An M4 MacBook Air Owner’s Experience Running Borderlands 4: Disappointing Results

Releasing with an impressive visual overhaul, Borderlands 4 stands out as the most graphically advanced game in its series. However, enhanced graphics come at a steep cost, particularly in terms of hardware requirements. During our tests, even the robust RTX 5090 struggled to maintain a steady 60 FPS at native 4K resolution. Given this, one has to wonder how well Apple’s M4 MacBook Air could handle such a demanding title. One enterprising Redditor took the plunge, but the results revealed that pursuing this path may not be wise.

A Redditor’s Attempt to Run Borderlands 4 on the M4 MacBook Air

Despite Apple’s ongoing promotion of gaming on its Macs powered by in-house chips, there remains a significant gap in the availability of a diverse game library for this platform. In the meantime, Mac users often turn to CrossOver, a Windows compatibility tool that enables the running of Windows-based applications—including Borderlands 4.

The Reddit user known as Ialsofuckedyourdad exemplifies the challenges of attempting to play a AAA game like Borderlands 4 on an M4 MacBook Air. In a recent post, he reported achieving only around 10 FPS during combat and about 20 FPS indoors. Although the precise graphics settings were not disclosed, it’s reasonably assumed that the game was running on the lowest visual configurations.

In the thread, another user reported achieving a more playable experience, running the game at a ‘high’ graphics preset and managing a solid 60 FPS. However, this was on the M4 Max model, enhanced with 48GB of unified RAM, which significantly increases the overall cost. Moreover, it’s important to note that the M4 MacBook Air lacks an active cooling system and relies on a fanless heatsink. This design choice likely contributes to thermal throttling, particularly when pushing demanding titles like Borderlands 4.

Fortunately, there is an extensive library of titles compatible with CrossOver for those looking to explore AAA gaming on the M4 MacBook Air. If a high-profile release like Borderlands 4 struggles to achieve respectable frame rates on even high-end machines, this indicates a need for developers to focus on optimization to ensure a better gaming experience.

For more details, check out the original post on Reddit.

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