Macs can play. In fact, my 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro processor can play games so well that it’s become the best gaming laptop I’ve ever owned.
I’m not even a fan of Apple. I’m loyal to my Windows gaming desktop with a 12th-gen Intel i7 and a power-hungry RTX 2080 Ti GPU, and always will be. But since I play less and less at home because of my family, my desktop computer is hardly used anymore. And that’s where my MacBook Pro comes into play.
Mark Coppock/Digital Trends
It’s About More Than Performance
Performance is obviously very important when it comes to gaming laptops, and more on that later. but he’s not the only one stuff that is important. Practicality, for example, has become an extremely key factor. As they say, the best camera is the one with you. And it’s kind of similar with games.
Unlike my desktop computer, my MacBook Pro is always with me. He is with me at work and on the road. I don’t have to lug around a different system, which means I have better (and more convenient) access to my favorite games, no matter where I am. It’s just not something I can get away with on a traditional gaming laptop.
There’s also the screen, which is another essential element of a gaming laptop. Mainstream gaming laptops continue to make strides in this regard, but the MacBook Pro still stands out from the pack with its Liquid Retina XDR display. The 2,500 local dimming zones you get on this mini-LED panel is twice that, even on the latest mini-LED gaming laptops. This means superior HDR performance in games that can support it, especially compared to the vast majority of gaming laptops that still use IPS LED panels.
And there are a lot of other little things. The speakers on this thing are awesome. They have the perfect balance of bass and treble, and wow! Can they ever get loud? The webcam is also a big step up from the average gaming laptop. I even enjoy MacOS as someone with Linux experience. Unix-like systems are right up my alley.
All of this makes the 14-inch MacBook Pro my favorite laptop, and thus the device I game on more than any other. So yeah, I love my Mac.
But none of that would make it the “perfect gaming laptop” if it couldn’t hold its own from a performance perspective. The M1 Pro (or M1 Max if I decided to upgrade) is what makes gaming possible on this little laptop in a way no MacBook has been able to in the past.
Handles graphics well.
Even though the laptop launched in late 2021, this little MacBook Pro still packs a punch. That M1 Pro chip inside just hums anything I throw at it, with its 8-core CPU and 14-core GPU all backed by a 16-core Neural Engine. The fans can come on from time to time, but I hardly ever heard them.
All this also applies to the actual gameplay. This machine runs the same graphics as a Windows laptop with about an RTX 3050 Ti inside. Rome; Total War (Remastered) plays at its original resolution without any issues. If you’ve ever played this game, you know how bad a lower GPU can be when you have massive armies facing off on the battlefield. My Mac doesn’t crash, not once.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided it’s a graphically heavy AAA first person shooter (albeit an older one) and I never encountered any issues while playing it. The same is true with Subway: Exodus and graphically rich Shadow of the Tomb Raideralthough the latter did suffer from some occasional frame rate drops.
My MacBook Pro handles these games well without draining the battery or freezing up.
Obviously, there’s a huge lack of new games for Mac, but I’m actually more of a laid-back strategy game guy, and that means my favorite games run smoothly on my Mac. For example, cities: skylines works like a charm and civilization VI It is not a problem.
Two of my favorite games are Crusader Kings III and hearts of iron IV, and both work great on my Mac too. In fact, they load much faster than on my computer at home. I barely have time to enjoy the music during the loading screen when I run them on my laptop.
The key to all of this, though, is that my MacBook Pro runs these games just fine without draining the battery or freezing up. Unlike your average gaming laptop, the M1 Pro’s extreme efficiency means MacBook Pro’s surface temperatures never get hot and battery life is decent when gaming. It’s not even worth comparing to your average gaming laptop.
Better than most gaming laptops
Mark Coppock/Digital Trends
I’m not saying my 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro processor and 16GB of RAM is better than my Windows desktop for gaming. In terms of raw performance and access to the largest library of titles, the desktop is clearly the undisputed champion. And many gaming laptops are better in this regard as well.
But many of these gaming laptops also come with significant trade-offs. You’ll sacrifice form for function or lose battery performance or insane temperatures and fan noise.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro avoids all of that. It perfectly balances performance, power consumption, and thermal characteristics in a beautiful, elegant form, all with added benefits like a better display, webcam, and speakers.
The only downside to playing on a Mac is the much smaller library of titles available. There is no way around that. And while it matches my personal taste in gaming quite well, I’m well aware that many PC gamers are on a different wavelength.
games like Resident Evil Town Coming to the Mac is a good sign, but even so, the MacBook Pro is still my favorite gaming machine, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.
editor’s recommendations
Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn