Gaming on Mac in 2024

Edited by:

Chapter Titles
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0:00 Hello and Welcome
1:02 Can Macs game?
2:11 The Game Porting Toolkit
3:08 The pitch to switch
4:08 Opening the door
5:23 Potential
6:32 Even more potential
7:45 iPhone gaming?
8:45 Snapdragon hype
9:50 Windows gaming is still powerful
10:45 What do you think?

[tamalchakraborty]

Macs can game now, and Windows can have a sleep mode.

Wow, what a time to live in.

[danielatk]

I have a Windows PC I built for gaming but I have a M1 MacBook air for school which is perfect for what I need. I think sticking with Windows for gaming for now is the best bet, especially since you don't have to worry about emulation or abstraction layers.

[tanvir.m]

so you have a macbook right there, why not actually try gaming on it instead of exchanging theories?!? legit clicked on this video thinking that’s what you guys were going to do

[Leprechaun]

I've gamed on my Mac for well over a year now, with things like CrossOver and more and more games coming to Mac, it is definitely becoming a good option.

[marcustmusic]

I've tried making gaming work on my M1 MacBook Air, while not a gaming beast, for the casual moments, that is where I think Mac gaming shines. I wouldn't go into Mac gaming thinking you can get full desktop RTX 4090 quality. I would also suggest getting a laptop or MacBook with a fan because after an hour or two, this computer gets warm to hot depending on the game. The best part about Mac gaming is having so much battery, that after a 1-hour session, you can still watch videos, browse the web, and still have battery leftover.

Edit: I since test the game porting kit. And they were right, I couldn't get it to run on my M1 MBA. However Steam(and the Mac App Store) has games you can play.

Tomb Raider games work fine, might run hot but can be played.
Inside runs incredibly well and at a locked 60fps.
Borderlands 2 runs incredibly well, you may have audio switching issues with headphones and the mute button doesn't always mute.
BTD 6 runs very well. No issues so far.
Minecraft Java runs decently. May get hot after an hour and good luck with mods.

And that's the games I was able to download and play with my storage, probably ~40gigs of games and my system has very little issue with these.

[markus_scott]

I’m just waiting for the Apple TV to get a M2/M3 chip. A small gaming box should be the goal

[storiesofindiana]

I'm currently playing WoW's new expansion on my M1 mini. It has a 1tb SSD and 16 GB RAM. So far it's been super smooth, holding at 60FPS which is all I need.

[parshvaaa]

I can see Apple beefing up the Apple TV and using the Apple Arcade platform to release AAA games and almost turning it into a console. Imagine the fluidity you can have with iCloud and gaming across devices.

[donjames]

windows 11 annoys the hell out of me all the Ads and i bought my copy of windows 11. all the bloat the updates reverting my settings. i bought a mac mini and never looked back as a photographer im really loving it. and pixelmator is awesome. i've always had a PlayStation for gaming

[trollpotatoe]

gaming on macs aren't targeted to hardcore gamers, they're targeting those casual gamers to try AAA games on the mac and keep them in the apple ecosystem. that's the main purpose.

[joeseabreeze]

I don't think Apple realizes how much of an advantage they'd have over Microsoft if they were able to support most Windows games at equivalent fps with the proper hardware. With Microsoft edging into the subscription model for Windows, many gamers will absolutely consider switching to Linux (Proton). However, if Apple can compete with Proton in both game support and performance (and possibly offer other gamer-friendly incentives), many of those Windows gamers would choose macOS over Linux. This would also retain their existing user base and the word would spread. Their market share would increase year after year until Microsoft is considered a useless dinosaur, and then game devs would start targeting macOS/Linux (POSIX) over the proprietary MS/Windows

[DaTravBoo]

I installed Linux Mint on my living room PC. Can play pretty much any single player game that I want to play. I dual boot my bedroom gaming PC. Only because I play some online games that don't run on Linux. But I definitely prefer the Linux experience. No bloat ware. Easy setup nowadays. No ads.

[antieatingactivist]

It's amazing how many people in the comments are getting worked up over there mere mention of this.

[MrPatonMarshall]

I love my M2 MacBook Air but it gets HOT and throttles when I try playing basic games. I think ultimately they’ll adopt a small form factor of silent cooling, like the frore units, and they’ll be damn near perfect.

[NightFoxZero]

I played Tomb Raider (2014) on my M1 MacBook Air and the performance was surprisingly good. But the keyboard gets insanely hot AND I will never recommend Apple computers simply for the fact that storage is NON UPGRADEABLE. What snapdragon with the Arm based laptops having expandable storage on the boards just proves yet again Apple is forcing stupid BS down people's throats and making them spend 3 to 4x the price for normal amounts of storage capacity

[yomamasushi]

I have a ps5 so I don’t care much about running modern titles on MacBook but retro gaming is awesome on Mac, I’ve been enjoying ps2 and ps3 games on emulators and they run flawlessly.

[fizola]

My old laptop (i5 7400, 1050 4gb) was getting old and I was really deciding if MAC was and option, I usually play WoW, R6 Siege, Fortnite and so on and those are good on MAC... Still bought i5 14400, 4060ti 8gb, 32gb DDR5 and enjoying like... I have never seen this good graphics.

I alaready have M1 ipad Air and i14 pro so... getting like best of both worlds

[jakegibson]

If I could get a Mac mini for 1, 000 1tb and play all triple a games. Wipe my hands I’d never need a pc or console again

[zagohcap]

I just use geforce now. The power savings from not running a 600W+ PC probably pays for a good portion of the subscription, plus I don't have to pay to cool the room.

[arcadeportal]

With Linux Mint, honestly they should have a quicker install and experience then Windows. Takes usually one 10 minute YouTube tutorial video online on how to download Linux Mint, make a boot-able flashdrive and open your BIOS menu select and run the flashdrive "which is usually always F1, F12 or Delete on 95% of PCs". after that the installer like Windows takes care of the rest. You can even test drive the OS out before you even install it. Install Steam & Heroic from the built in Mint app store and your gaming & playing native Linux & Windows programs, no command line. YouTube PLEASE FIX your comment system!