked game, both the server and your machine must have the same version

Would read and post questions on the forums of the individual games you are having problems with, but would work on one at a time - chances are, you solve it with one, the same fix can be applied to several.

Finidng some that are playing the specific games on their Macs that you are trying to play would be of advantage vs games in general, when you do have several that work properly.

As I've gotten a little older (OK, a lot older than your average gamer) have just not done a whole lot of gaming in the last 3-4 years on my Win box, so I am out of touch with perusing the gaming forums and any of the current tweaks that may be out there.

This is also the reason I could even consider buying a Mac now. And I suspect, this is the primary reason the long timers around here recommend buying a Win box and not a Mac for those that want to be playing the latest and greatest Win games.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top