Artifacts in game - how to solve a problem with graphic card? (MBP 2017, i5, 13" vs MBP mid-2014, i5, 13")

An Intel GPU isn't typically good for most games. Check the hardware system requirements for your game to see if this Intel GPU even meets the Minimum System Requirements. Ideally you want the hardware to meet or exceed the Recommended System Requirements. If the hardware only meets the Minimum requirements, then you will definitely need to turn down the graphical settings.

When playing a game you should make sure all other apps and login items are not running in order to have the best game experience possible for the hardware.

The newer laptops tend to behave a bit differently with their CPUs as well. The newer laptops run much hotter than the older laptops so if the fans run at high speed and the CPU temps go above about 100C it will throttle the CPU in order to get the temperature under control.

I don't think the issue is necessarily Apple. Here is a thread on the Steam forums mentioning the same issues which go all the way back to 2014:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/222880/discussions/1/458604254447481468/?ctp=4

A few of the more recent posts from around 2018 show some Windows & Linux users are also affected by the issue when using an Intel GPU. One post mentions that they cannot reproduce the issue so it may be due to specific graphics cards/chips. Maybe a slight difference in manufacturing or a slight defect in the Intel chip. The issue could be hardware related to specific manufacturing, it may have a driver component at fault as well, or even an issue with the Source engine.

You should also note that there is no mention of an Intel GPU on the System Requirements. Even if the integrated Intel GPU appears to be better than the minimum recommendations for NVidia and AMD GPUs the Intel GPU is not a discrete GPU so it has many more limitations. I never expect too much in the way of graphics performance or quality from an integrated GPU.

Another factor in the mix may be that some of the mitigations to protect against the Meltdown & Spectre vulnerabilities in the Intel CPUs (among other ones) may only be applied to the newer Macs/CPUs and not the older ones (or the mitigations may be slightly different). These mitigations can have an impact on gaming performance for a system that is already not meant to be a gaming platform.

Plus you may have some other piece of software installed on the newer Mac that isn't installed on the older Mac which is causing a problem.

It happens to all the large companies. They forget about actually serving their customers and they are hard to deal with individually. They think they know everything and they know better than the little people. I'm not a fan of the recent changes since about 2016. I'm just someone who happens to work with Macs and is required to support them.