Why is my MacBook Pro getting so hot?

Question

I have a Late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina 15" with a 2 GHz i7 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB graphics. I am running El Capitan 10.11.4. I recently installed XPLANE 10. As soon as I open XPLANE my Mac starts to get warm and the fans begin to speed up. This seems normal for a graphics intensive app like XPLANE. However, after having the app open for only several minutes the bottom of my mac is extremely warm....almost too hot to touch. The battery also drains very quickly so I have to plug in the charger...which helps create even more heat as a result. This happens even tho I have my MBP sitting on a hard flat surface.

Shouldn't my MBP be able to run XPLANE 10 in the default settings quite well? My MBP gets so hot that I am afraid continued use will cause damage to internal components. Is something wrong with my MBP? If the default settings in XPLANE 10 are just too much for a laptop of this configuration, what are some recommended performance  tweaks I can make to XPLANE to cause my MBP to operate cooler?

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

Hi,

First off, your MBP specs aren't that great which leads your laptop to work even harder. Laptops in general aren't great for XP unless you have a $2,000 machine. 

Your computer is barely meeting the minimum specs which is not a good sign.

As for tweaks, there isn't much unless you put the graphics at the lowest or buy a new desktop or laptop.

Specs listed below via website

 

X-Plane 10 requires, at the minimum,

• Dual Core, 2.5 GHz or faster
• 4 GB of RAM
• A video card with at least 1 GB of VRAM.

Note that the version of the X-Plane 10 flight simulator we sell here at X-Plane.com will run on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. If you’re interested, you can get more info on using X-Plane with a Mac.

Recommended System Specifications

For the best experience, we recommend the following system specs:

• a Quad Core, 3.0 GHz or faster processor,
• 16-20 GB of RAM,
• a high-performance, DirectX 11-capable video card with at least 4 GB of on-board, dedicated VRAM.

-Rishi

Comments

Thanks for your help!