The Mac simply bought the most effective video games of the final decade. Cyberpunk: 2077 might have had a number of technical points when it was first launched 4.5 years in the past, however the bold open metropolis, memorable story, and excessive manufacturing values helped players cling in there. Their endurance was rewarded with a slew of patches to repair issues, re-balance sport programs, add quality-of-life options, and extra.
Now, coinciding with patch 2.3, Cyberpunk: 2077 is lastly obtainable for the Mac—on the App Retailer, Steam, and Epic Video games Retailer. So how properly does it run? Is the sport price your money and time?
Efficiency is simply OK
First, if you happen to’re operating the macOS 26 beta, you may as properly not hassle with Cyberpunk: 2077 proper now. The menus load high-quality, 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 associate 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. That’s a $2,200 configuration. I even have an growing older Home windows gaming PC with a Ryzen 9 5950X, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Tremendous, and 32GB of RAM; a system with comparable specs in the present day would additionally value round $2,200 with a more recent and sooner CPU.
Cyberpunk on the Mac features a useful “For This Mac” 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 median of 73 frames per second, however the sport seemed fairly dangerous. Bumping up the decision to 1440p helped quite a bit and bumped the common to about 58fps, however I nonetheless wouldn’t wish to play it this manner.
CD Projekt Pink
It’s 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 concerning the M4 Professional Mac mini?
The “For This Mac” settings on the M4 Professional bumps every little thing as much as prime quality settings with medium crowd density, no ray tracing, and a 1080p 60fps goal. It appears to be like quite a bit cleaner, and runs at 69fps. I might even improve 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, however it appears to be like and runs properly sufficient to offer a superb general expertise.
Turning on ray tracing, even the RT Medium preset (which is excessive element settings and only a few 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 bought 18fps. It’s a uneven unplayable mess.
Should you’re 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 at the very least thrice slower than a equally priced Home windows field, and typically worse.
It’s nonetheless a terrific sport
It’s 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 bought the most recent scorching sport six months after all of the Android telephones, whereas operating it 30 p.c slower, you’d name Apple a failure. With regards to gaming on the Mac, a six-month delay and 30 p.c efficiency penalty could be an enormous enchancment over the place issues are in the present day.
CD Projekt Pink
Nonetheless, if you happen to haven’t performed Cyberpunk: 2077 but and you’ve got a contemporary, high-power Mac (an M3 Max or M4 Professional at the very least), it’s properly price your time. It’s an unimaginable world and unforgettable story, with deep, various, polished gameplay that affords you plenty of freedom. With stellar artwork design and years of graphics updates and tweaks, it appears to be like incredible. It simply takes a strong and costly Mac to run it easily sufficient, with excessive sufficient settings, for all of that to shine via.
We’ll have a better take 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}.
