Does gaming on Mac affect it's performance?

...is that better to plug the charger and stay in this situation(so it wont use battery)?

That is not guaranteed. Under extreme high-demand conditions—like gaming or using FCP—that tax both the CPU and GPU—the computer may need extra power and will draw it from the battery to augment wall power.

That was detailed in a very good Apple tech article that we lost during the "simplification" of such material at the Altar of Minimalist Design some years back. I have no reason to think that useful adaptation has been deleted from newer models.

Many 13-inch Macbook Pros have but one cooing fan. All notebook computers lack the big fans and open airways of a proper gaming computer. I lost my first Macbook Pro to overheating of the GPU during gaming.

Performance: the heat management system in your computer uses sensors to monitor the temperature of internal parts. If those start to heat up, the system signals the fans to increase speed to a level needed to maintain safe temps.

If that fails to reduce temps, then the processor may clock back to reduce heat production. In a worst-case scenario, the computer may shut down to save its brain. Constant exposure to high heat can reduce the service life of most components.

Like Servant of Cats. I and not sure of the current upper critical internal temp for Apple notebooks are. For years it was around 100°C/ 212°F.

Chill pads do not work well on Macbook Pros made since about 2009 (the "Unibody" form factor). Prior to Unibody models, the processor heat sink contacted the case bottom making the bottom of the case part of the heat dissipation system. Chill pads made a big difference.

However, on UniBody Macbook Pros, the logic board hangs from the upper deck and cooling the case bottom is far less effect.

Have you read this Apple article on Apple notebook computers and temperatures?:

Keep your Mac laptop within acceptable operating temperatures - Apple Support

Ambient room temps specs for operating the device are here:

MacBook Air (13-inch, M3, 2024) - Technical Specifications - Apple Support

We don't know your Macbook Pro model but I believe all share that Operating Conditions spec.

Batteries are consumables, so doing anything on battery power enough will eventually affect the battery, and the situation may even get to the point where you need to pay for battery replacement service.

About battery health management in Mac laptops - Apple Support

Aside from that, I'm not sure why you would expect playing games to affect the performance of your Mac one way or the other.

hesam29 wrote:

sorry but i have another question:

so according to what you said. is that better to plug the charger and stay in this situation(so it wont use battery)?

I don't know the answer to the question of whether plugging in the charger reduces wear and tear on the battery.

I would guess that if the battery is fully charged, and whatever you're doing is not using more power in excess of what you are getting from the wall alone, you are sparing your battery. But I don't know, and cannot give you any guarantees.

That might be a question for someone who knows more than I do – or for Apple, rather than for a fellow customer like myself.

hesam29 wrote:

i will be so happy if you anwer this question.

after gaming (or maybe using Final Cut Pro)my mac temp is going so high and the cpu load is a lot!

i mean whenever open 4 apps it goes upto 20% that its a lot!(before gaming it was only 15 or less)

and by opening only safari temp becomes to 70c!

i dont know if thats because gaming or i have an app that causes this.

(btw yesterday i installed obs and my cpu load was 40 and today i have the high cpu load problem and high temp

I don't know what normal temperatures are – but the more work your computer does, the more waste heat it is likely to generate.

Video editing is one thing that can push the processor hard. Whether your applications carry that out using the main CPU, or using specialized processing units (like the hardware video encoding and decoding units in many Apple Silicon processors).

With high-end 3D games, you're often making the GPU do a lot of work to do all of the calculations associated with rendering and updating scenes.

Allan Jones wrote:

Performance: the heat management system in your computer uses sensors to monitor the temperature of internal parts. If those start to heat up, the system signals the fans to increase speed to a level needed to maintain safe temps.

If that fails to reduce temps, then the processor may clock back to reduce heat production. In a worst-case scenario, the computer may shut down to save its brain. Constant exposure to high heat can reduce the service life of most components.

In their article on the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips – and the first Macs (14"/16" MBPs) to use them – Anandtech investigated power behavior.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performance-review/3

"Apple doesn’t advertise any TDP for the chips of the devices – it’s our understanding that simply doesn’t exist, and the only limitation to the power draw of the chips and laptops are simply thermals. As long as temperature is kept in check, the silicon will not throttle or not limit itself in terms of power draw."

Good info!