I bought a new MacBook Pro with Catalina software version. When I log on Zwift, the computer is overheating. Anyone facing this issue ?
I have an older Macbook Pro running Catalina. It gets warmer, but does not overheat. What exactly is happening when your MBP begins “overheating”.
I would also open OS X Activity Monitor and sort by %CPU and/or %GPU to see if there is anything odd going on (e.g, another process eating a ton of CPU or GPU, etc…)
Sorry for such a long answer. Actually the back cover becomes very hot and the fan goes on after a minute or so. I am afraid of damaging the computer on the long run
I noticed the same issue with my new MacBook Pro (Gen 10). What helped:
In settings change → Laptop battery saver → Max battery saver. It works on everything max like a charm, if I change to “Off, Max speed”, I guess it has some kind of “power leak”.
Another thing what I noticed - it overheats if it’s connected to power anyways. So you need to be on battery (I guess if it’s on power, it goes “Off, Max speed” anyways).
Yes… Same issue here sadly. I’ve had to go back to using an ATV 4K (which is a massive downgrade in performance)
Before “Upgrading” to the latest MacOS the laptop was fine and no issues. Now with Catalina it overheats even to a point of shutting down (on the sprint layoff last week’s AHDR America’s Humpday ride!).
It bleeds power from the battery far quicker than ever before… all in all it was a bad choice for me to update.
Sorry I don’t have any suggestions. I also have a MacBook Pro, and was excited to get it up and running with Zwift only to be concerned and appalled at how much Zwift consumes on this system. Yes, the fan turns on after about a minute, and Mac heats up significantly, even when I set Zwift video resolution lower.
I’d be surprised if this is something Zwift can address without a major app upgrade/release.
So today i ran Zwift on my MBP and it overheated, now i have black lines on the bottom of my display. After a quick google looks like a $500 repair! WTF Zwift?!
A warning for anyone using zwift on a mac with the fans running… DONT! it will damage your Macbook.
And after testing i find out the Mac Zwift App has a memory leak that makes it over heat when the power is plugged in. Plugged in Temp > 90!,Unplugged <65 within minutes.
How do they get away with releasing an app that bad?!
I would say you are unlucky. Many people run Zwift on MacBook Pros without issue. I’ve run it on two different MacBook Pros over the years without overheating. I also always run w/the power connected. The fans do come on full blast which to me means they’re doing their job.
Try unplugging the power and see if the fans turn down. A badly designed app isn’t unlucky.
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I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if the fans turned down. Many other apps will do the same in the name of power savings once you go to battery. The apps themselves run in a power save mode. Zwift probably drops the resolution 
thus requiring less cpu/gpu and hence the fans slowing.
I will check it out sometime over the next couple days.
I actually upped the resolution on the battery run test and it temps stayed under 65. Lowest res on battery, over 90.
It basically means you wont be able to safely use Zwift on a macbook for longer than about 90mins.
Yes, I think I was having a similar issue.
Ant+ was dropping then the frame rate would drop to 1-2 per min.
I have Windows 10 and a Laptop.
I got a cooling pad and it seems to helped.
Did some more testing today. It seems the battery saving settings work and FPS are kept to 15fps, and 50% CPU usage. When a power supply it plugged in the CPU shoots to 120% and FPS increases to 35fps. Temps increase massively with it.
Can Zwift turn off this behaviour please, If its battery saving setting mode is on, leave the setting in battery saving!
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I had this problem with the latest Macbook Pro and as a solution I moved to Apple TV 4k and now the problems are “lag time” when you’re involved in races. If the group sprints you’re far from an instant response like when you use a laptop. So I don’t race as much and as a result my Macbook is still running nicely.
An M1 chip? @iKapture
I heard the M1 chip deals with running Zwift alot better than the intel chipset.
I heard the battery last so much longer, and running a mac without the power in. This would allow it to run in max saving mode, at 15fps, for longer than 1h.
You can also change the 15fps in the config if you wanted too go to 24fps.
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James,
Intel chip on this one as it’s the 16in but I do have the “top of the line” graphics processor in it (AMD Radeon Pro 5600M 8 GB - Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB).
Not to worry anyway as I don’t do a lot of racing now other than wednesday night AHDR Humpday rides that have a final lap sprint. So my ATV 4K does ok and I can keep my laptop to just work related jobs.
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I have an overheating Macbook Pro (same goes for Macbook Air as well) and as far as I see the problem is caused by the Zwift application not providing the option to decrease CPU usage (i.e by frame rate?) in the game. Reducing resolution doesn’t solve this issue. There is an option for battery saving, which actually decreases frame rate on the backend afaik, but obviously applicable only when power is unplugged, thus if you work on battery, it works cooler and actually the fans stop. Else, fans blow at 100% and it feels like the notebook will explode any time 
Needless to say CPU temps go well over 100 degrees celsius. :o
Soo, this is clearly a Zwift for Mac optimization issue, and not being resolved so far is a big disappointment if you ask my opinion.
If I were able to run Zwift while the macbook is powered, I would be able to continue using clamshell mode but now I cannot. (When lid is closed, if you unplug the laptop, secondary monitor is disabled. You need to open the lid.) And when unplugged, with the current battery health, I can ride about 2 hrs max, and the battery dies.
I wrote this post exactly for you @Baris_O
I used to use an intel macbook and it after 3 mins you could cook an egg on it running zwift, it eventually overheated my logic board and now i have an M1 MBP.
When you unplug the power the app is limited to 30fps and thats why it doesnt over heat as badly (using max battery saving)
Anyway, Hope that helps you out.
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