The Mac simply obtained top-of-the-line 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 bold open metropolis, memorable story, and excessive manufacturing values helped players grasp in there. Their endurance was rewarded with a slew of patches to repair issues, re-balance recreation techniques, 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 nicely does it run? Is the sport price your money and time?
Efficiency is simply OK
First, should you’re working the macOS 26 beta, you may as nicely not trouble with Cyberpunk: 2077 proper now. The menus load positive, however the recreation runs in a garbled damaged state. The sport will get an replace to assist new Steel 4 options (MetalFX Body Interpolation and Denoising) to associate with macOS 26 later this 12 months.
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 ageing 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 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 principally 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 recreation regarded fairly unhealthy. Bumping up the decision to 1440p helped rather a lot and bumped the typical to about 58fps, however I nonetheless wouldn’t need to play it this manner.
CD Projekt Purple
It’s fairly arduous 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 “For This Mac” settings on the M4 Professional bumps every part as much as top quality settings with medium crowd density, no ray tracing, and a 1080p 60fps goal. It seems rather a lot 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, however it seems and runs nicely sufficient to offer a superb 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 obtained 18fps. It’s a uneven unplayable mess.
In case 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 3 times slower than a equally priced Home windows field, and typically worse.
It’s nonetheless an awesome recreation
It’s a story we find yourself telling each time a giant recreation involves the Mac: Home windows PCs have had this recreation for years and run it a number of occasions sooner than a Mac of the identical value.
In case your iPhone obtained the most recent scorching recreation six months after all of the Android telephones, whereas working it 30 % slower, you’d name Apple a failure. In the case of gaming on the Mac, a six-month delay and 30 % efficiency penalty can be a large enchancment over the place issues are in the present day.
CD Projekt Purple
Nonetheless, should you 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 nicely price your time. It’s an unimaginable world and unforgettable story, with deep, assorted, polished gameplay that affords you plenty of 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.
We’ll have a better have a look at Cyberpunk: 2077 efficiency on the Mac later this 12 months after the discharge of macOS 26 and the patch that provides assist for Steel 4 options, hopefully with some new Mac {hardware}.
