FPS drops and heating on MacBook M1 during gaming

FYI, You've posted this in the MacBook Neo forum.

That being said, thermal throttling would be the culprit here since the Macbook Air models do not have a dedicated fan. When the CPU gets hot on an M1 while gaming (or otherwise), the CPU throttles back to regulate it's temperature. Without an added fan to help cool things down, the CPU temps will stay high (and throttled) for a longer period of time until the load is reduced. That's the nature of the Air models.

tahirmehmoodkhokhar wrote:

I’ve been trying some casual gaming on my MacBook (M1, 16GB RAM), and I’ve noticed that while games start off running smoothly, after a while the performance drops and the device gets quite warm.

While the GPU in a "plain" M1 chip is faster than the Intel integrated GPUs in 13" Intel-based MacBook Pros, it isn't as fast as most dedicated GPUs.

I've noticed this even with lighter strategy and mobile-style games. For example, I recently looked into Stick War Legacy Mod APK after reading about some of its additional gameplay features on StickWarMods. Since it's not a graphically demanding game, it made me wonder whether the FPS drops I'm seeing are more related to macOS thermal management than the games themselves.

An APK is an Android package file. Macs do not run the Android operating system. So are you running this game within some sort of virtual machine or emulation environment?

SergZak wrote:

That being said, thermal throttling would be the culprit here since the Macbook Air models do not have a dedicated fan.

I don't believe that the OP told us whether they have a MacBook Air with a plain M1 chip, or a 13" MacBook Pro with a plain M1 chip. The 13" M1 MacBook Pro, a descendant of low-end 13" Intel MacBook Pros, was similar to the MacBook Air in many respects – but, unlike the Air, had a cooling fan.

Cn you please tell us if this is a Macbook Pro M1 or a Macbook Air M1. They have different cooling methods.