Tenderfoot Thahd sandbags Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 Hi. I bought A2:TC via Steam to play on my 2013 MacBook Air (13",i7,8GB,10.9.0). The game plays fine but I have noticed it seems to take a lot of CPU and, additionally, while the game is running the kernel task process also uses ~100% of one core. The net result is the machine runs really hot & loud while I am playing. That's pretty unusual although, to be fair, this is one of the few games I've played on here. But I am a little surprised it seems so thirsty. If I shut down A2 the kernel task drops quickly to normal level. Is this expected? Kind regards, Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast keira Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 I wouldn't necessarily say it's expected to do that, but if we're honest Jeff isn't exactly known for his optimal code Tyranicus 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Ishad Nha Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 I have similar problems running the latest Spiderweb games on Windows XP. I have less than the minimum recommended RAM and so on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk Edgwyn Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 I have a early 2011 MacBook Pro, (15", i7, 4 GB, 10.7.5), and it takes up one core for me as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Earth Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 intel integrated graphic card? my core2quad with radeom 4870 runs Avadon 2 perfectly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk Edgwyn Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 In my case AMD Radeon HD 6750. The game runs fine as far as I can tell, I certainly haven't noticed any issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Spiderweb games starting with Geneforge 5 started to be CPU intensive and causing computers to run hotter. Part of it was better graphics and the need to use the hard drive more to access them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Tyranicus Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Hard drive access shouldn't be very CPU-intensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Earth Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 In my case AMD Radeon HD 6750. The game runs fine as far as I can tell, I certainly haven't noticed any issues. Mac or PC and verion of os? Just tested Avadon 2 in Core2Duo (2,83 GHz and 4GB memory and Vista and Intel graphics) and no heay processor usage on beginning area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast keira Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 I bought A2:TC via Steam to play on my 2013 MacBook Air (13",i7,8GB,10.9.0). From the OP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curious Artila Zkal Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 Hi, I have regularly seen complaints about Spiderweb Software's games CPU usage. Here are some of them : https://itunes.apple...489706663?mt=12 http://spiderwebforu.../page__hl__fans http://spiderwebforu..._fans#entry1070 http://spiderwebforu...ans#entry192906 By (bad) design, these games will use 100% of one CPU core no matter how fast your processor is. This is simply the way they were programmed. In my opinion it's a serious problem. I had written a long e-mail about it that I wanted to send to Jeff, but I never completed it. It is still in my drafts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulate Vlish ottakoi Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 There are a couple of workarounds to force the limit of CPU usage. If your cpu supports SpeedStep, and you are using Windows Vista or later, there is a built-in feature to set the maximum processor state. Create a new power plan, set the Maximum processor state value (see link) to 60% or so, and switch to that power plan before launching the game (don't forget to switch back after quitting). I have been using this and the effect is immediate. Note that if 60% makes the game slow or it still generates lots of heat and noise, change it to 50%, 55%, 65%, 70%, etc. until you find a balace between the heat of device and the smoothness of gameplay. And there are also some utilities that do the same job: Rmclock for windows and Macs Fan Control for OS X. Haven't tried them though. But both of them have detailed user guides on their respective websites, so read them before downloading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk adc. Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 There are a couple of workarounds to force the limit of CPU usage. If your cpu supports SpeedStep, and you are using Windows Vista or later, there is a built-in feature to set the maximum processor state. Create a new power plan, set the Maximum processor state value (see link) to 60% or so, and switch to that power plan before launching the game (don't forget to switch back after quitting). I have been using this and the effect is immediate. Note that if 60% makes the game slow or it still generates lots of heat and noise, change it to 50%, 55%, 65%, 70%, etc. until you find a balace between the heat of device and the smoothness of gameplay. Mine is set to 100% but my laptop never overheated even once. Just stay on one place, use a table instead of a pillow, be in a cold room, clean your system, be sure to run one program at a time etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Mod. Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 Strange, mine runs the game perfectly fine and never gets hot at all (so zero fan noise), though I never checked the CPU usage to see how high it is. Using a 1.5 Ghz AMD A8 in my laptop. Modern games can make my laptop get hot, but maybe my processor is too low-powered to output heat relative to my graphics cards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk adc. Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 My Avadon 2: https://fbcdn-sphoto...864836361_n.jpg (although there was no reason I was supposed to post this, I wanted to show you guys my Avadon prof pic ) My Resource monitor: https://fbcdn-sphoto...605628448_n.jpg Running in a Windows 8 64-bit laptop on a balanced performance mode, getting steady 60 fps on Avadon 4GB ram Intel HD 4000 Intel i5 Strange, mine uses up only 2% of CPU, my highest was 10%. I don't know how Avadon manages to use up yours so badly, but maybe the number of cores would be the answer? I don't know about Mac, but that's just weird. Laptop's not heating up that bad either, even if it's in laptop (get it? because lap-top? it's on the top of my lap?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulate Vlish ottakoi Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 My Avadon 2: https://fbcdn-sphoto...864836361_n.jpg (although there was no reason I was supposed to post this, I wanted to show you guys my Avadon prof pic ) My Resource monitor: https://fbcdn-sphoto...605628448_n.jpg Running in a Windows 8 64-bit laptop on a balanced performance mode, getting steady 60 fps on Avadon 4GB ram Intel HD 4000 Intel i5 Strange, mine uses up only 2% of CPU, my highest was 10%. I don't know how Avadon manages to use up yours so badly, but maybe the number of cores would be the answer? I don't know about Mac, but that's just weird. Laptop's not heating up that bad either, even if it's in laptop (get it? because lap-top? it's on the top of my lap?) Well, that is weird. My laptop has exactly the same 4gb ram and an i5 processor and it heats up very quickly playing sw games (not with other games that's what is weird). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Earth Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 try cleaning your laptop's insides. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fledgling Fyora IronX Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 I've been playing this on a macbook pro (i7, 16 gig of ram, OS X 10.9.5) and it runs great - no heat issues at all. Spiderweb is now one of my favorite gaming companies for games for my notebook because they don't cause my fans to spin up and my comp to get hot. It's actually something I check for in every game demo for my macbook. With Avadon 2 playing, and several sites open in Safari - i see about 12-14% cpu usage overall. All 4 cpu cores seem to have an even load too as opposed to one core carrying all the processing burden. (I guess i could load the game just by itself and see how it balances out then... I'm guessing though that it will spread out evenly but even If it were all on one core, it still may not be enough to cause a notable performance issue.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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