The gap between Mac and PC is finally closing, but be careful before choosing a Mac as your primary gaming platform.
Macs have never exactly been gaming machines. For a long time, not only was the hardware lacking, but many developers never bothered to bring their titles to macOS. But the situation is now different with Apple silicon – the M-series chips are powerful, and there are new tools to easily port PC games to Mac.
But can a MacBook really handle demanding games? Technically it can, but there are many other factors you should consider before choosing a Mac as your gaming machine. Yes, the gaming landscape on macOS is much better now than it was six years ago, but there is still a big gap between Macs and Windows PCs.
What a MacBook can and cannot handle
Thanks to Apple silicon, the hardware is no longer the weak point of a Mac. If you have one of the latest Macs, like an M5 MacBook Pro, it will probably run most games just fine — including some big names you might not expect. Apple lists Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Dead Island 2 in the Cyberpunk 2077 like some of the titles a Mac can run natively. The list of Mac compatible games has grown a lot, with more and more titles coming to macOS alongside their Windows versions.
And even if your favorite game doesn’t have a macOS port, there can still be an alternative. Apple has created something called the Gaming Porting Toolkit, which helps developers port Windows games to macOS with native translations. Although this tool is intended for developers, anyone can use it to run PC games on a Mac with just a few lines of code. I used it for running GTA V on my M4 Pro MacBook Pro, and the results are pretty solid; I can get a steady 60 frames per second with high graphics settings. It’s not perfect and there are a few glitches here and there, but it works well overall for a game that translates to realtime.
If you’re not sure what games your Mac can run, it’s worth checking out MacGamingDB. This is a community-based website that provides compatibility details for thousands of titles, making it easy to quickly find out how your favorite game will work on a specific Mac model. It saves you a lot of time because you don’t have to download gigabytes of data just to find out that the game doesn’t work.
How to buy a MacBook, and when to look elsewhere
If you really want to play on a MacBook, the MacBook Pro is your best option. Even the base model with the M5 Pro chip and 24GB RAM gives you enough power to run the most modern games smoothly. If you need more, you can upgrade it with an M5 Max chip, which adds more RAM and a better GPU.
Of course, don’t expect a MacBook Neo to perform the same as the latest MacBook Pro line. Both the MacBook Neo and the MacBook Air have less powerful processors and no internal fan, making them less suitable for running demanding games. They can still run some titles, but the performance will not be ideal and you will have to lower the resolution and graphics settings a bit.
But if you’re serious about gaming, you should probably buy a PC instead. A Windows PC will probably cost you less for the same graphical power, and it will run all games natively without you having to worry about compatibility issues. You’ll also want to check out cloud gaming services like GeForce NOW or Xbox Cloud Gaming to stream games to your MacBook so hardware isn’t an issue. You just need a good internet connection.