Factorio Forums

1. More or less just arrived on Vulcanus via my first ship.
2. Ever since I podded down, I experience INTENSE lag when not completely zoomed out, but not constantly. Can't for sure say I've found a correlation somewhere.
3. Game keeps playing as usual. I hadn't had any performance issues up until then (since Metal support happened, OpenGL issues were very similar - had extreme lag during certain main menu scenes, chiefly Gleba ones).
4. It's systematic. Alleviates when completely zoomed out.

Not quite sure why I wouldn't be able to run the game at max settings, honestly; the CPU and GPU should be fairly able to support it, afaik.

Some specs: running macOS 10.14.6, CPU: 3.6 GHz Intel Core i9, GPU: Radeon Pro Vega 48 8 GB


EDIT: Seems like kernel_task was busy with ??? when I made this and the screenshots. It's not now and game's fine now. My bad.

It seems the system as a whole is struggling in that instance, it is not one thing that suddenly takes longer, everything does. I'd start by checking temperatures and updating drivers.

Loewchen wrote: Sun Mar 01, 2026 6:07 pm It seems the system as a whole is struggling in that instance, it is not one thing that suddenly takes longer, everything does. I'd start by checking temperatures and updating drivers.

It's a mac, you don't, uh, update drivers, really. Temperatures are Normal for a demanding game (mostly 30s-50s, GPU diode high 70s or thereabouts) on an iMac, afaik.

...Never mind, ig. I'm on Vulcanus atm and everything's working fine.

I noticed that when I posted this thread, kernel_task was intensely busy; now it's back to 1-3% instead of 150+...

Circumstantial bullscheißery, ig. My bad. Changing the thread title to reflect this.


EDIT: Turns out kernel_task is used to throttle the PC when it gets too hot... which is BIZARRE because after HOURS of running the GPU is 75 and 84 right when starting. I've started fiddling with CPU/GPU balancing options to distribute the load more off the GPU and onto the CPU (since the CPUs are cooler than the GPU diode).