Resident Evil Village, Metal 3, and the Future of Mac Gaming

Tony Polanco, writing last month for Tom’s Guide:

Now, Resident Evil Village has made me a believer. Gaming on Macs
can be just as good as on the best gaming PCs or best gaming
laptops, provided developers actually optimize their titles for
Apple’s computers. […]

Without MetalFX enabled, I saw frame rates hover in the low 100s
while I walked around the main protagonist’s home (Ethan Winters)
during the intro. Later, when the game shifted to a dark,
snow-covered mountain, frame rates fluctuated more dramatically — dipping into the low 70s at worst. Still, those are very
impressive numbers with MetalFX off.

Saying I was shocked when I enabled MetalFX is an understatement.
In Ethan’s home, frame rates instantly jumped into the low 200s.
They dropped to the 150s when I began walking around, but those
are still very high frame rates. Frames dipped into the upper 80s
when traversing the mountain, but I’m not complaining.

And the kicker:

I should note that performance didn’t take a hit when I unplugged
the Magsafe cable from the MacBook Pro. Typically, frame rates
drop substantially on gaming laptops when you unplug, but that
wasn’t the case here. And though I didn’t play for extended
periods of time, I never once heard the MacBook Pro’s fans kick
in, nor did the laptop ever get warm. Considering how some gaming
notebooks start to sound like jet engines seconds after booting up
a game, this is a huge win.

See also: Luke Larsen, writing at Digital Trends:

The most startling thing about playing Resident Evil Village on a
MacBook Pro wasn’t actually performance. It was HDR. The MacBook
Pro (16-inch) has one of Apple’s “XDR” displays, a mini-LED panel
that’s better than any other gaming laptop display. That’s because
mini-LEDs that can get this bright are still fairly uncommon in
the world of gaming laptops. And in many ways, there’s no better
game to play in HDR than Resident Evil Village.

Read Original post from Daring Fireball

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