Cyberpunk 2077 Like a solo network guy, on MacBooks, take the kind of shaky brave night city you expect. Knowing that you can run the graphics strength game of CD Projekt Red, you can mark the device’s ability to play AAA titles, even if not at the Ultra Peak settings. If you missed it, Cyberpunk Now on Mac, I’ve tested it on Apple M-series laptops in the past few years. The good news is that it is playable, but for many Apple fans, it will be their first real taste of flavor graphics options and flooded frame rate data like regular PC gamers. Welcome to the party and choose.
I was impressed with how the game works on the Nintendo Switch 2 because the developers put in extra effort to get AI upgrades to remove small environment details that would hinder the CPU. The game runs in handheld mode and at 1080p when docked. However, the changes in the Mac ecosystem are far different, and CD Projekt Red will not create different versions of the game for each size and chip. Although gamers can expect relative consistency on the console, the Mac version is essentially the PC version of the game. Apple insists that the game defaults to the “For This Mac” graphics preset. In all the systems I tested, the default setting pushes the resolution downward for consistent gameplay. This is the worst way to play the game.
On the M4 MacBook Air 13, its 2,560 x 1,600 resolution display, Cyberpunk Automatically reduces resolution to 1,170 x 1,068. The game plays on a medium setup without ray tracing and manages to squeeze out over 40 fps in the benchmark. The lower resolution is combined with the MetalFX upgrade, which frames the frame at a lower resolution and converts it to better. This keeps the frame rate at playable levels. Without MetalFX, you will work hard to reach 30 fps in these same environments. If you raise your resolution to locals, you may struggle to meet the playable 30 fps in most scenarios.
Apple’s basic settings also enable Vsync, which sets the maximum FPS to 30. If you plan to play games on your Mac, this is the first thing to do. With Vsync turned on and set to 30 fps, the game feels floating and blurry in visuals, as if the player character is a drunken stumbling block after a long night. It is worth mentioning that for smooth gameplay, the frame rate dropped to the 20s. That being said, the game doesn’t look half bad even on the $1,200 MacBook Air with a 10-core GPU, even with the resolution and zoomed mud texture and creates a weird Visual Pop-In where objects or details in the game appear as you get close.
Older MacBooks with non-Pro-class M-series chips may be immersed in the graphics settings, and if you can actually play it, you can lower the resolution. The previous models of the MacBook Air have only a minimum specification of 8GB, and these models don’t work Cyberpunk fundamental. The M1 MacBook can technically run games, but at a low resolution of 900p. In the $1,600 MacBook Pro 14 with the M4, things aren’t much better. It has a resolution of 1,800 x 1,125, and if you try to go to native 3,024 x 1,964, you will find that the frame rate is not consistent enough with the medium settings. On the M3 MacBook Pro 14, Apple sets the resolution to the same resolution as the M4, but it expects you to play on most settings that are set to low. In my tests, I found that you should still be able to handle medium graphics with this Mac.
Whether it is low-end or high-end chips, Apple will set low resolutions. After many tests, I found that the minimum gaming you want is one of the latest Macs, which includes Pro-grade chips, such as the $2,500 MacBook Pro 16 for the M4 Pro. Apple and CD Projekt Red set “This Mac” to 1,728 x 1,080 to 60 fps gameplay, but there is no ray tracing, but the benchmark results set the actual Uncapped frame rate to 70 fps. Turn on Ray Tracking to Ultra and set to 1200p, with less than 60 fps in gameplay. Even at 4K, you can still reach playable frame rates, although you need to accept gameplay below 40 fps and minimal ray tracing. I’m not testing Mac Mini and using M4 Pro Cyberpunk 2077;Its performance may be more limited. The device’s M4 Pro version is $1,400 compared to the 20-core GPU on the MacBook Pro.
So now that Mac has more games you might want to play, can MacBook be your next mobile gaming rig? It depends on how much you are willing to spend. When I reviewed it in 2023, my M3 Max Macbook Pro 16 (sented to me by Apple) was $4,000 and it would still be Cyberpunk At 60 fps at 1440p, ray tracing is enabled. For the top end, you need to find the M4 Max or M3 Ultra Chip only on Mac Studio. The maximum value for these devices is 14 cores M4 $2,000. The 60-core GPU on the M3 Ultra Mac Studio requires $4,000 on the basis. As good as previous M-series Macs, only the latest and more expensive models can provide the experience you can get with your current console or gaming PC.
Apple’s main concern should be how it will provide these graphics options if it continues to push Macs and games. The “For This Mac” graphics options pretend to be easy to get into the game, but they make the game feel much worse than you adjust the settings yourself. Even if Apple wants to make it easy for a regular Mac owner, it shouldn’t be the norm of the future. Apple fans will have to suffer in their graphics settings like other PC gamers.
