The M4 Mac Mini is a surprisingly highly effective little machine, and it is sort of personal in my coronary heart for how briskly and environment friendly it may be. It has a surprisingly succesful GPU that leaves the competitors from Intel and Qualcomm within the mud so far as built-in GPUs go, which, in concept, makes it an incredible possibility for light-weight gaming.
After all, there’s extra to it than uncooked efficiency, and the Mac Mini remains to be a Mac, which suggests gaming is hindered considerably. However I needed to know precisely what sort of expertise you’ll be able to count on with gaming on a Mac. I’ve laways heard the horror tales, however that is my first probability to expertise it firsthand. So, is gaming on an M4 Mac Mini any nearer to the perfect expertise? Effectively, probably not. Let’s take a better look.
We tested it: Here’s how Apple’s M4 compares to Intel Lunar Lake and Snapdragon X Elite
Apple’s newest processor isn’t any joke
Recreation compatibility
The elephant within the room
The primary and largest factor to handle is what number of video games you’ll be able to truly play on the M4 Mac Mini, and the reply is, sadly, not that many. That is solely anecdotal proof however my Steam Household library, shared throughout 4 folks, contains 549 video games. As soon as I filter for video games appropriate with Mac, that checklist cuts down to simply 97 titles. And that is not specifying video games native to Apple Silicon, as a result of, to my information, there’s just one in my library: No Man’s Sky.
The large Apple Silicon video games you’ve got in all probability heard about, like Loss of life Stranding Definitive Version and Resident Evil Village are solely accessible by way of the Apple App Retailer. On Steam, they don’t seem to be even appropriate with macOS in any respect, which means I could not attempt them. I’ve mentioned before that this technique from Apple to lock in folks to its personal ecosystem goes to harm it in the long term by way of its gaming ambitions.
It is also doable that not each sport listed as appropriate on Steam will truly work. Epic Video games notably eliminated assist for macOS in Rocket League a couple of years in the past, however Steam nonetheless lets me set up it. Nevertheless, I used to be utterly unable to launch it. It is a fairly main exclusion for me, contemplating Rocket League is one among my favourite multiplayer video games.
Proper off the bat, this could let you know to keep away from macOS for gaming. However what in regards to the video games that do work? Let’s have a look.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is without doubt one of the video games I come again to most steadily for efficiency testing, and it is an incredible one to start out with as a result of it has a built-in benchmarking instrument. All you should do is about the graphics settings you need and run the built-in benchmark, which adapts to the settings you select. This makes it straightforward to check efficiency throughout gadgets, too.
On the M4 Mac Mini, working the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark at 1080p and the graphics preset set to Highest resulted in a mean framerate of 42 frames per second, as you’ll be able to see beneath.
For an built-in GPU, that is extraordinarily spectacular, and much more so while you bear in mind this pc is useless quiet all the time. What’s extra, Shadow of the Tomb Raider does not run natively on Apple Silicon. It is a well-optimized sport, however it’s nonetheless made for Intel processors and working by way of Rosetta.
By comparability, I ran the benchmark with the identical settings on the Asus Zenbook S 14, powered by an Intel Core Extremely 7 258V, which appeared like a jet engine all the time the sport was open, even simply within the menu. Listed below are the outcomes from that:
Certainly, the Intel processor ran the sport at 31 frames per second, bit decrease than what the Mac Mini can supply. It’s totally laborious to disregard how highly effective the Apple M4 chip is.
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Bioshock Remastered
2K Video games’ Bioshock Remastered is a a lot older title — a 2016 remaster of a 2007 sport at that. Nevertheless it is without doubt one of the video games I are inclined to run extra steadily for these assessments, and one of many few that additionally helps Mac, regardless that, once more, it isn’t working natively on Apple Silicon. That is one other title made for Intel processors.
Regardless of its age, I anticipated Bioshock Remastered to battle a bit extra, however what I discovered was a sport that ran at a near-perfect 60 frames per second on a regular basis. Operating at Quad HD (1440p) decision and with anisotropic filtering set to 16x, it was easy as butter, although I did expertise the occasional hiccup, which I feel could have been as a consequence of loading areas. I even recorded some footage utilizing the Steam sport recording instrument, so take a look beneath:
Sadly, the sport appears to be capped at 60FPS, however it might be fascinating to see if the Mac Mini might push it additional.
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Alien: Isolation
Subsequent up, I performed Alien: Isolation from Sega. It is a 2014 title, however at the least it is initially made in that period, so it is rather more demanding than Bioshock Remastered, and it exhibits. Environments on this sport are very detailed and spectacular to take a look at contemplating the sport’s age. I performed the primary 20 minutes or so of the sport with the decision set to 2560×1440 and all of the graphics settings maxed out.
I discovered it to run at about 25-45 frames per second, although there was fairly a little bit of variation. At occasions, the sport was completely playable, however it did decelerate typically, so I’d in all probability advocate decreasing the settings a bit for a really perfect expertise. Nonetheless, it was actually spectacular to see this sport working on this type of {hardware}. You possibly can see a brief recording of my play session beneath:
Once more, this title shouldn’t be optimized for Apple Silicon, both, which makes this all of the extra spectacular. Nevertheless, it’s a slower sport, at the least within the first couple of minutes, and areas are very confined, so it is simple for it to run properly.
Metro Exodus
Quick forwarding a couple of years, we now have Metro Exodus, a way more fashionable title launched in 2019 (although the Mac model got here in 2021). For this one, I set the decision to Quad HD and all of the graphics presets to the best degree, except for movement blur and the “Superior PhysX” possibility, which I saved disabled. It is a rather more demadning title, however to my shock, it truly ran extra easily than Alien: Isolation.
Throughout my brief playtime within the first couple of minutes of the sport, the sport held up within the excessive 40s to mid 50s by way of frames per second. Nevertheless, oddly sufficient, that is the one sport the place utilizing Steam’s sport recording took an enormous hit to the efficiency, with the sport working at an unplayable 16 frames per second whereas recording. I’ve a brief clip beneath, however bear in mind it does not symbolize the expertise while you’re not recording the display.
One factor I came upon is that this was additionally the one time I managed to make the Mac Mini’s followers audibly spin. This sport is clearly very demanding, however it was nonetheless completely playable till I began recording.
No Man’s Sky
Lastly, we now have the one sport that is truly absolutely designed to reap the benefits of Apple Silicon. No Man’s Sky not solely has a local Mac model, it is the one sport I’ve on Steam that is optimized for Arm processors, reasonably than being on the Apple App Retailer. I used to be very to see what could possibly be completed with native efficiency, and positive sufficient, it is fairly spectacular.
What makes No Man’s Sky spectacular is not a lot the extent of element, however reasonably the truth that it is an enormous open world with a lot of interactive parts. I ran the sport on the full Quad HD decision of my monitor and maxed out the graphics settings, and the Mac Mini ran the sport gracefully, not often going beneath 60FPS. More often than not I performed it appeared to be round 66FPS, although it typically went up into the 70s and even 80s. To be honest, I did solely play the preliminary couple of minutes of the sport, so it wasn’t precisely hectic.
Nonetheless, the sport runs exceptionally properly, aside from one factor: it didn’t permit me to document the display utilizing Steam’s recording instrument. I did seize the screenshots above, however naturally, I am unable to convey how easy the sport performs with nonetheless pictures. Regardless, it is a very easy expertise on macOS.
You continue to cannot use a Mac for gaming
What this all tells me is that the Mac Mini has the potential to be an incredible machine for gaming, and Apple is clearly considering making that occur seeing because it retains courting developers to carry video games over. Nevertheless, there’s clearly not sufficient effort being put in to really be accommodating to builders, and if the few video games that do get native variations are solely on the App Retailer, it’ll be very laborious for avid gamers on different platforms to return over.
Apple has nothing to lose by permitting the builders of Loss of life Stranding and Resident Evil to place the Apple Silicon variations of their video games on Steam, and in reality, it might make the platform extra interesting. That is probably not the one downside holding macOS again as a gaming platform, however I am positive it might be an incredible begin.