- A YouTuber tested the MacBook Neo’s gaming capabilities in 10 titles
- Native Mac games fared surprisingly well, including Cyberpunk 2077
- Others hit very low frames per second (fps) due to the 8GB memory cap
Let’s be honest: as great as Apple’s MacBook Neo is, there are still questions about whether it can handle some of the best Mac games. After all, when a laptop is loaded with just 8GB of RAM, can it really be expected to deliver enjoyable experiences at high frame rates (fps)?
Mac gaming content creator Andrew Tsai decided to find out by putting the MacBook Neo through its paces across 10 popular games. The results ranged from “completely unplayable” to games that ran “virtually flawless”, with many of the results coming as a big surprise.
In total, Tsai tested the following games on the MacBook Neo: Check, Cyberpunk 2077, Counter-Strike 2, Dark Souls Remastered, Fire Ring, Mewgenics, Minecraft2019 Resident Evil 2 replay, Resident Evil Requiemand World of Warcraft. Some of the titles ran natively; others were Windows-only games loaded through a translation layer; and some console games were also emulated.
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First, Tsai tested Cyberpunk 2077. Its settings had to be configured to the lowest possible options, including 720p resolution. Still, Tsai said that the MacBook Neo could run the notoriously taxing game on a mobile chip with “nearly playable gameplay” was a “miracle” regardless.
Cyberpunk 2077‘s Mac release was specifically optimized for the Mac, as was Remedy Entertainment’s Control. Here, Tsai’s MacBook Neo achieved just under 50 fps at 1080p resolution and low settings. Tsai described the experience as “very playable” and “a win for Apple silicon Mac optimization.”
Likewise is 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 when developers actually optimize for Mac hardware.”
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There is no doubt that the MacBook Neo is not designed to be a gaming laptop. While its A18 Pro chip is an impressive performer for a mobile product, its graphics power lags behind a dedicated GPU found in many gaming laptops. The MacBook Neo is also locked to 8GB of total memory and lacks a fan – while the latter guarantees silent gaming, it also means that more demanding titles can slow down when 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 that run through the CrossOver translation layer tended to struggle. RResident Evil Requiem stagnated at 15 fps, for example, despite running at 720p and its lowest preset. Counter-Strike 2meanwhile, 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, pick your battles, Tsai advised. Recent games with high demands are likely to run out of memory as they must be run through a translation layer which will consume its own resources. Instead of older games like Dark Souls Remastered was more at home on the MacBook Neo, where this example ran at 60fps with a 1080p resolution and low settings.
The MacBook Neo came through less demanding games like Minecraftwhich hit between 200 and 300 fps at 1080p. Similar games with simple 2D graphics – such as Mewgenics – can run through CrossOver “virtually flawlessly” 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 the occasional stutter — again, a problem caused by the laptop’s low dose of built-in memory.
What Tsai’s testing highlights is that games specifically optimized for Apple hardware—titles like Control, Resident Evil 2 replay 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 tailored for the Mac, especially Windows games that run through a translation layer, that you start to run up against the MacBook Neo’s gaming limitations.
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