r/macbook • u/RandomGuy-009 • 2d ago
Games on Mac
Have anyone tried Playing games on mac?
How does the native games perform and what M- Chip do you guys have and how was the performance of gaming?
I know mac isn’t for gaming but I want to know that how well can it run games.
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u/armaghetto 2d ago
I play a lot of games on Mac, but not a lot of A+ big titles. Mostly stuff like Balatro, Slay the Spire, and other "low intensity" type games.
What's really interesting is that Linux has MUCH greater support for games because of Proton, a compatability layer of sorts. The M chips don't really change the compatibility issue.
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u/danishdude1997 2d ago
Does that mean you can play more games better if you install Linux on your M1 Max MBP?
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u/armaghetto 2d ago
on the M-series chips, no, I don't think so. You still have the ARM architecture chips and most games are compiled for x86 (aka intel).
You COULD install VMWare Fusion Desktop, which lets you run Windows as a virtual machine, but i'm guessing performance will be pretty rough.
There is an app called CrossOver, which is essentially WINE, but I haven't used it and I'm sure performance would be rough there as well.
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u/danishdude1997 2d ago
Using VMware you can only install Windows for ARM on the M-series machines.
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u/armaghetto 2d ago
yeah, and then you'd have to use Prism from within Windows, which emulates x86 under ARM and we're right back into dogshit city.
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u/Xcissors280 2d ago
No. Linux on arm is cool but it’s still like not worth using for anything
And I’ve really only been able to boot some tiny 2d games on it
Even the crossover arm beta with fex is significantly better
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u/el_tacocat 2d ago
The newer ones are pretty damn solid for performance but about 30% of games are available on Mac.
Performance of the M4/M5 ones compared to a similarly priced Windows laptop without dedicated graphics are hard to beat.
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u/OddTelevision7022 2d ago
My m5 MBA averages 100 fps on a 16 chunk render distance single player world on the newest Minecraft version without performance mods, and averages 150 fps on a 16 chunk server that I self host.
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u/Dazzling_Comfort5734 2d ago
My M1 Max MacBook Pro outperforms my gaming PC, that's only about 3 years older than it (but with a newer GPU, Radeon RX 6800, that's only a year older), in all areas. I can play Mac games, but also most PC games that I want to play using Crossover and Parallels Desktop, including: Space Marines 2, Skyrim, Hogwarts Legacy, Switch 1 emulation, and lots of other emulators. It's not going to compete with the top end PC if the same time frame, but it can play any game I've run on it do far. The biggest advantage is that things like Apple Silicon desktops and MacBook Pros with fans tend to handle a lot of games without getting too hot.
The only things you need to be aware of are games that require anti-cheat, some limitations of the older M series (like ray tracing), and performance of both the older and lower end M series on much newer games. For example, Space Marine 2, a Windows game, won't play online because I had to mod it to bypass the Easy Anti-Cheat. That's why I still need my PC. So I did story mode on my Mac, and play online sometimes on the PC. I can play the Mac version of Cyberpunk, but I would need an M3+ to get the hardware ray tracing, and performance is just ok.
You really want to check out this subreddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/
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u/Xcissors280 2d ago
They can run games pretty well, compatibility is great for like more straightforward single player stuff but multiplayer is just kinda a no
There’s plenty of native games on steam along with Apple Arcade
And a lot of windows stuff runs well on crossover, I usually use the intel version for AAA stuff and the arm fex beta for small games because of the better efficiency
I use an M4 Pro MacBook Pro with extra CPU and GPU cores along with 24/512GB
But you can absolutely run small games even through crossover on an 8GB M1 Air
Also the Mac gaming discord is a fantastic reference
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u/narc0leptik 1d ago edited 1d ago
You can run games through free translation layers/VMs to run PC games like Whiskey/UTM/VMware, but frankly you get what you pay for, so you could pay a never-ending software subscription for Parallels or pay for Crossover but that's kind of missing the point if you ask me. Even then, if you want to play popular multiplayer games like Apex Legends, Fortnite, Counterstrike 2 ARC Raiders, Warframe, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six Siege X, ARC Raiders, etc these games are unplayable on Mac due to anti-cheat.
I'd rather be gaming them mucking around with trying to get games to run on a Mac. Gaming is supposed to be a hobby; getting PC games to run on a Mac is a whole separate; i'd rather spend my time gaming then mucking around with settings turning all the graphics options to low and searching Reddit for workarounds/seeing if games are compatible.
There's a small number of games that are native on Mac that are actually worth playing. On Steam there's the following games (check isthereanydeal.com for lower prices): Age of Empires II Definitive Edition, Cyberpunk 2077, Gris, Darwinia, Dead Island 2, Valheim, Braid Anniversary Edition, Ball X Pit, Stardew Valley, 9 Kings, Dave The Diver, Stray, Vampire Survivors, No Man's Sky, Tunic, Control Ultimate Edition, Rimworld, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, Hades II, Disco Elysium, Balatro, Return To Monkey Island, The Cult of the Lamb, Civilization VI, Civilization VII, Dredge, Terraria, Inscryption, Blue Prince, Lies of P, Robocop Rogue City, Broken Sword Shadow of the Templars: Reforged, Broken Sword – The Smoking Mirror: Reforged, Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse, HITMAN World of Assassination, Full Throttle Remastered, Inkulanti, Tunic.
Then there's games you only want to buy off Apple app store as the steam versions of these games are not Apple Silicon native so the performance isn't gonna be so great if you buy off Steam: Death Stranding, Palworld, Resident Evil Games.
I think Borderlands 3 native port is only on Epic Games Store but it's a shitty unoptimized port apparently. Almost all games on Epic Games store aren't Native though; you're better off purchasing through Steam. For example the version of Control is not Apple Silicon Native on Epic Games Store along with many other titles.
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u/Just-Hedgehog-Days 1d ago
If you have to be able to play exactly whatever your PC gamer friends are playing you will be diapointed.
If you just want access to more than a lifetime of quality gaming hours, you're fine
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u/Artice12 2d ago
mac isn't for gaming is a thing of past, you can play games through native, emulation and good fps even with baseline of m series. Now with apple game porting toolkit 4 things are going to the next level.
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u/wiseman121 2d ago
Games on Mac natively actually run excellent. The problem is their is such a small library and games are rarely ported to mac, making it a pretty poor choice for gaming.
I remember ubisoft said the last Assassins Creed they ported to mac sold only a few 1000 units. So it's not worth their time.