2016 12" Retina Macbook M7 game list

[Ovedius]

Okay, I'm about to list a bunch of games and my subjective perception of how well they run on the MacBook.
-I'm not going to list actual frames per second because a: I can't be bothered and b:shut up.
I'm going to add a few words for each title regarding what settings I used, resolution and how they ran.
Details will be sparse, because the list is long and I'm writing mostly from memory.
I've tried to colour code the games for your convenience.

The key to maintaining stable fps both under MacOS and Bootcamp for me has been preventing throttling due to heat. And to do this I've had to disable Turbo Boost.
In Windows this is simple, just go into advanced power settings and set the maximum CPU performance to 99%. -also make sure that minimum isn't set to 100%.
Under MacOS you need some software, I use Turbo Boost Switcher.

This is for the M7 MacBook.


First, under MacOS:

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs -poor
Low to medium settings, 1440x900.
Not playable in my opinion, unless you have a supernatural ability ti suffer through low fps.

Baldur's Gate I and II Enhanced Edition -great
1440x900
Runs smooth

The Banner Saga -great
1440x900
Very playable

Civilization V -great
Medium settings, 1440x900
Very playable, some slowdown late game and zoomed out but it hardly matters.

Divinity Original Sin -okay
Low to medium settings, 1440X900.
Just playable, runs well outside of towns and as long as there aren't a lot of characters on screen.

Empire Total War -poor
Low to medium settings, 1440x900
Just playable, quite a lot of stuttering.

Homeworld Remastered (App Store version) -okay/great
Medium/Low settings, 1440x900
Runs quite well. Some stuttering with many ships and effects on screen.
Sensor mode (strategic veiw) runs perfectly smooth.
The old ones run great.

Invisible Inc -great
Medium to high settings, 1440x900
Runs nice and smooth.

Legend of Grimrock 2 -okay
Low to high settings, 1440x900
Playable, some stuttering.

Pillars of Eternity -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Not playable, too much stuttering when spells start flying and there are plenty character on screen for my tastes.
EDIT:
dnh44 says okay.
Either way, you should PLAY THIS GAME.

Satelite Reign -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Not playable

Shadowrun (Returns, Dragonfall, Hong Kong) -great
High settings, 1440x900
Very playable, mostly smooth.

Sim City 4 -great
High settings, 1440x900
Runs well, mostly smooth.

SOMA -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Haha, no, not playable

Starcraft 2 -great
Low to high settings, 1440x900
Very playable, mostly smooth.

Star Wars Jedi Knight II -great
High settings, 1440x900
Runs perfectly smooth

Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy -great
High settings, 1440x900
Runs perfectly smooth

Star Wars Knight og the Old Republic 2 (Restored content mod) -great
High settings, 1440x900
Very playable

Steamworld Heist -great
Medium settings, 1440x900
Runs very well, smoot.
-PLAY THIS GAME!

Stellaris -okay
Low settings, 1440x900
Playable in the early game, fps skydives when there are lots of ships or empires (on the galactic map) on screen. Bearable late game.

Sunless Sea -great
High settings, 1440x900
Runs nice and smooth

Wasteland 2 Director's Cut -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Not playable

The Witcher -okay
Low to high settings, 1440x900
Playable, runs well, recommend playing in isometric mode to keep fps up.

Xenonauts -great
High settings, 1440x900
Runs nice and smooth

XCOM Enemy Unkonw/Within -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Barely playable.





Bootcamp:

Bioshock -great
High settings, 1440x900
Runs nice and smooth

Crysis -okay
Medium settings, 1440x900
Runs okay, low fps in heavy action.

Dead Rising -great
Low settings, 1280x800
Runs very well, mostly smooth, slowdown when zombies fill the screen.
-annoyingly, Dead Rising 2 crashes at launch and no fixes available online help.

Dead Space -great
High settings, 1440x900
Runs nice and smooth

Dead Space 2 -great
Medium to high settings, 1440x900
Runs nice and smooth

Dead Space 3 -poor
Medium settings, 1440x900
Not really playable, too much stuttering
Low settings, 1440x900
Okay, still too much stuttering and slowdown for my tastes.

Deus Ex Human Revolution -great
Low to high settings, 1440x900
Runs quite well, some stuttering in city hubs but otherwise very playable.

Dishonored -great
Medium to hight settings, 1440x900
Runs nice and smooth (God I love this game!)

Dragon Age Origins Awakening (word salad!) -great
Medium to high settings, 1440x900
Runs very well, some stuttering in heavy action.

Empire Total War -great
Medium to high settings, 1440x900
Runs very well, mostly smooth.

Fable Anniversary -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Not playable, fps too low.

Fallout New Vegas (with some mods) -great
Medium to high settings, 1440x900
Runs mostly nice and smooth, occasional stuttering

Homeworld Deserts of Kharak -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Very low fps, not really playable.

Mass Effect 2 -great
Medium to high settings, 1440x900
Runs nice and smooth

Mass Effect 3 -great
Low to high settings, 1440x900
Runs nice and smooth, with occasional stuttering

Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes/V -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Barely playable, but occasional heavy slowdown.

Pillars of Eternity -okay
Low settings, 1440x900
Playable, runs quite well with stuttering in populated areas and heavy action.

Resident Evil 4 -great
Medium settings, 1440x900
Runs very well, mostly smooth.

Risen -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Not very playable.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series -great
Low to high settings, 1440x900
Very playable. Tried Stalker Complete mod; not playable.

Skyrim (with a couple mods) -great
Medium to high settings, 1440x900
Very playable, mostly smooth.

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory -great
Medium-high settings, 1440x900
Runs fine, mostly smooth.

Supreme Commander Forged Alliance -okay
Medium settings, 1440x900
Performance is very good early game, slows down once the unit count goes up.
Has a nasty habit of crashing for me.

System Shock (remastered beta) -poor
Low settings (there aren't really any settings to speak of in the beta), 1440x900
Poor performance, not playable.

Total War Shogun 2 -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Poor performance, not really playable in my opinion.

Valkyrie Chronicles -great
Medium to high settings, 1440x900
Runs very well, mostly smooth.

Warhammer 40k Dawn of War 2 (+ Chaos Rising, Retribution) -great
Medium to high settings, 1440x900
Runs very well, mostly smooth with slowdown in heavy action.

Warhammer 40k Space Marine -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Poor performance, not playable.

Wasteland 2 Director's Cut -poor
Low settings, 1440x900
Poor performance, not playable.

XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within -great
Low to high settings, 1440x900
Runs well, very playable.





Finally I'm going to include some words to make this show up when people google Intel HD 515 inch gaming performance 12 inch MacBook

Edit: remembered Dead Space 3, Jedi Knight 2, Jedi Academy, altered Homeworld.

 

[Chub]

Nice write up, I have the exact same machine. Strangely I couldn't get Turbo Boost Switcher to work I don't know whether that has something to do with Sierra? It's interesting to see the performance difference in some of the games between Bootcamp and macOS.

I've played both Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4 on OS X, and both ran pretty well. I can't remember the exact resolutions and settings I played at, but definitely playable.

 

[Ovedius]

Thank you, figured it might be of interest to some people out there.

Sorry to hear about Turbo Boost Swithcer.
It can be a bit finicky and sometime takes about 5 seconds to activate, but luckily for me it works.
-both under El Cap and Sierra so far.
I did shell out for the Pro version though, don't know if that matters.

 

[izzyfanto]

I only have three games: COD4, AOEII, & CIV5. I've since got rid of my rMB, but all three games made my m3 a sizzling hot skillet. I never felt comfortable putting that much heat stress to the components with no active cooling. Just my $0.02. Anyone else feel this way?

 

[Ovedius]

I only have three games: COD4, AOEII, & CIV5. I've since got rid of my rMB, but all three games made my m3 a sizzling hot skillet. I never felt comfortable putting that much heat stress to the components with no active cooling. Just my $0.02. Anyone else feel this way?

Hence the disabling of Turbo Boost.
Prevents the CPU from superheating.

-which is not a problem, if it gets too hot it shuts down there is no danger.

 

[viperGTS]

I only have three games: COD4, AOEII, & CIV5. I've since got rid of my rMB, but all three games made my m3 a sizzling hot skillet. I never felt comfortable putting that much heat stress to the components with no active cooling. Just my $0.02. Anyone else feel this way?

This is odd, since COD 4 runs well on my m3 and doesn't make it super hot.

 

[izzyfanto]

Hence the disabling of Turbo Boost.
Prevents the CPU from superheating.

-which is not a problem, if it gets too hot it shuts down there is no danger.

Ah. So does disabling Turbo Boost make the CPU run at it's base clock? If so, wouldn't that make the games almost impossible to play?

This is odd, since COD 4 runs well on my m3 and doesn't make it super hot.

I was running in OS X. Are using Bootcamp?

 

[viperGTS]

Ah. So does disabling Turbo Boost make the CPU run at it's base clock? If so, wouldn't that make the games almost impossible to play?
I was running in OS X. Are using Bootcamp?

Ran it in OS X, 10.11.6. Let me try running it again; I do remember the m3 getting warm, but not terribly hot to the point where I couldn't touch it.

 

[Ovedius]

Ah. So does disabling Turbo Boost make the CPU run at it's base clock? If so, wouldn't that make the games almost impossible to play?

Exactly, base clock.
Actually, surprisingly, no.
Not older titles anyway.

 

[izzyfanto]

Ran it in OS X, 10.11.6. Let me try running it again; I do remember the m3 getting warm, but not terribly hot to the point where I couldn't touch it.

Hmm maybe my CPU was doing something funky. It was hot, not warm though. Glad yours is working well. Oh well, I got rid of it anyways, couldn't deal with the keyboard.

Exactly, base clock.
Actually, surprisingly, no.
Not older titles anyway.

Interesting. So you must have to drop the settings very low on everything? I remember even playing Civ5 on low and it would be hot. Maybe my definition of hot is different. If I put my hand up to it, it was not comfortable.

 

[Ovedius]

Interesting. So you must have to drop the settings very low on everything?

If you read the first post again, you can see what ballpark the settings for each game are in.

TLDNR: no.

 

[izzyfanto]

If you read the first post again, you can see what ballpark the settings for each game are in.

TLDNR: no.

Weird. For my m3, on COD4, I had res down to 800x600, and all settings to low or off and it'd still be very hot. Maybe that's the difference between our perspectives; I am not ok with high heat on my MacBooks which equals not being able to play the game without worrying about stressing the components over a long period of time. Same reason I don't buy used or refurb because I'm not guaranteed the person who owned it before me treated it the same way I would. I don't like pushing the limits on anything I own. I prefer to baby them and see how long I can get them to last. Different approaches I guess.

 

[Ovedius]

Weird. For my m3, on COD4, I had res down to 800x600, and all settings to low or off and it'd still be very hot. Maybe that's the difference between our perspectives; I am not ok with high heat on my MacBooks which equals not being able to play the game without worrying about stressing the components over a long period of time. Same reason I don't buy used or refurb because I'm not guaranteed the person who owned it before me treated it the same way I would. I don't like pushing the limits on anything I own. I prefer to baby them and see how long I can get them to last. Different approaches I guess.

I can understand that you want to treat your machine well. It's admirable.
These things are built to handle it, though, so I wouldn't worry.
Especially on these passively cooled MacBooks, they get hot.

Let me tell you about my old MacBook Air.
I had that thing for four years, four years of suffering.
-I imagine it would say, if it could speak, or if you typed "say four years of suffering" into Terminal, but I digress.
Even though it had a fan, a loud whiny POS fan, it got hot as a skillet.
I'm convinced you could fry an egg on it.
And yet after four years of getting superheated every damned day, it still worked just as well when I sold it as the day I bought it.

I'm just saying it really is isn't detrimental to it's health. If it gets too hot it shuts down and before that it throttles itself to stay safe.
But I can't fault you for taking good care of your stuff

 

[christ0pher]

Wow, I no longer game but I'm surprised this machine is able to handle some of those games comfortably. Good to know if I'm ever bored and want to play something on my MacBook.

 

[Ovedius]

Wow, I no longer game but I'm surprised this machine is able to handle some of those games comfortably. Good to know if I'm ever bored and want to play something on my MacBook.

It is surprisingly capable

 

[dnh44]

I also have the same MB, and I must disagree with you regarding Pillars of Eternity, it runs great. I have it running at 1080p on an external monitor on low with max frame rate set to 30, and it runs really nicely; more than playable actually enjoyable.

 

[Ovedius]

I also have the same MB, and I must disagree with you regarding Pillars of Eternity, it runs great. I have it running at 1080p on an external monitor on low with max frame rate set to 30, and it runs really nicely; more than playable actually enjoyable.

Well as I said, these are how I feel the games run
And if you're comfortable with how it runs, thats great.
-it is after all a spectacularly engrossing game.

Problem is that I've already played that game on a more capable machine and the slower performance on the MacBook irked me just a little too much.
Spell effects and lot's of characters brings with it too much stuttering for my tastes.

Tell you what, I'll edit Pillars of Eternity on the list a little, to include your experience with it.

 

[dnh44]

Well as I said, these are how I feel the games run
And if you're comfortable with how it runs, thats great.
-it is after all a spectacularly engrossing game.

Problem is that I've already played that game on a more capable machine and the slower performance on the MacBook irked me just a little too much.
Spell effects and lot's of characters brings with it too much stuttering for my tastes.

Tell you what, I'll edit Pillars of Eternity on the list a little, to include your experience with it.

I must admit that while the MacBook is the second machine I've played it on, neither machine is what I would describe as terribly capable so I've never experienced it in its full glory.

I would agree in describing Satellite Reign as totally unplayable for example, I just thought there was a vast difference between that and PoE.

 

[Ovedius]

I must admit that while the MacBook is the second machine I've played it on, neither machine is what I would describe as terribly capable so I've never experienced it in its full glory.

I would agree in describing Satellite Reign as totally unplayable for example, I just thought there was a vast difference between that and PoE.

Did you mean Pillars under macOS or Bootcamp?

 

[dnh44]

Did you mean Pillars under macOS or Bootcamp?

macOS

 

[kylera]

What would the difference be between an M5 and an M7?

 

[Ovedius]

What would the difference be between an M5 and an M7?

Negligible, read this:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Face-Off-Apple-MacBook-12-Core-m3-Core-m5-and-Core-m7.172046.0.html

 

[asoksevil]

Great thread!

So I have an m7 as well and all Blizzard games on macOS work fine (30 fps) in either medium to low resolution and depending on the game switching from 1440x900 to the lowest available.

I find it amusing that you are actually disabling turbo boost which is the "only" way you can achieve higher processing power. I mean wouldn't it better to have turbo boost enable and a laptop fan cooler?

Regarding SOMA: I have been able to play it on my old 2010 MBA with everything set to low. Granted I was probably getting less than 30 fps with some stutteringa but it was playable. Try tweaking the setting and lowering the resolution, it might help.

The retina MacBook does not have a fan so often times is the heat that it's throttling your CPU performance so a good laptop cooler can help you have steady fps.

 

[Ovedius]

Great thread!

I find it amusing that you are actually disabling turbo boost which is the "only" way you can achieve higher processing power. I mean wouldn't it better to have turbo boost enable and a laptop fan cooler?

Regarding SOMA: I have been able to play it on my old 2010 MBA with everything set to low. Granted I was probably getting less than 30 fps with some stutteringa but it was playable. Try tweaking the setting and lowering the resolution, it might help.
.

A laptop cooler would be a huge boon, definitely. -And I have considered it.
But you see, and I'm now going to reveal how much of a curmudgeon I am, I loathe fan noise.
I loathe it.
The main draw of the Macbook for me is that it is juuust powerful enough without needing active cooling.

So I disable Turbo Boost, because it is impossible to maintain peak output over time.
This is the only way, on my machine at least, to ensure stable performance.
I find the dips in performance due to throttling far worse than the "gimped" performance without Turbo Boost.
And older games are not so dependant on the CPU, I find, also the m7 is a pretty efficient little trooper even without Boost.

About SOMA, I did lower the settings as far as I could.
But (curmudgeon alert!) I refuse to go below 1280x800 in resolution and I demand a certain minimum of graphical fidelity.
Everyone has different tastes and opinions on what looks and plays "good enough", personally I just don't bother playing if I have to turn too many settings to low -especially textures, effects and resolution.

So, actually, you could say that this list is slightly pessimistic
-which is good, don't want to give people false hopes

 

[Narxt]

Well as I said, these are how I feel the games run
And if you're comfortable with how it runs, thats great.
-it is after all a spectacularly engrossing game.

Problem is that I've already played that game on a more capable machine and the slower performance on the MacBook irked me just a little too much.
Spell effects and lot's of characters brings with it too much stuttering for my tastes.

Tell you what, I'll edit Pillars of Eternity on the list a little, to include your experience with it.

Hi. Awesome list, thanks very much for the effort.
I too run 1080p Pillars of Eternity. About 80% through and I haven't noticed any slowdowns. Perhaps its the cool weather here?

Edit: I should point out that menus when saving get a bit laggy.