- A YouTuber tested the MacBook Neo’s gaming capabilities in 10 titles
- Native Mac games performed surprisingly well, including Cyberpunk 2077
- Others achieve very low frames per second (fps) due to the 8 GB memory limit
Let’s be honest: As amazing as Apple’s MacBook Neo is, questions remain about whether it can handle any of the best Mac games. After all, when a laptop has only 8GB of RAM, can you really expect it to deliver enjoyable experiences at high frame rates (fps)?
Mac gaming content creator Andrew Tsai decided to find out by putting the MacBook Neo to the test in 10 popular games. The results ranged from games that were “completely unplayable” to games that ran “virtually flawlessly,” and many of the results came as a big surprise.
In total, Tsai tested the following games on the MacBook Neo: Control, Cyberpunk 2077, Counterattack 2, dark souls remastered, Elden Ring, mewgenics, minecraft2019 Resident Evil 2 redo, Resident Evil Requiemand world of warcraft. Some of the titles were published natively; others were Windows-exclusive games loaded through a translation layer; and some console games were also emulated.
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First, Tsai tried Cyberpunk 2077. Its settings needed to be set to the lowest possible options, including a resolution of 720p. Still, Tsai said that the MacBook Neo being able to run the notoriously demanding game on a mobile chip with “virtually playable gameplay” was a “miracle” anyway.
Cyberpunk 2077The Mac version of was optimized especially for Mac, as was Remedy Entertainment’s Control. Here, Tsai’s MacBook Neo managed just under 50fps at 1080p resolution and low settings. Tsai described the experience as “very playable” and “a victory for Apple Silicon Mac optimization.”
Likewise, the Resident Evil 2 The 2019 remake, another Mac-optimized game, hit 60fps at 1080p resolution. As Tsai said, “it just goes to show what’s possible once developers really optimize the Mac hardware.”
Maximizing memory
Look
There’s no doubt that the MacBook Neo is not designed to be a gaming laptop. While its A18 Pro chip has impressive performance given that it’s a mobile product, its graphics power lags behind a dedicated GPU found in many gaming laptops. The MacBook Neo also has 8GB of unified memory and lacks a fan; While the latter ensures quiet gaming, it also means that more demanding titles can speed up once the A18 Pro starts to heat up.
That means it wasn’t all good news for Tsai. While native Mac games designed for Apple hardware ran impressively well, Windows games run through the CrossOver translation layer tended to struggle. RResident Evil Requiem It stalled at 15fps, for example, despite running at 720p and its lowest preset. Counterattack 2Meanwhile, it hit around 5 fps and was “completely unplayable,” according to Tsai. In both cases, the games maxed out the MacBook Neo’s 8GB memory capacity.
When it comes to Windows games, you have to pick your battles, Tsai advised. Recent games with high requirements are likely to run out of memory as they must be run through a translation layer, which will consume its own resources. On the other hand, older games like dark souls remastered We’re more comfortable with the MacBook Neo, with this example running at 60fps at 1080p resolution and low settings.
The MacBook Neo outperformed less demanding games like minecraftwhich reaches between 200 and 300 fps at 1080p. Similarly, games with simple 2D graphics, such as mewgenics – can run CrossOver “with virtually no problems” on the MacBook Neo, Tsai said.
What about emulation? Tsai ran a Nintendo Switch game on the MacBook Neo (he didn’t name it for legal reasons) and said performance was mixed, with the game hitting around 30fps but experiencing occasional stuttering — again, an issue caused by the laptop’s low dose of onboard memory.
What Tsai’s tests highlight is that games that are optimized specifically for Apple hardware (titles like Control, the Resident Evil 2 remake and even Cyberpunk 2077 – can be enjoyed at playable frame rates even on a low-end laptop with a mobile chip like the MacBook Neo. It’s when you start adding more demanding titles that aren’t tailor-made for the Mac, especially Windows games that run through a translation layer, that you start to run into the MacBook Neo’s gaming limitations.
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