Problems With MacBook Pro 16" [ Edited ]

[pcjr_ea]

My specs: 

MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019), 2.4 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9, 64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB running Catalina 10.15.7.

I've had my logic board (basically the entire computing infrastructure) replaced twice in the past 3 months. My graphics problems continue.

I keep Activity Monitor running at all times on my internal display and play Magic Arena on my LG UltraFine external display. My first symptom of a problem is the system freezes (other than mouse movement), the seconds stop ticking on the clock. When the system starts responding again (usually within a minute), in the GPU History, the AMD Radeon Pro has become inactive and remains so until after a reboot. I don't experience graphics artifacts in this situation.

The problem is worse when I use Parallels to run Magic Arena. Here the graphics include flashing shards and other display issues. The system eventually freezes up and, after a few minutes, reboots itself.

I'm pretty certain the AMD hardware is the problem. I can play fine on a 5 year old MacBook Pro with a lot less power.

I've been researching this issue for a few weeks. So far I have not found any solutions. Going to contact Apple Support again.

Edit: I updated my Display preferences from Scaled/More Space to one less. After playing for half an hour, no problems occurred. Probably still need to play some more.

[Bluebellflora]

@RouenSims

Thanks! I've added your suggestion to the OP

[Bluebellflora]

@karaz01

It's your 16" MacBook Pro, they don't run the game well. I've merged your post into this ongoing thread. Please see the opening post and the solution on page 1 for suggested workarounds that have helped others.

[pcjr_ea]

I know its my 16" MacBook Pro, but I believe the root cause is the AMD graphics. My 5 year old MacBook Pro with a quarter the RAM has no problems running the game.

[Bluebellflora]

@pcjr_ea

Yes you're right, it is the GPU or most probably a driver issue with the GPU. Would be interesting to see how the game performs in Boot Camp on your Mac. Parallels uses it's own poor performing drivers but Windows drivers would be interesting to compare against. You should be able to install them after installing the Apple Boot Camp drivers.

[pcjr_ea]

@Bluebellflora 

I hadn't thought about trying bootcamp. However, after further reflection, I don't think I want to try that route. If that were to be part of my solution, I'd just buy a cheap Windows machine!

I've played a couple hours since reducing my scale factor and haven't had any issues. But, I don't think that's enough of a test.

One other thing, I didn't have any problems when I first purchased this laptop (shortly after it was released in 2019). I was able to play for months. I'm not sure when the problem began, probably Fall of 2020. Does this imply an Apple OS upgrade broke something?

[Bluebellflora]

@pcjr_ea

Yeah, that's what the majority of the people in this thread have reported. The game works fine and then a game update seems to just break it

[louismck98]

I’ve just tried to play my sims game (I haven’t been on for months so don’t know if this issue is known) and managed to get into the game but I had transparent floors so could see all the way through the house and to the terrain. After playing for a few minutes my game crashed and now I can’t get passed the load game button in my chosen world. 

I’m playing on late 2019 MacBook Pro 16inch. 

[louismck98]

@louismck98 I don’t have any mods, have deleted my saves and repaired the game and this has not helped just fyi

[Bluebellflora]

@louismck98

It's your Mac and the game, they don't play well unfortunately

I've merged your posts into this thread. There are various suggestions in the opening post on page 1 and a workaround in the solution too.