Weird frame rate drops during daytime only

[DanM52]

Hey guys, just wanted to ask for some help regarding this weird issue I have, maybe some of you have better luck than me. I am using a 2017 13-inch Macbook Air and I keep having these weird frame rate drops every time I try to play a game during daytime, they last for longer or shorter periods of time, this doesn't happen during the night though. I'm not a gamer by any means, I just play some games form time to time, but it just seemed weird and thought of seeking some advice. Thank you in advance and have a wonderful day! :Blushing:

 

[Raz0rEdge]

What games? What version of macOS? What are the Mac specs? How do you know you are getting frame rate drops? What is the drop in the morning? What is the rate at night?

 

[pigoo3]

Ashwin asked some great questions...please share what you know.

I have one additional question. Is this an online game/games...or game/games installed locally? If online games...game performance can change during busier times of the day...if the game servers aren't powerful enough to handle the load.

- Nick

 

[IWT]

Important questions to address from our Moderator.

Could it be that the WiFi you use is under heavy competitive use during the day and less so at night? And do you have the option of choosing between 2.4GHz and 5GHz?

Ian

 

[pigoo3]

Could it be that the WiFi you use is under heavy competitive use during the day and less so at night?

Great additional question Ian. I was just going to edit & add that to my reply...but you got to it first!

- Nick

 

[DanM52]

What games? What version of macOS? What are the Mac specs? How do you know you are getting frame rate drops? What is the drop in the morning? What is the rate at night?


1,8 Ghz i5. 8 gb RAM, Intel HD Graphics 6000 1536 mb. I am running MacOS Mojave 10.14.6. I can see it drops. it stays around 60fps during de day, and at night it drops to around 24, I am talking spike drops, afterwards it comes back to 6o, but this happens very often, and only during daytime, at night there is no problem..and I can't make the sense of all this

 

[DanM52]

Important questions to address from our Moderator.

Could it be that the WiFi you use is under heavy competitive use during the day and less so at night? And do you have the option of choosing between 2.4GHz and 5GHz?

Ian



It might be, otherwise I can think why it would lag during the day and at night it doesn't.. I don't have that option, no

- - - Updated - - -


I have one additional question. Is this an online game/games...or game/games installed locally? If online games...game performance can change during busier times of the day...if the game servers aren't powerful enough to handle the load.

- Nick



This applies to both online and offline games, at first I also believed its the servers fault regarding online games, but the frame drops happen even on the menus, before I even enter the server.. I tried to jitter around with the settings but it seems to be something ''outside'' the game itself

 

[pigoo3]

This applies to both online and offline games...

If this is the case...do you have anything installed (and running in the background)...that might be periodically using up CPU/GPU resources? If you're playing a game that needs lots of CPU/GPU or even storage resources (reading & writing to the internal HD/SSD)...anything running in the background could slow down the game.

Just an example (could be other things)...if your computer is setup to do backups during the day...this could possibly effect performance with a high demand game.

If you're not sure if anything "big" is running in the background...open the Activity Monitor app...and click on the "CPU" tab. This gives you a list of process's that are running...and in descending order how much % resources each process is utilizing.

When you experience frame drops while gaming...quickly switch to the Activity Monitor window...and see if anything is periodically using up a lot of CPU resources.

HTH,

- Nick

 

[MacInWin]

What is your ISP speed? In addition to bottlenecking at the WiFi router, your ISP could be bottlenecking during the day as more people are awake and using the network. That phenomenon is particularly noticeable from an ISP that has a lot of business customers through one switch, who use large amounts of the network capability for big data moves. Everybody ends up sharing whatever that switch can handle, despite the speed you might have signed up for originally.