I use a Mac Studio M1 Max for running X-Plane 12. At the same time, I use Navigraph Charts Deskop in full screen mode (which, in macOS, puts it on its own “space”). In this way, I can switch fast and easily between X-Plane (which is running on the main space) and Charts Desktop while flying.
The recently released macOS 14.0 Sonoma features a new “game mode”, which (in theory) assigns a higher CPU and GPU priority to the application running in this mode, in addition to reducing its bluetooth and network latencies. For an application engaging game mode, it must be running in full screen first, but, also, macOS should recognize it as a “game” (whatever that means).
Just after updating my Mac to macOS Sonoma, I found that the moment I launch Charts Desktop in full screen (as I always do), macOS Sonoma engages game mode. As a consequence, Charts would obtain a higher CPU and GPU priority, even over X-Plane! (which does not engage game mode itself because it does not run in full screen –although it does use all the screen–, but that’s another issue).
Game mode can be manually disengaged from macOS menu bar after launching Charts. However, I wonder why Charts automatically engages Sonoma’s game mode. It shouldn’t (even running in full screen) because, obviously, it’s not a game!
Maybe Charts Desktop developers can do something to stop being recognized by Sonoma as a “game”?
I can reproduce this, and I have no idea why it is doing that. Seems to cause some visual artifacts with the scale of our title bar as well…
This is not something that we have enabled, and I am not sure how we can disable it either. We’ll look into it as soon as we get the resources to do so!
AFAIK, Apple has not stated clearly what requisites should meet an application to be considered a “game” by macOS Sonoma, so then engaging automatically the game mode (apart from being executed in full screen mode). I run many non-game applications in full screen mode, and none of them have triggered the game mode, except Navigraph Charts.
I was wondering whether there exists some setting (in Xcode, for example) which might hint at being a “game”. I am not a macOS developer, so I don’t know; it’s only an idea.
I have found the reason why Charts is identified by macOS as a “game”, and then, when running it in full screen, Sonoma’s game mode is automatically activated: the cause is the LSApplicationCategory property, which Charts defines in its Info.plist file as public.app-category.simulation-games.
Thanks a lot! We have switched the category for the native apps, but we forgot about the desktop app.
I will try to make sure that this is fixed before the next release!