A solution to lag/throttle in bootcamp games with Macbook Retina 15" and R9 M370X

Say good-bye to the insane GPU throttling and horrible gaming performances with your 2'500$ 15" Macbook Pro retina and bootcamp, finally !

The problem

For some reason, some very specific Macbook retina, at least with my specs (Mid-2015, 15", 2.5 Ghz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2GB, running Windows 10 in Bootcamp) really does a crappy job and drops FPS like crazy with many different drivers (original bootcamp or AMD's official bootcamp, or even the mxdrivers or bootcampdrivers.com ones).

It's a very sad thing to see your favorite game run fine for one minute or five, then to have the FPS drop below 10 and never go back up... Really bad throttling that I believe is unnecessary (so far in my tests, once I fixed the throttling, the GPU never went hotter than 83°C and the CPU only maxed once at 90°C). Your default "Intel GPU" and Radeon M380X usually run at 300 / 300 Mhz frequency in low-power consumption "mode" (hence when you're browsing and doing desktop stuff) and should go up to 800 / 1125 mhz when you game... But it seems to throttle up and down to keep the GPU and CPU temp low, which creates a NASTY gaming experience...

I've found may forums and posts talking about this, on apple's official forums, reddit, etc. but didn't find a 100% clean and clear fix to it all. After many many hours spent playing around with it, looks like I found a solid solution (and haven't fried my beloved Macbook Retina)... at least, it's working for me, so give it a shot !

The Solution

You need to tweak a few things to get this to work. But once you've set it up, and runs pretty damn smooth and you'll finally be able to "game" with that expensive apple gear. Here the steps that made it happen for me :

1. Use MSI Afterburner to fix the frequency rate of your GPU
2. Use Throttlestop to make sure step1 is going to stick (optional : not needed for everyone!)
3. Fix Windows 10 (or windows8, 7, vista, 98 haha) power settings & stay plugged-in
4. Use the best driver around (which means non-apple but bootcamp ready)
5. Monitor your CPU / GPU temp at all times, just for safety

STEP 1 - Forcing frequency rate with MSI Afterburner

Download MSI Afterburner, install and reboot if required.
Launch the app and go to settings and set them up like this:

Press OK and reboot if required. Then re/launch the app and set your Clocks to a few mhz higher than the standard "heavy GPU usage" setting :

Core Clock : 801 mhz (instead of 800)
Memory Clock: 1127 mhz (instead of 1125)

Once its set, don't forget to apply this by clicking the "tick" button... Also, I'd make it a profile preset so that you save time, as you must re-apply this manually ever time you restart you computer.
Oh and be carefully, with the settings set this way, you could damage/fry your computer by trying silly shit. I read your computer should shut off automatically when overheating to prevent this,  but hey you never know how many times that'll save your ass, so use with caution.

STEP 2 - Throttlestop (this helped me, but some may not need this step)

Download and install Throttlestop (8.30 works a charm for Windows 10).

Disable BD PROCHOT and make sure you TURN ON the thinggy. Once set it should look like this :

STEP 3 - Unleash the kraken Windows 10 power settings, & stay plugged-in

Winblows tends to hold the juice back, for power saving reasons (might be because of our "Apple Frankenstein Windows 10 gaming laptop" but I dunno). To fix this, first set power savings options and also enable multiple cores usage.

A. Power Options set-up:

In Windows 10, search for "Power Options" and open it up. Set it up to "High performance" then click "Change Plan Settings". This should be enough, but if you want to double check : Go to "Change Advanced Power settings", and make sure you're settings are as followed

B. Enable multiple CPU cores 

- Use the "Run" command (Windows + X) and type in : msconfig

- Press OK then in new window go to "Boot" tab
- Go to "Advanced Options"
- Tick "number of processors" and select the maximum amount (8 in my case)
- Click "OK", "Apply", all that jazz and then reboot

STAY PLUGGED-IN 
It gets even worse when you try to game whilst on battery : I've been unable to play with graphic-demanding games when on battery... yeah seems like our Macbook Retina doesn't have enough juice to fully power the CPU + GPU. So simply keep that electricity flowing in and you should  be fine.

STEP 4 - Use optimal driver

Apple's Bootcamp drivers should be OK, but I've noticed slightly higher FPS (and compatibility with Vulcan and other technologies) with tweaked AMD Radeon Drivers. Some people go with mxdriver.com, I prefer the ease of use of bootcampdrivers.com. Follow the install instructions  (and check compatibility list) carefully to make the install "clean".

STEP 5 - Monitor your GPU & CPU temp

The macbook pro retina is an expensive toy, so I'd definitely recommend monitoring the temp of both your CPU and GPU, since we're kind of forcing both of them to perform well. If you're in a hot room, you might want to help you computer out by forcing the fans to go full-speed the whole time, for this simply use Macs Fan Control. I've tried playing around with it, but in the end didn't notice much difference (your Mac will kick in full Fan mode pretty quickly when you're gaming, and since they'll be rotating at their max speed... well it's gonna be the same cooling result after a while).

I'm using MSI Afterburner to monitor the GPU and CPU... I basically will try to push the graphics settings in a game to their max, and play for a while (about an hour) while minimising the game and checking how the GPU and CPU temps are using the graph.

Definitely don't force these tweaks and settings if you're computer shows graphic artefacts and suddenly shuts down. That would be a big warning that you're pushing it. But then again, this still HAS NOT happened to me once... and I'm finally a happy camper, playing games that won't throttle and go down to 10fps

Happy "gaming" dodes !

Josh

DO NOT TRUST Amboro Tours (Santa Cruz, Bolivia) - An open letter of a horrible experience

This is an open letter about our horrible experience with Amboro Tours. I couldn't publish this on TripAdvisor because they don't accept reviews for trips/expeditions that are +3 days or are tailor made.

Summary

Amboro Tours based in Santa Cruz (Bolivia) is a very unethical company that will rip you off. The owner (Marcos Velasco) is a liar and a thief. 

DO NOT TRUST THIS AMBORO TOURS from Santa Cruz de la SIerra, neither for AMBORO PARK or NOEL KEMPFF MERCADO or any other tours. They are NOT HONEST... and their prices are WAY WAY TOO EXPENSIVE anyways, especially for Bolivia.

The Full Story (All of this really happened)

We (4 guys 28-35 years old, from Switzerland) worked over two years on a crowdfunding to get us to do an expedition to Noel Kempff Mercado, precisely we wanted to reach Laguna Chaplin and a couple other sites in the park (that are really hard to get to). This whole expedition (3 weeks in the jungle, fairly long trip, in august/september 2015) would be filmed the whole time (in order to make a movie about it) which means carrying a lot of video gear and different equipment.

Amboro Tours (which is "only" one guy named Marcos and his assistant, website is www.amborotours.com) said they could get it done for a certain price (very expensive for Bolivia, but we couldn't find anyone else who could help us get there). 

We did a small "test" by having them organise a first SMALL expedition (7-8 day) in Amboro Park to see how well they did their job. This first expedition went very well : the guides and carriers were helpfull and got the job done (even though one of the "professionnal carriers" was over 60 years old and wearing thongs are we were rock climbing through rivers... didn't seem like that's what he really did for a living). We got fed very well, felt like they were taking care of us, etc.

Since that small trip went well, we now trusted Marcos and Amboro Tours. This was a big mistake. 

Our main expedition did not go as planned :

- We had asked for at least 9 men/carriers to carry our video-gear cases/bags and only got 5 (of course, Amboro never warned us that the missing men wouldn't show up... this was a total suprise and we were already too deep into our expedition to contact him and discuss anything)

- We had been promised 2x guides and a cook : we only had one "true" guide who didn't lead the other carriers/bolivians (NO leadership or CONTROL over them whatsoever) and couldn't cook near the end because he was too tired to do so (over 10 hours of walk)

- We expected professionnal machete guys ("pika's") to open the 28km in the jungle and basically had 2-3 very capable "gardeners"

- Some of our gear arrived late (the 2nd airplane didn't make it on the day it was supposed to... ) and because we were missing men/carriers we had to leave almost half of our video gear behind

- Some of the food was also left behind, we ended up being pretty hungry by the end of the trip (eating one piece of bread in the morning, and one piece at lunch... at night, some of the "guides" didn't know how to cook so we had to use our "emergency" lyophilized-food rations)

- Because of these reasons, we couldn't film the way we were supposed too and this jeopardised our movie and projet (2 years of hard work)

-  Because of these reasons (we didn't have the amount of men we had planned and paid for), we ended up lacking water and feeling exhausted to a point where it got fairly dangerous (we indeed DID have the choice to walk back to a river, but our goal was to reach the laguna)

- We had discussed with Amboro Tours some small airplanes to go to our first destination, and back. Near the end of the expedition, when we called Marcos (Amboro Tours) over a satellite phone, he wanted us to travel back by car (which is a 2 days trip versus 2 hours via airplane) with no valid reasons. We had to threaten to sue to finally get the plane back...

- When we got back after 16 days in the jungle, at one of our basecamps, we realised Marcos (from Amboro Tours) had moved ALL the video-gear (and the food) we had left there... He moved it 20kms away from there, without permission or asking !!!

- Amboro Tours lacked to clearly inform us of what was going on in terms of logistics (transportation, carrying/moving our gear, etc.) during the expedition. Before, the emails we exchanged with them were fine & went well

Conclusion

For all the trouble and the men/carriers/guides we didn't get for that we had originally dealt (and paid for, in advance) we asked Amboro Tours for a refund when we got back. Unfortunately, not only did they refuse, but they filmed us with an amateur camera while waving the contracts at us and even asked us for some more money. This was extremely disappointing and a totall scam when you do the math (how much we paid for what we got in terms of manpower, food, transportation and logitistics). We got ripped off and couldn't do anything about it. Marcos from Amboro Tours ended up calling us "little boys who need to go back to our mothers" and kicking us out of the office (while threatening us that they could prevent us from "leaving the country" if they wanted), when all we wanted was to discuss and find a solution. They are NOT professionals and it is very sad to see the way they reacted at all this, especially when you know they are the leading company of this kind of expedition/tours in Santa Cruz.

My advice

Don't trust Amboro tours unless you're doing a trip/tour they've done a dozen times. Make sure EVERYTHING is written and specified on the contract (How many guides, how many carriers, what time you leave and come back, who you go there jeep/carriage/plane, how much food for how many people, etc.). And don't even think you're going to pay the "right" price, we've discussed with the bolivians and the price Amboro Tours says they have to pay for a carrier/guide is absolutely NOT true. You pay an "european" price for a very "bolivian" expedition (where the bolivians with you are paid a bolivian fee). You've been warned.

Please note

This was a very exceptional and extreme (which means risky and uncommon) expedition we're talking about. Amboro Tours might be an OK tour company for some tourists, we just need to tell the truth about how poorly they did in our case and how bad + dangerous it got. You can find/read more about our story if you google "Objectif Sauvage" and go on our website...

Ou est VINCENTE ?

J'ai trouvé Charlie, sa frangine à lunettes, et son chien... et ce post va peut-être m'aider à retrouver un jour Vincente ! explications:

Lors de la fin de mon euro-trip, je me suis retrouvé coincé le dernier jour à Calais car il n'y avait plus de TGV disponible pour retourner sur Genève... et j'ai eu la chance de faire la connaissance de Vincente sur le Ferry qui faisait Douvres (Dover) - Calais.

Elle retournais chez elle de Canterbury pour faire la surprise à son père qui fêtait ses 50 ans.

Sans hésiter, elle m'invite à aller dormir chez sa famille pour une nuit ! J'accepte car je n'ai pas vraiment de meilleure solution (c'était ca ou payer un billet 1ère classe pour le TVG... donc hors de question).

Arrivé sur place, c'était la fête ! Pleins d'invités, que des gens que je ne connais pas et une super soirée (durant laquelle l'apéro a duré jusqu'a 23h00 !) . Le lendemain, Vincente et sa moumoutte m'ont même déposé à la gare de Lille.

Voilà, j'avais pris son email dans mon natel ("portable" pour les non-suisse) et ce dernier a été perdu par ma ptite frangine paske c'est une fêtard mais pire que moi [vodka au biberon, et j'en passe]...

Si un jour tu parcours le net, lis ce post et reconnais une Vincente de Lille (qui a une soeur jumelle) et qui a étudié à Canterbury : contact moi. Il serait dommage que je ne puisse jamais remercier une telle hospitalité spontanée.