16" MacBook Pro battery draining while on power adapter

Bro, does your rig even lift?
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twilanyc
Met Resolume in a bar the other day
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Feb 04, 2020 19:57

16" MacBook Pro battery draining while on power adapter

Post by twilanyc »

Hey friends!

I have a new 16" MacBook Pro with 8 core i9 and radion 5500m and while I am running it under heavy load (resolume, mad mapper, etc) the battery slowly drains even though it's on the power adapter. I haven't been able to find much by way of apple forums or other users with this issue. I have found that windows laptops with similar configs use their own proprietary power adapters as 100w is the limit for power delivery over thunderbolt 3 and this hardware seems to require more than that.

What do y'all think? Did apple design a machine that required more power than the adapter can provide in order to stay with the thunderbolt style power adapter? It's frustrating for how much I spent on this, seriously considering returning it and going with a Razer.

I went to the apple store and the dude there was like try running fewer apps (eye roll, why buy a $3000 computer?) and they exchanged it and the problem persists. I double checked in system info that it is the 96w adapter and the cable is delivering the full 96 watts.

Any advice or consolation appreciated. I used to run resolume and mad mapper on a 2015 MacBook with integrated graphics and it could handle it! It brings this brand new machine to its knees.

Zoltán
Team Resolume
Posts: 7088
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2014 13:08
Location: Székesfehérvár, Hungary

Re: 16" MacBook Pro battery draining while on power adapter

Post by Zoltán »

Well, a power adapter should deliver the amount of power a machine can consume. Sounds like very bad design!
Again...

What you could try on the software side, would be limiting the FPS in the composition settings to 50% of your actual display FPS. (so, to 30FPS if you have a 60FPS display.)
This would mean half the amount of frames - half the work for your GPU, but still should look nice.

That said, if you're not tied to OSX, then Windows gaming laptops give a lot more performance for the same price.
Software developer, Sound Engineer,
Control Your show with ”Enter” - multiple Resolume servers at once - SMPTE/MTC column launch
try for free: http://programs.palffyzoltan.hu

Warspite
Hasn't felt like this about software in a long time
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2012 14:36

Re: 16" MacBook Pro battery draining while on power adapter

Post by Warspite »

This is ok.
They can consume more than power adapter delivers. Especially with tb-periferals. This feature is here for years. It is even noted in notebookcheck's reviews.
It is not a big problem until difference is too big and laptop discharges quicky. Usually they are more limited by thermals so it is very difficult to discharge battery completely, usually it is overheating and throttling. :lol:

Intange
Hasn't felt like this about software in a long time
Posts: 54
Joined: Thu Oct 31, 2019 17:25

Re: 16" MacBook Pro battery draining while on power adapter

Post by Intange »

Outside of the power drain issue how does the 16" machine run Resolume? Are you using multiple outs? Do you have the 8Gb GPU? I am considering getting this machine and so am wondering about your experience.

Thanks

hubissimo
Met Resolume in a bar the other day
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Dec 21, 2019 22:18

Re: 16" MacBook Pro battery draining while on power adapter

Post by hubissimo »

this has been a constant issue with all mbp since like 2016-17. I'm on a 2017 mbp fully loaded. I'm at 81% now. attached to 1 external monitor and running Resolume in the BG. connect straight into a port if possible, that helps.

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