# \[Investigating\] Excessive CPU usage on macOS **URL:** \ **Category:** Bug Reports\ **Created:** [April 16, 2025, 2:11pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402 "2025-04-16T14:11:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![shaurz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shaurz](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/shaurz)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 2:11pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/1 "2025-04-16T14:11:43Z")
I noticed that PQ3 has very high CPU usage, even when just idling at a menu screen. It’s the only program that causes my M4 Macbook Air to become quite hot when running. Activity Monitor reports the process taking around 300% CPU usage. I also noticed when running the game on my Xbox One X it seems to stress the system more than much more graphically intense games, causing the fan to become quite loud. I took the liberty of profiling the game with Instruments and the culprit seems to be the Timer-Scheduler thread. It looks like this is a thread that dispatches timed events, but instead of sleeping until the next event arrives it appears to be a busy loop that constantly queries the current time - 43.3% of the CPU time in this thread is spent just calling mach\_absolute\_time() which is the macOS function to get the monotonic clock time. I think the developers should take a look in to the implementation and consider using sleeps to wait for the next event instead of busy looping which burns my lap and kills my battery life! ---
**Author:** ![shaurz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shaurz](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/shaurz)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 2:49pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/2 "2025-04-16T14:49:16Z")
A simple, quick fix might be to just put a small (e.g. 10ms) sleep in the loop, which would slightly reduce the accuracy of timers but greatly reduce CPU usage. ---
**Author:** ![00h00m](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/00h00m/32/3601_2.png) [@00h00m](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/00h00m)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 4:45pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/3 "2025-04-16T16:45:58Z")
I really admire that you have tracked this down. I hope the dev team will look into this. CPU usage and battery life have plagued this game from the very beginning. @Jeto, can you please pass this on? ---
**Author:** ![Swivel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/swivel/32/6207_2.png) [@Swivel](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/Swivel)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 5:28pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/4 "2025-04-16T17:28:49Z")
I gave up playing PQ3 on the PS4/PS4 Pro as the fans are louder than the runway at Gatwick. \*slight exaggeration. ---
**Author:** ![shaurz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shaurz](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/shaurz)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:05pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/5 "2025-04-16T20:05:22Z")
I really hope the devs can fix this. There’s no reason this game should be a CPU hog. It’s not doing realtime physics or simulating a massive open world environment - the core game logic could run on an 8088. Most of the CPU time should be sending rendering commands to the GPU and handling the network stuff. The main thread is only using about 25% of a CPU core and all the other threads are mostly idle. ---
**Author:** ![KenpoKid69](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/kenpokid69/32/4758_2.png) [@KenpoKid69](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/KenpoKid69)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:39pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/6 "2025-04-16T20:39:14Z")
Even after going into the settings - display and changing the graphic settings? From quality to performance and the target fps from 60 to 30 fps. ---
**Author:** ![Swivel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/swivel/32/6207_2.png) [@Swivel](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/Swivel)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 9:49pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/7 "2025-04-16T21:49:43Z")
Yep. Even after adjusting all settings. I’ve got 3 PS4 Pros and 2 OG PS4s and the fans ramp up drastically on all of them when playing PQ3. (I’m also extremely fastidious about keeping my kit clean and dust-free) On my PS5 and PS5 Pro the game runs fine and the consoles remain silent. ---
**Author:** ![KenpoKid69](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/kenpokid69/32/4758_2.png) [@KenpoKid69](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/KenpoKid69)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 9:51pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/8 "2025-04-16T21:51:23Z")
Wow so many, I’m jealous. I only have the one ps4 slim and its pretty old. ---
**Author:** ![Jeto](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/jeto/32/6326_2.png) [@Jeto](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/Jeto)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 10:39pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/9 "2025-04-16T22:39:41Z")
Anyone playing on **console** , are you using Performance mode or Quality mode? Since Performance mode should be less intensive on the system. As for your report @shaurz, do you know if you are playing an iOS version of PQ3 or the PC version, from Steam? _Just because if it’s a weird Apple App port to Mac, because we don’t officially support Mac, then that could have it’s whole own range of issues because it’s unsupported_ The `mach_absolute_time` is actually not something we have control over, and would be a weird Unity issue/interaction etc. But either way, I am following up what I can. ---
**Author:** ![KenpoKid69](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/kenpokid69/32/4758_2.png) [@KenpoKid69](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/KenpoKid69)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 10:45pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/10 "2025-04-16T22:45:43Z")
> [@Jeto](#): > > Anyone playing on **console** , are you using Performance mode or Quality mode? Since Performance mode should be less intensive on the system. Play on the PS4 and use 30fps and performance mode and it does help alot. One huge positive of the way the game is right now is when it does crash, you almost always go back to the moment you were at just prior to the crash or loss of internet or whatever, when you get back on afterwards. So losing out on something can happen, but its pretty rare. ---
**Author:** ![shaurz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shaurz](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/shaurz)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 11:51pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/11 "2025-04-16T23:51:37Z")
I believe it’s the iPad version. I installed it from the App Store. ---
**Author:** ![Swivel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/swivel/32/6207_2.png) [@Swivel](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/Swivel)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 5:47am UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/12 "2025-04-17T05:47:44Z")
> [@KenpoKid69](#): > > I only have the one ps4 slim and its pretty old. Considering the amount of time you invest in PQ3 you really owe yourself an upgrade Kenpo. The PS5 version is far more pleasurable to play purely because of the greatly reduced load times (and lack of fan noise). I really hate the term now that it’s so often used, but it _is_ a game changer. ---
**Author:** ![shaurz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shaurz](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/shaurz)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 6:50am UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/13 "2025-04-17T06:50:05Z")
I looked in to this further with regards to what APIs are provided by Unity, and `mach_absolute_time` is probably being called whenever the game accesses `Time.realtimeSinceStartup` or `Time.unscaledTime`. I wondered if Unity provided a built-in component for scheduling timers, but it appears this is not the case, so this loop is likely in the game code. ---
**Author:** ![MrMuddyPaws](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/mrmuddypaws/32/5924_2.png) [@MrMuddyPaws](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/MrMuddyPaws)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 11:27am UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/15 "2025-04-17T11:27:55Z")
I also run on playstation 5 and have 2 consoles, 1 original and the other a newer slim model. I can run performance / 60 fps very happily on the slim but have to drop this to 30 FPS on the original (old) model. Boss rush really stretches 💪😁 both consoles however I’m not as malicious as Swivel when it comes to dusting 🫣 ---
**Author:** ![Swivel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/swivel/32/6207_2.png) [@Swivel](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/Swivel)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 5:55pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/16 "2025-04-17T17:55:20Z")
> [@MrMuddyPaws](#): > > however I’m not as malicious as Swivel when it comes to dusting 🫣 My skin is itching just thinking about that dust. I do hope you wipe your muddy paws before touching that controller! ---
**Author:** ![daddy5003](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/daddy5003/32/5941_2.png) [@daddy5003](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/daddy5003)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 6:53pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/17 "2025-04-18T18:53:46Z")
I actually run my house AC at cooler temp when playing pq3. The ambient temperature appears to have an effect on the PS5 ability to remain cool. I do hear the fan from time to time, it is obnoxious lol. Not with The Show or COD do I have to hear the console fan so often and strong. I don’t like the idea of diminishing the quality of my gameplay visually, if it is a bandaid for bad game code as is suggested previously. I have done it too. PQ3 is the only game I have played and got an excessive temperature warning. Yes I play a lot, but not more or less than other games when I am into them. Anyways, I am hopeful the team can come up with a solution in time. They have been pretty good about implementing fixes so far. ---
**Author:** ![Jeto](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/jeto/32/6326_2.png) [@Jeto](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/Jeto)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 1:49am UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/18 "2025-04-22T01:49:25Z")
As mentioned for Mac users specifically, as Puzzle Quest 3 is not currently supported for Mac devices, especially when downloading the app version, there are likely issues that will stem from this that we won’t be able to address. The team is looking further into performance testing. ---
**Author:** ![daddy5003](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/daddy5003/32/5941_2.png) [@daddy5003](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/daddy5003)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 1:41am UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/19 "2025-05-14T01:41:44Z")
Any luck with development and PS5 fans running all the time? Summer is coming and Vegas is hot. It is only May, and I got a message about overheating again while playing PQ3. Any update would be appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Jeto](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/jeto/32/6326_2.png) [@Jeto](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/Jeto)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2025, 10:04pm UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/20 "2025-05-18T22:04:17Z")
> [@Jeto](#): > > Are you using Performance mode or Quality mode? Like I mentioned, this is the resolution for now - if you aren’t using these options, then you will continue to experience the fan ramp up. There are currently no updates on this, at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![daddy5003](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.puzzlequest3.com/daddy5003/32/5941_2.png) [@daddy5003](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/u/daddy5003)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 2:10am UTC](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402/21 "2025-05-24T02:10:16Z")
This is unacceptable. This game is not complex, it is very simple and should have code and servers that better support PS players. There is no reason I can play every other PS game like a maniac with no problem, but I play PQ3 for an hr and get a heat advisory warniing. It is ridiculous that I am expected to decrease my visual enjoyment playing the game, JUST SO I CAN PLAY IT!!! If this is the only solution, it is clear that Infinity Plus 2 is out of its depth. The code is bad and the servers for PS are clearly not capable of handling the load. I have heard stories of other games farming crypto coins without players knowing, and maxing out their systems causing them to overheat. Can you guarantee me that Infinity Plus 2 is not doing this and causing my PS5 to overheat? [Next page](https://community.puzzlequest3.com/t/investigating-excessive-cpu-usage-on-macos/5402.md?page=2)