Someone tested the MacBook Neo’s gaming chops, and the results ranged from ‘miracle’ scores to ‘completely unplayable’

• A YouTuber tested the MacBook Neo’s gaming abilities in 10 titles
• Native Mac games performed surprisingly well, including Cyberpunk 2077
• Others hit very low frames per second (fps) due to the 8GB memory cap

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 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 “pretty much flawlessly,” with many of the results coming as a big surprise.

In total, Tsai tested the following games on the MacBook Neo: Control, Cyberpunk 2077, Counter-Strike 2, Dark Souls Remastered, Elden Ring, Mewgenics, Minecraft, the 2019 Resident Evil 2 remake, Resident Evil Requiem, and 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.

Article continues below

First up, 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 “just about playable gameplay” was a “miracle” regardless.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Mac release was specially optimized for the Mac, as was Remedy Entertainment’s Control. Here, Tsai’s MacBook Neo achieved just under 50fps at 1080p resolution and low settings. Tsai described the experience as “very playable” and “a win for Apple silicon Mac optimization.”

Likewise, the Resident Evil 2 remake from 2019 – another Mac-optimized game – hit 60fps at 1080p resolution. As Tsai said, it “just goes to show what is possible once developers actually optimize for Mac hardware.”

Maxing out the memory

There’s no question that the MacBook Neo is not designed to be a gaming laptop. While its A18 Pro chip is impressively performant given it’s a mobile product, its graphical power lags behind a dedicated GPU found in many gaming laptops. The MacBook Neo is also locked to 8GB of unified memory and lacks a fan – while the latter guarantees silent gaming, it also means more demanding titles can throttle once the A18 Pro starts heating 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. Resident Evil Requiem stagnated at 15fps, for example, despite running at 720p and its lowest preset. Counter-Strike 2, meanwhile, hit around 5fps 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, given that they must be run through a translation layer, which will consume its own resources. Instead, older games like Dark Souls Remastered were more at home on the MacBook Neo, with this example running at 60fps with a 1080p resolution and low settings.

The MacBook Neo breezed through less demanding games like Minecraft, which hit between 200 and 300fps at 1080p. Similarly, games with simple 2D graphics – such as Mewgenics – can run through CrossOver “pretty much 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 occasional stuttering – again, an issue caused by the laptop’s low dose of onboard memory.

What Tsai’s testing highlights is that games that are specifically optimized 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 to add in more demanding titles that are not tailored-made for the Mac, especially Windows games that run through a translation layer, that you’ll start to butt up against the MacBook Neo’s gaming limitations.

Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.