[chimerax-users] Macbook Pro, fans, and ChimeraX

[Lewis James martin]

Thanks for checking, Tom. I updated to Ventura - no change. I've also
heard that M1 chips don't heat up very much. I guess it's just related
to having Intel chips, then, rather than anything to do with ChimeraX. 
Cheers
Lewis

On January 26, 2023, Tom Goddard <goddard at sonic.net> wrote:
> Hi Lewis,
>
>   On my I 2021 MacBook Pro M1 Max with macOS 13.1 if I open a large
> model and spin it in ChimeraX daily build I also see 200% CPU and
> about 36% GPU in Mac Activity Monitor.
>
> open 8dit
> show atoms
> roll
>
> But I never hear a fan, in fact I don't recall ever hearing the fan on
> this machine.  If I also use ambient shadows the GPU use goes up to
> 72% during the spin
>
> light full
>
> If I stop the spin (command stop) then the CPU use goes to 2% and GPU
> use to 1%. ChimeraX uses the GPU heavily for rendering graphics. I see
> the same CPU and GPU use for an old ChimeraX version 1.3. I don't know
> why ChimeraX is using 200% CPU. That is surprising. I suspect that
> reported CPU use is somehow misleading and it would be worth checking
> on Windows or Linux to see what they say the CPU use is. ChimeraX in
> general does very few tasks with multiple threads, and only one thread
> is rendering, so I think it is something peculiar about macOS that it
> is report 200% CPU use. Maybe using the GPU automatically engages a
> new CPU thread. I recall in years past CPU use was minimal (20%?) and
> GPU use depended on complexity of rendering (5 to 100%) for moving a
> model.
>
>   I had a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro and I recall its fans went crazy loud
> for no apparent reason, and it was not entirely predictable.  That
> machine failed in less than 2 years due to the display hinge cable
> wearing out.  I never figured out its loud fan issues.  I recall them
> going away maybe after some macOS update.
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>
> > On Jan 24, 2023, at 8:22 PM, Lewis James martin via ChimeraX-users
> > <chimerax-users at cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all, 
> > Ever since I got my Macbook Pro (16-inch, 2019, 2.3GHz 8‑core Intel
> > Core i9) I noticed the fans can go full bore for seemingly small
> > tasks. ChimeraX is one of those - swinging a protein view around is
> > enough to set them off, and Activity Monitor reports around 200%
> > usage for the "UCSF ChimeraX" process. I can see that GPU usage on
> > the inbuilt AMD Radeon Pro 5500M can get up to about 50%, too. The
> > bottom can get quite hot - it's Summer here now, but this happens in
> > Winter too. 
> >
> > A couple of questions:
> > - Is this expected (for ChimeraX, not generally)? Do other people
> > experience this? 
> > - Does ChimeraX use the GPU for rendering? If so, what's driving the
> > CPU spike when I move the protein on screen? Is it just from
> > calculating the coordinate rotations?
> >
> > Thanks, 
> > Lewis
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