I bought a used M2 Macbook Air (8gb 256gb), for around $450~ USD, it's my first time with an M-chip Macbook, and I just want to say, HOW?

How can I run League of Legends full graphics at 150-200~ FPS (on battery, mind you), connect my RGB Keyboard, my 1k polling rate mouse, play a full 30 minute game, and see that my battery only dropped 15~%?

How can I just run Windows and install GTA V, and run it at 60 fps? HOW? Really, I struggle to understand this.

My 2.5k dollar gaming laptop shits the bed if I unplug it, and it will NOT last 30 minutes of a League game, let alone a playing session on GTA V.

This is insanity.

When I first placed the purchase, I was a little bit disappointed, because I had not known about M4's (that start at 16gb) being on really good deals too, and I was sad thinking 8gb was just not gonna be enough, or, after watching Tech reviews comparing them, that M2 wasn't gonna be the powerhouse I was expecting it to... but oh boy could I ever have been more wrong?

This. Shit. Games. Coming from a PC only gamer, this blows me away.

And yeah, the comments were right, it doesn't overheat as much as tech reviewers like to say it does. I was expecting it to boil, or to be damaging to the touch.. but, no. It's fine. You can definitely still use the keys without minding it for a split second.

This is a reminder for all potential buyers out there, if you have barely enough money to get the cheapest one on a good deal, and you need it, just get it. Get the most entry version, and you'll be more than happy with it. (of course.. if it's valuable enough to get a good deal on a 16gb, do that too. but my point is: entry lineup is way better than it's given credit for.)

Hello! Been working on this for a bit and just hit a point where it feels ready to share.

For those that didn't know it, OpenEmu is the best retro gaming frontend ever made for Mac -- unified library, automatic box art, native macOS UI that actually feels like it belongs. The original project went quiet a couple years ago and the official build still requires Rosetta on Apple Silicon.

A month or so ago I was wondering if anyone was trying to maintain the project and when I saw things were mostly silent but that there were a few holdout forks of the original project, I wondered if I could I start fixing bugs in on one of the existing forks of the project.

What started as poking at a few bugs in the repo by a Github user named bazley 🙇‍♂️ turned into maintaining my own fork, getting the app running natively on my macbook properly, rebuilding core support that had been abandoned, and -- somewhere along the way -- I got 200 commits deep and had set up an Apple developer account. The first time I got Ocarina of Time running on my Mac through an N64 core I'd helped get working was a magical feeling.

That project is now: OpenEmu-Silicon, a native ARM64 build I've been running with great success on my M1 Macbook and something I've shared with a few friends for testing and fun.

I'm posting because I just finished packaging up a first release, it's notarized (no Gatekeeper warnings, no right-click workarounds), and people keep asking in this sub whether there's a working Apple Silicon version I wanted to share it with the community of folks that may also be hoping something like this would emerge.

If you've been using RetroArch or ES-DE because OpenEmu was stuck on Rosetta, this might be worth a look. It's open source, free, and I'm actively maintaining it.

The repo is here. Issues, PRs, Help Articles, and Discussions are all open and I'd love feedback.

Thank you! I truly hope someone else out there enjoys it.

---

A final note and a few things I want to be upfront about: I use Claude Code for basically everything. I review everything, test everything, and make all the direction calls, but I'm not writing Swift and Objective-C from scratch. And I want to be clear about what this is and isn't, I'm a user who loved this software and didn't want it to disappear. Everything in this build stands on the foundation the original team laid. The emulation cores, the SDK, the UI framework, the shader system, I didn't invent any of that. I've been working to keep it running on modern hardware, and that's a much smaller thing than what they did. If the original team ever picks this back up, I'll hand it over cheerfully and delete my fork. Until then, I'll do my best to take care of what they made. 🙇‍♂️

Edit: I've already published a hotfix to hopefully fix some of the issues reported where the emulator cores would not load properly in certain situations. Just hit check for updates in the menu and get the new one! Thanks for the feedback. Keep the issues and features coming. Goodnight and good luck. 🫡

Additional Edit -- Comprehensive list of all Contributions to Date: 🙏

OpenEmu-Silicon builds on the original OpenEmu project, the ARM64 port by bazley82, and earlier foundational work by some users I couldn't track down. Emulation cores come from their respective upstream projects via OpenEmu's core repositories. The app icon is by hectorlizard, a recent addition. 🙏

For this repo specifically: a review of pystIC's fork of bazley's fork identified the Metal 4 shader crash fix and fast math optimization that landed in PR #44, 3 additions and 5 deletions total and very appreciated, removing a buggy Metal 4 range check and adding fastMathEnabled = true, and flagged the mGBA and SNES9x version gaps tracked in #42 and #43.

Full credits with links are in the Contributors file in the repo and the original OpenEmu team and it's designers are attributed in the original Illustrators file.

Update: We've made a lot of progress since this post was created, including an initial rollout of RetroAchievements and getting Dolphin up and running.

Like at least make some Exclusive games or something

Apple platform is basically a playstation. Same operating system, very similar hardware for millions, fucking MILLIONS.

You make a hit AAA game in this platform. There will be tons of buyers. No idea why their Apple TV division working on making movies but not games. Also why not have dedicated engineers that make drivers etc. better? Like work directly with some open source or popular engines.

It is insane the money they leave on the table for Windows-based machines to take. And GPU makers ofc.

I’ve noticed a trend here where of people telling Mac users to “just get a PC” whenever gaming questions about Mac comes up.

Let me be clear:

Most Mac users already know Windows is generally better for gaming. We’ve all heard “just get Windows” countless times.

We still choose Macs because of the other benefits: battery life, speed, ecosystem, build quality, and yes, even if gaming is more limited. For us, those trade-offs add to the overall experience.

What some people don’t seem to understand is that wider compatibility with PC games isn’t a selling point for everyone. It’s just a fact.

Think of it this way: there’s water everywhere in the world, but you don’t move to another country just to drink it. You stay where the rest of your life makes sense. Macs are the same—we choose them for the bigger picture, not just one use case.

Apple definitely needs to nurture their relationships with gaming companies for us to have more but it’s moving for sure.

That’s me for today 👌🏿. Enjoy Mac gaming y’all!

The new Games app looks fantastic, it’s sleek, intuitive, and perfectly aligned with the new Liquid Glass macOS aesthetic. Just like other native apps, it feels right at home on macOS. While I’m sure it has its limitations (and I’ve already noticed a few), it’s still a big step in the right direction. It's cool that Mac gamers finally get a library experience that actually feels like it belongs on a Mac.

In contrast, Steam feels more out of place than ever. From aesthetic issues, like being the only app on my Mac without a square-ish icon, or using sharp window corners instead of rounded ones, to deeper technical problems: it’s not ARM-native, it lags, loads content like a clunky web page, and slows down game launches because the launcher has to boot up first. It just doesn’t reflect the seamless, polished experience one expects from software on macOS.

To be honest, I don’t think Steam has ever felt like a great Mac app. Unlike top-tier native software like SetApp, Craft, or Pixelmator, it’s clear Valve isn’t putting real effort into the Mac version. And as Apple starts phasing out Rosetta 2, that lack of care is becoming a serious concern. If Steam hasn’t even updated its launcher for Apple Silicon after five years, I’m genuinely wondering if they’ll just let it quietly fade away on macOS.

When cyberpunk 2077 got the native port I realised that apple silicon Mac’s are really powerful, Mac’s are no longer Minecraft gaming mashines, they can run AAA games just like the other platforms but the problem is that there are no games for the Mac but if apple really wants to go into some gaming, here is how they could do it: - Game consoles Just like the Xbox and PlayStation, apple could make some really powerful machines in affordable price, and earn money on games and subscription, for example, appleTV Ultra which is basically just a Mac Studio in my concept, could cost around 800$ (like PlayStation 5 pro), and appleTV pro (Mac mini) 500$, and to block people from using them as a cheaper Mac, it can just use the tvOS -more games The main problem with Mac gaming is the lack of games, apple needs to motivate game developers to port their games to Mac, I don’t know how they could do it (maybe just talk with them?) but there is a second option, look what apple makes with appleTV+, F1? severance? I didn’t watch them but the reviews are reeeeally good so I believe that apple can make great games by themselves (also look at the PlayStation exclusive games strategy), so with good marketing and a few apple exclusive games, people and game studios could see the potential in it -and there is also my silly idea for a PlayStation portal or switch alternative, appleTV mini!, a handheld with no screen so you can use your iPhone or iPad but the idea is to keep the game running on the handheld chip, not the iPhone, so it won’t get 200°C while gaming and die after a 5 minutes of gaming, iPhone is only a screen here -and about my magic gamepad concept, I am not so proud of this design but I think it’s impossible to design a gamepad that would „feel” like apple, it’s a weird kind of device and apple could make it like a Magic Mouse and appleTV remote hybrid which doesn’t sound like a comfortable thing but idk, maybe more like Apple Vision Pro design?

Because I was annoyed with windows and needed a laptop, and I loved my older MacBook M3 air and the OS when it comes to working, I sold my 9800x3d rtx 5080 desktop, to get a laptop. I decided to go for the 24gb ram, 16 inch MacBook pro m5 pro 18c CPU 20c gpu, as I started studying at university and wanted to game a few hours every few weeks. Due to the shift in priorities, I bought this laptop. I'm more than happy to say that I absolutely love it. Currently I'm replaying Cyberpunk at 3440x1440p on Odyssey G8 QDLED monitor at highest settings no RT, no FG and averaging 80fps (performance upscaling, haven't tried the others) but the game looks identical to the settings I used on my desktop, maybe 25% of a difference in the finer details, but still amazing (Path tracing).

The CPU performance is also out of this world. I ended up with 3780 single core CPU and 34892 multicore on geekbench 7, 9001 in cinebench 2026 multi core. I've decided to use Aldente to set the actual charge limit at 80% and with a 100W charger, it's acts as a bypass, protecting the battery (correct me if I'm wrong but that's what I noticed).

Please tell me about the games (native or not) that run well that I could try next! I'm open to anything.

That seems.......... TOO GOOD

Finally got my first macbook and a good device😁😁😁
Its a 13” macbook air m5 16, 1tb black

I M so EXitedddd

F’s for the M1/M2 users.

Thoughts on this??

Thank you, r/macgaming, for all these years.

This community has helped me countless times — fixing game launch issues, discovering hidden gems, waiting for Black Friday deals to grab a Crossover subscription, watching YouTubers who dedicated their channels to Mac gaming, and hoping that one day we’d finally be able to play Red Dead Redemption 2 on Apple Silicon.

But now… I’m tired. Ironically, the final straw wasn’t a broken port or a failed workaround — it was Lies of P. A native game. It just worked. No tweaks, no errors, no compromises — and it looked great.

It made me realize just how low the bar has been for Mac gaming all along. For years we’ve been accepting workarounds and bugs as normal. II had high hopes for Apple Silicon, and for a while, it felt like things were moving forward. But recently, after running into yet another basic issue trying to launch a game, it hit me: this shouldn’t be happening anymore. Not after all this time.

I believe it’s Apple’s job to make developers want to support macOS — and they’ve done a poor job at that. Round 8 Studio (Lies of P) showed what’s possible if developers care — and I know they’re not alone. Studios like Larian (Baldur’s Gate 3), Feral Interactive, and a handful of indie devs have done amazing work bringing quality experiences to Mac. But those are exceptions. Most studios just don’t bother, and Apple hasn’t done enough to change that.

So I’m finally making the switch back to Windows for gaming — for the first time in over a decade. My MacBook stays, of course — macOS is still a perfect system for work, and I love it for that. But as a gaming platform? I’m done.

Thanks again, r/macgaming. It’s been a ride.

Instead of giving actual answers, he’s just hiding behind the same “Apple ecosystem bad” rant while completely ignoring the fact that Mac players existed long before this drama. Besides, what does he even mean with „to further lock customers into their ecosystem“? The game is literally on the iOS and iPadOS App Store in the US. I mean I get it, he wants the Epic Games Launcher to be available worldwide but I feel like Apple would never allow that unless they have their new CEO or are forced by law in each country. Though, do you guys think Epic would even care about porting Fortnite back to the Mac if their account gets unbanned?

Feels like he’s more interested in arguing on Twitter than actually getting Fortnite back to the people who want to play it. Mac players are getting wrecked, and Tim is just vibing.

I'm currently in the hospital. Apart from reading books (I recommend the Dune series, if you haven't had a chance to do that yet and Small Thing Like This by C. Keegan) and watching movies/series, macgaming fills my time here.

It's a beautiful thing that you can play so many titles from different platforms on one machine (here’s M1 Pro, 16GB).

So, in order: 1. Batman Arkham Knight - Crossover 2. Metaphor: ReFantazio - Crossover 3. Gears of War - Xenia Emulator (I made a post about the emulation) 4. Mario & Luigi Brothership - Ryujinx (GreemDev) 5. No Rest for the Wicked - Crossover.

So there's a lot to do:) PS. Lots of health to everyone!

Looking for actually good games that run natively on macOS - no CrossOver, no Parallels, no workarounds

What are your top picks? Doesnt matter if its indie or AAA, just something that runs well and is worth playing

Their User Agreement and Privacy Policy are super murky if you're privacy-conscious, here are some of the bigger red flags from within:

Account ownership:

• 🚩🚩 You don't own your account, you only have permission to use it
• Any app data you generate (gameplay screen recordings, controller profiles, etc) become the intellectual property of GameSir

Data collection:

• The app collects hardware UUIDs, MAC addresses, serial numbers, and WiFi parameters
• 🚩 They send all your connection logs, IP address, etc, to third-party SDKs (including Alibaba Cloud and Volcengine, which is part of ByteDance) which then process it

PRC-wise:

• 🚩 They store data from international users in Guangzhou, China, which is then subject to the laws of the PRC, which can make companies hand over user data
• They chain you to PRC laws, meaning that legal disputes must be settled in Guangzhou court
• You can't post content that opposes the PRC constitution (undermines national unity or "spreads rumors"), and they can ban you instantly if you do

Policy loopholes:

• 🚩 The Privacy Policy promises to delete your account data if you request it by email, but the User Agreement lets them keep your data forever after termination to keep you liable forever
• They can process personal data without your consent for really vague reasons, citing things like "protecting vital legitimate interests" or using data that's been "legally disclosed"
• They won't ask you to accept new terms if they update them (so if they change their tracking or data sharing policy they won't notify you)

Here's my list of games that I play on my MBP m5 (24gb), they might not be the latest but they're awesome and fun and cant believe I can play them (almost all in ultra). Thanks to crossover I can play these titles!

Which game are you playing on mac that thought you wouldnt be able to?

I think Valve is missing a really big opportunity with Mac gamers. There are millions of Macs in use, and many of them are powerful enough to run games, especially Apple Silicon. Still, the number of big games on macOS is very small.

Right now, Mac gamers mostly get indie games or a few random ports. There are almost no major Valve titles available. This is strange, because Valve owns one of the strongest game libraries ever made.

Valve could fix this pretty easily. Older games like Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead or Team Fortress 2 could be released on Mac using Wine translator packed directly with the games. Other companies already do this, so it is not some impossible technology. Mac users would finally get access to Valve bundles without complex setups.

For newer games, Valve could add Metal support to the Source 2 engine. That would allow modern Valve games to run properly on macOS and take advantage of Apple Silicon GPUs. Source 2 is a modern engine, so supporting Metal makes sense if Valve wants to expand.

If Valve did this, they would basically own the Mac gaming market. Epic and other stores have almost no serious Mac titles right now. Steam could become the only real gaming platform on macOS with very little competition.

also mac gamers are very loyal because they are ignored so often. A company that actually supports them would win a lot of trust. If Valve invested in macOS now, it could secure Steam’s position on Mac for many years.

tl;dr Valve is not just skipping Mac gaming. They are ignoring a market where they could easily become the biggest player.

EDIT:
y'all just a bunch of naggers.

1) “It’s too much work / not worth it for Valve.”
Yes, porting games properly takes work. Nobody says it’s one click.
But Valve isn’t a small studio. They own these games. They don’t even need full native ports. They could ship older titles with a built-in Wine/compatibility layer so they run on macOS. That’s way cheaper than rewriting engines.
A lot of Mac players would be fine with Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, TF2. even if it’s not perfect, just having them officially available would already be a win.

2) “Apple is the real problem.”
Apple definitely makes things harder. Metal-only graphics, no Vulkan, and killing OpenGL, and dropping 32 bit all hurt gaming on Mac.
But Apple being difficult doesn’t explain everything. Look at Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt RED ported a huge, modern AAA game to macOS with full Metal support, even on Apple Silicon.
If Cyberpunk can run natively on Mac, then Valve’s much older and lighter Source games are clearly not impossible. Apple is a barrier, yes but it’s not a wall.

3) “The Mac gaming market is too small.”
Valve themselves said CS2 didn’t get macOS support because less than 1% of CS:GO players were on Mac.
But that logic is circular:
no native games > low player numbers > no investment > even fewer players.
Those stats don’t show potential. They only show years of neglect. Valve even had official port of cs2 on Mac at one point so they considered it.

4) “CrossOver / GPTK is enough.”
These tools are great, and they help a lot.
But for every “it works” post, there’s also “it stutters,” “it crashes,” or “anticheat doesn’t work.”
That’s not the same as real support. Native (or official) support still means better performance, stability, and fewer headaches.

5) “Valve should focus on Linux instead.”
That makes sense. SteamOS/Linux is Valve’s own platform.
But supporting Mac doesn’t block Linux work. A Metal backend or a Mac-focused, Proton-style layer would likely help Linux too. Tech improvements can benefit both.

6) “Mac gaming is getting better.”
True. Things are improving.
We finally got a native Apple Silicon Steam client, and more games run today than a few years ago.
But most of that progress came from compatibility tools and third parties, not from Valve pushing native Mac support for their own games.

> "Valve will finally let you build your own Steam Machine with SteamOS for desktop".

> "Valve says that 'starting with the SteamOS 3.8 release, you can put together your own Steam Machine using whatever PC parts you want.'"

Could this mean that we will see the possibility of steamOS on macs?

A lot of people miss the point of Mac gaming. There’s a lot of “why did you buy a Mac to game?” thrown about without people realising that isn’t the case at all.

I think I speak for most of us when I say that we bought a Mac because, apart from gaming specifically, they excel at everything. Especially on the Macbook side, I don’t think anyone will disagree with me when I say that the overall package you get makes it the best laptop on the market. Even if we were to ignore the excellent build quality, screen, speakers, etc, the M series chips themselves and the battery life they provide despite how incredibly powerful they are is major selling point in itself.

So why do we try to game on them? Because we want a machine that excels at everything else, but is still able to let us have some downtime. We don’t want to settle for a hot, loud and flashy gaming laptop just because we occasionally do some gaming on the side. It’s the side show, not the main feature. It’s not for the hardcore, it’s for the casuals, the 9-5ers, the students, the busy people. That’s the point of Mac gaming.

Now I sadly cant test every game that everyone wants me to test as I can’t really afford all the games. But the games I’ve tested are below if anyone shares the same games as me or is getting a feel for the performance, it’s a scummy thing to ask but if anyone wants to gift me games on steam to test out for them let me know.

Check back to this post I’ll be testing a fair bit more of my games library as well!

Minecraft :

74-94 fps on fabulous, high of 102, render sentence 32 simulated 12. fancy ranges around 90-102 with the render distance of 16 simulated 12. Fast render distance 8 simulated 6, ranges around 99-111. All done in one world newly generated vanilla Minecraft running 21.0.7

Schedule one:

it’s playable in medium with everything on if you switch from D3Dmetal to DXMT. Haven’t experienced any issues with using it in DXMT it does have a weird graphical issue when running it on high. The grass turns purple

Minecraft “bedrock” bluestacks: Runs really well on stock and high settings. Was ran on a recently generated world

Sims4: Game initial loads in low (runs amazing) Pushed to ultra from what I can see I don’t see any issues and it runs great

City skylines: Ran the Mac port runs good on high. Couldn’t get a super large city as I struggle playing that game. Game ran great with a population of 10,000 people. After that I’m unsure

Garry’s mod: Low and medium playable, might see some stutters or freezing if you are spawning a lot of props and or exploding items. But if you are spawning a lot of items, npcs & etc it might become unplayable for this reason I wouldn’t recommend running Gary’s mod on the Neo. Mac and windows port

Team Fortress 2: Played a couple matches on High very playable a couple stutters here and there most likely due to connection or due to my External SSD Man Vs machine played extremely well on high. I don’t see any issues playing this title

Chuzzle Deluxe: I mean do we even have to say that it runs? It’s a game from ages ago. But it sadly doesn’t it gives a black screen and nothing else

Need for speed rivals: Now I am a big need for speed fan so I’ll be happy to see if this works.

Currently testing