The Mac simply acquired among the best video games of the final decade. Cyberpunk: 2077 could have had a number of technical points when it was first launched 4.5 years in the past, however the formidable open metropolis, memorable story, and excessive manufacturing values helped avid gamers hold in there. Their persistence was rewarded with a slew of patches to repair issues, re-balance sport methods, add quality-of-life options, and extra.
Now, coinciding with patch 2.3, Cyberpunk: 2077 is lastly obtainable for the Macâon the App Retailer, Steam, and Epic Video games Retailer. So how effectively does it run? Is the sport price your money and time?
Efficiency is simply OK
First, when youâre working the macOS 26 beta, you may as effectively not trouble with Cyberpunk: 2077 proper now. The menus load effective, however the sport runs in a garbled damaged state. The sport will get an replace to help new Steel 4 options (MetalFX Body Interpolation and Denoising) to go together with macOS 26 later this yr.
On macOS Sequoia 15.5 I examined the sport on a Mac Studio with an M1 Max and 32GB of RAM, and a high-end Mac mini with the 14/20 core M4 Professional, 48GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. Thatâs a $2,200 configuration. I even have an getting older Home windows gaming PC with a Ryzen 9 5950X, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Tremendous, and 32GB of RAM; a system with related specs in the present day would additionally value round $2,200 with a more moderen and sooner CPU.
Cyberpunk on the Mac features a useful âFor This Macâ graphics preset that has optimized settings for each Apple Silicon configuration. On the Mac Studio with M1 Max, that meant largely Medium graphics settings, with 1080p decision and MetalFX dynamic decision scaling set to a goal of 60 frames per second. Turning off vsync, the built-in benchmark produced a mean of 73 frames per second, however the sport seemed fairly unhealthy. Bumping up the decision to 1440p helped lots and bumped the common to about 58fps, however I nonetheless wouldnât need to play it this fashion.
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Itâs fairly exhausting to wind up with settings that look good on a desktop monitor and run at round 60 frames per second on this older Mac. So what in regards to the M4 Professional Mac mini?
The âFor This Macâ settings on the M4 Professional bumps the whole lot as much as prime quality settings with medium crowd density, no ray tracing, and a 1080p 60fps goal. It seems lots cleaner, and runs at 69fps. I might even enhance the decision as much as 1440p, which sharpens the picture up fairly a bit, and get 63fps. That also leaves a number of visible high quality on the desk, nevertheless it seems and runs effectively sufficient to offer an excellent general expertise.
Turning on ray tracing, even the RT Medium preset (which is excessive element settings and just some added ray tracing choices) slows issues to a crawl. At 1440p the benchmark ran at 29fps. At 4K decision and Extremely settings (no ray tracing), I acquired 18fps. Itâs a uneven unplayable mess.
In the event youâre questioning how a equally priced PC runs the sport, my GeForce 4070Ti Tremendous-equipped system ran over 88fps at 1440p with the RT Medium preset. I can run the Extremely preset at 4K, with no ray tracing, at 82fps, whereas the souped-up M4 Professional Mac mini chugged alongside at 18fps. Apple is not less than thrice slower than a equally priced Home windows field, and generally worse.
Itâs nonetheless an incredible sport
Itâs a story we find yourself telling each time a giant sport involves the Mac: Home windows PCs have had this sport for years and run it a number of occasions sooner than a Mac of the identical value.
In case your iPhone acquired the newest sizzling sport six months after all of the Android telephones, whereas working it 30 % slower, youâd name Apple a failure. In terms of gaming on the Mac, a six-month delay and 30 % efficiency penalty could be an enormous enchancment over the place issues are in the present day.
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Nonetheless, when you havenât performed Cyberpunk: 2077 but and you’ve got a contemporary, high-power Mac (an M3 Max or M4 Professional not less than), it’s effectively price your time. Itâs an unimaginable world and unforgettable story, with deep, diversified, polished gameplay that affords you numerous freedom. With stellar artwork design and years of graphics updates and tweaks, it seems implausible. It simply takes a strong and costly Mac to run it easily sufficient, with excessive sufficient settings, for all of that to shine by way of.
Weâll have a more in-depth have a look at Cyberpunk: 2077 efficiency on the Mac later this yr after the discharge of macOS 26 and the patch that provides help for Steel 4 options, hopefully with some new Mac {hardware}.
Learn our full evaluate of Cyberpunk: 2077 on the Mac, in addition to our finest Mac Video games characteristic.
