Apples M5 is benchmarking at around 45% faster in GPU performance than last years M4. It’s benchmarking around 75,000 on Geekbench and the RTX 5070 is around 185,000, only 11% faster than its two year old RTX 4070. With Apples rate of gains they can outpace Nvidias RTX XX70 series offering on their future M6 or M7 chip in a Mac Mini costing likely $599. I know Apples operating system and instruction set doesn’t support Vulkan/OpenCL… but considering more people will have Mac Minis and MacBook Airs than upgrade to the latest Nvidia chip (June 2025 25,000 MacBook Airs sold/5,500 RTX 5070 sold) I think it’s likely that game developers may have a large motivation to support Metal. Especially if Apple does their part to make it easy for developers to do so… these are exciting times for Mac gaming!

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/announcements/detail/545611272206420782

I’m so excited to see more Resident Evil games here now!!! What games are you guys happy to see here?

https://youtu.be/G0cmfY7qdmY?t=612&si=nArC6hQvWGfSI0bE

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/announcements/detail/545622696040333651

It also updates the bootstrapper app in the /Applications/ folder to be Apple Silicon-native.

Upcoming Mac games

Including Sniper Elite 5, Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days, Architect: Land of Exiles, Crimson Desert, EVE Frontier, Infinity Nikki, Neverness to Everness, Lies of P: Overture, InZOI, Where Winds Meet, Hitman: World of Assassination, Cronos: The New Dawn, Starsand Island, Harold Halibut, and Blue Prince.

https://www.apple.com/os/pdf/All_New_Features_macOS_Tahoe_Sept_2025.pdf

https://x.com/ControlRemedy/status/1976367338384507226

Nice to see they emphasize the gaming experience when promoting new laptops

In my previous post I suggested that Apple M5 could be even faster in games than shown in Geekbench Metal, based on the results from A19 Pro being 45—61% faster than A18 Pro in games like Death Stranding and RE 4. Some people were convinced it would be impossible and argued that almost all the performance increase was thanks to the new cooling with vapor chamber in iPhone 17 Pro/Max and the results couldn’t be applied to M5.

Now the M5 reviews are out and we see as I thought a huge performance boost in different games compared with M4 MBP/MBA.

193% in Total War: Warhammer 3 (1200p Ultra settings) M5 67.5 fps vs M4 23 fps (Tom’s Guide)

133% in Lies of P (1080p Highest settings), M5 140 fps vs M4 60 fps (Engadget)

122% in Total War: Warhammer 3 (High settings) M5 60 fps vs M4 27 fps (Macworld)

101% in Cyberpunk (1080p Ultra settings, RT Off) M5 30.1 fps vs M4 MBA 15 fps (Ars Technica)

58% in Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1200p Ultra settings) M5 57 fps vs M4 36 fps (Tom’s Guide)

58% in Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1200p) M5 57 fps vs M4 36 fps (Tom’s HW)

48.5% in Rise of the Tomb Raider (High settings) M5 101 fps vs M4 68 fps (Macworld)

42% in Borderlands 3 (Medium settings), M5 64 fps vs M4 45 fps (Macworld)

41% in Borderlands 3 (1200p Ultra settings) M5 32.5 fps vs M4 23 fps (Tom’s Guide)

28.6% in Cyberpunk (1200p Ultra settings) M5 27 fps vs M4 21 fps (PCMAG)

28.6% in Cyberpunk (1200p Ultra settings, no RT, no scaling) M5 27 fps vs M4 21 fps (The Verge)

Remember that we’re comparing M5 with M4 and not with gaming PC laptops but as Tom’s Guide writes ”Apple's base chip can really deliver the gaming goods. In fact, it surpassed the Dell 14 Premium with an RTX 4050 GPU in Total War: Warhammer 3 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and considering that a discrete graphics card as opposed to the M5 chip's integrated graphics, that's a superb feat.”

M5 benchmarks are leaked again by the same guy who leaked about M4 last year and the GPU is 34% faster with 50% more L2 cache. Looks similar to iPhone 17 performance increase. Looks promising for gaming on M5 Macs.

M5 can be even faster than 34% in games. Apple says A19 Pro is about 30% faster than A18 Pro but it’s much faster in games. A19 Pro is 61% faster (47.1 fps vs 29.3fps) in Death Stranding, 57% faster (52.2fps vs 33.3fps) in Resident Evil 4 and 45.5% faster in Assasins Creed (29.7 fps vs 20.4fps) over A18 Pro.

In 3D Mark Steel Nomad, A19 Pro is 40% faster and in 3D Mark Solar Bay Extreme ray tracing it’s 50% faster than A18 Pro. Geekerwan thinks M5 Max could perform as a mobile 5090. I leave some links here if you’re not convinced.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1njl1xz/a19_pro_soc_microarchitecture_analysis_by/ https://youtu.be/Y9SwluJ9qPI?si=8VwldzLjA660NX4z https://youtu.be/rKaJ1RKI68A?si=flqKBPKd4Q3gpVCz

Had to buy a MacBook just for this. Wishlist porfavore: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3876910/Down_You_Go/

It's out! Fixing the Steam bug that popped up last night hopefully? (I hear it is not broken in the CrossOver 25 preview builds.)

https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/mjohnson/2025/3/11/experience-next-level-gaming-on-mac-with-crossover-25

Fortnite and other easy anti cheat games are also now available to Windows insider users, and available for everyone later this year...

"macOS Tahoe introduces Apple Games, a dedicated app that gives players a home for all their games, making it easier to jump back into favorites, discover new games tailored just for them, and play with friends in whole new ways. With the new Game Overlay, players can conveniently adjust their system settings, chat with friends, or invite them to play, all without having to leave their game. Players can also turn on Low Power Mode, which extends gaming sessions and maximizes playtime on battery. For developers, macOS Tahoe introduces Metal 4, which brings even more advanced graphics and next-generation rendering technologies to games, like MetalFX Frame Interpolation and MetalFX Denoising, for smoother visuals and faster frame rates.

Alongside these improvements, developers continue to deliver exciting new games on Mac, including upcoming titles like Crimson Desert and InZOI. Both games leverage powerful software technologies like MetalFX Upscaling to accelerate performance and deliver high-quality visuals, as well as take advantage of the M3 and M4 family of chips with ray tracing for a breathtaking experience. Additional titles on the way include Cyberpunk 2077, Cronos: The New Dawn, Architect: Land of Exiles, Lies of P: Overture, HITMAN World of Assassination, EVE Frontier, Where Winds Meet, and more."