The Fallout series is a really good example of old games that, when played in a wrapper, inexplicably causes the fans on my 2011 MacBook Pro to spin up from pretty-much the get-go, and sit on almost full blast the entire time I play. This is in either windowed or full-screen mode, patched or unpatched, on its own or with other apps running.

So, before I cash in my shares and make that huge leap which is a $5.99 purchase for SMAX, could MacBook/Pro users tell me what kind of experience they have with their fans when running SMAX in windowed mode (using WINE's "Emulate a virtual desktop")?

If it is a potential problem, what changes do I have to make to either the wrapper or in-game settings to mitigate this?

I haven't tried it personally as I don't have a Mac, but if Fallout is able to that to your Macbook Pro then I wouldn't doubt Alpha Centauri would do the same.

I noted that SMAC took an usual amount of memory on a laptop I played it on, but I've never played it on a Mac. The only setting I am aware of that that can be changed would be an on/off switch in the ini related to voxels or something. You would have better luck asking on the http://alphacentauri2.info/ if anyone has played it on a Mac.

Could I request that only those who have actually played GOG's SMAX on a MacBook/Pro respond to this thread? I appreciate others may want to help, but there are far too many variables involved for anything other than specific experience to be of any relevance. I realise it's a very narrow question, but then Apple's laptops are very popular in the US so I don't think it's that unlikely someone will have direct knowledge of what I'm talking about.

Thanks :)

There are not that many people on this sub-forum, that is why I directed you to the http://alphacentauri2.info/ forum where there may be said Mac users. If you prefer to wait indetinifetely, you may receive your desired response at the end of time.

hi, I played it on my macbook air 2012, temperature raise a lot, fan at max speed.
So i searched trough the internet and I found its a common issue with old games, isn't related to the platform you play them on.
The point is they just push your cpu cycle to highest possible, wasting them and causing something like a 100% usage.
I tried for a couple of days to find a solution to this but if the dev themself doesn't adapt the game code to modern and more powerful architecture there is nothing you can do, beside using program that reduce the max usage of your cpu (and its something that i don't like mess with).
This is sadly the main reason why I don't buy old games anymore, and I wait for a good remake at some point, like the baldur's gate saga. With those kind of "bug" removed an old game its not more heavy that watching a video on youtube.

My macbook is 2008 first unibody, and one of the fans is dead. That being said, it has gotten a bit hot while playing. However, I figure it is due to only having one fan to cool it down (and perhaps age). It doesn't work as hard to run smac, fallout, or civ4 as it was when running civ5 (I no longer play on my macbook as it gets to be too much for it), but it does get hot.

I haven't checked the temp or the speeds while playing, but next time I launch a game up I'll look at it and try to remember to update my post here with the information.

Nonsense.
The simple fact that it happens only on Apple's laptops proves that it IS platform-related.

You are rude for no reason. Why introduce yourself like an 80' movie badass "Nonsense", not nice man, not nice.
It happens on every platform, the fact is that many apple user have notebook. You don't even notice a 100% cpu usage on a desktop where the heat is not a big deal.
As i stated before is a common issue with old games, you can search on the net its common knowledge, you will find answers about this also from the developers of wineskin.
The new version of BG for example have his code been polished and adapted to modern architecture and doesn't suffer from the same heavy cpu usage of the GOG version.

Sorry if you felt hurt, it wasn't my intention. No it does not.
It never happened on my PC with any of the games listed on this thread (Fallout, SMAC and Baldur's Gate), played through WINE.

I believe that the quality of his character consists in acknowledging the importance of GNU.

I'm not even kidding.

starting on gog,windows users:
http://www.gog.com/forum/fallout_series/fallout_2_maxing_out_cpu_usage/page1
http://www.gog.com/forum/planescape_torment/constant_100_load_on_one_core/page1
random general discussion:
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/8420/cpu-or-framerate-limiting-on-older-games
wine site:
https://www.google.it/search?q=cpu+usage+wine+site:forum.winehq.org&client=firefox-a&hs=Ndx&rls=org.mozilla:it:official&channel=fflb&biw=1375&bih=926

I don't really have the time for an accurate research but some of those link should change your mind, or at least make you less certain about your opinion.
have a nice day.

Well, at least you've had me run some tests.

While I never see 100% usage of a CPU core with any of those games, I've noticed some things going toward your way:
_CPU usage IS higher than it should be, even if it never goes up to 100% I can reach 70% with Baldur's Gate (bgmain.exe or something like this)
_to this CPU usage, I have to had something like 50% usage by the wrapper itself (WINE) (game and wrapper are two distinct processes)

What I still have to understand is: why do I not see CPU usage going up to 100% with these games?
The wrapper doesn't cap CPU usage, I can reach 100% with "heavy" games…

I don't know the answer but I'm going to investigate on this…
Hey, I might as well find some trick reducing CPU usage by accident ;)

Hey, us GNU users aren't really known for our diplomatic skills ;)

I just found cpulimit, an utility allowing to run processes while limiting them to a fixed CPU usage (in %). It should run on Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X.

I’m going to run some tests on a monocore laptop (1.6GHz), and I’ll come back to tell you how well it works.

https://github.com/opsengine/cpulimit

-----

Okay, I’ve just tried to launch Tropico (which usually takes 100% of the CPU on this laptop) limited to 50% CPU usage through cpulimit. It works as intended, with the process 'tropico.exe' being capped to 50% CPU usage. On top of that I have to add the WINE overhead of roughly 10~15%.

The test has been done on a Debian GNU/Linux, I’ve no Apple computer to try it with OSX.

an interesting find, would be really nice to have this functionality in wine itself ( a man can dream).
I've found something similar in the past but it limited the whole cpu and I didn't like the idea, while in this case is just one process, and seems cool.

maybe i will give it a shot in the future, will wait a bit until Yosemite relese anyway.