MacBook Pro Owner Demonstrates M4 Max Running Alan Wake 2 Smoothly Above 60FPS at High Visual Settings, Excluding Path Tracing

While Alan Wake 2 may have debuted over two years ago, it continues to exemplify Remedy Entertainment’s ability to deliver visually stunning graphics that stand out in the gaming industry. Our review highlighted its exquisite visual fidelity; however, such detail comes at a price, often requiring top-tier graphics hardware to maintain playable frame rates. Yet, it was quite surprising to see a user with an M4 Max MacBook Pro run a non-native version of this demanding title smoothly on their system.

Reddit User Reports Impressive Performance with M4 Max

A Reddit user, known as oyskionline, shared their experience with a 14-inch MacBook Pro equipped with an M4 Max chip featuring a 14-core CPU and a 32-core GPU. Utilizing CrossOver, this gamer launched Alan Wake 2 successfully. Interestingly, only months ago, the user claimed that the game wouldn’t run at all. This indicates significant optimizations have likely been made to CrossOver in that timeframe. Given that Remedy managed to port Control to Apple Silicon Macs, there’s substantial hope that Alan Wake 2 could follow suit.

M4 Max MacBook Pro demonstrates the possibility of running Alan Wake 2

When it comes to performance, the MacBook Pro achieved an average of 80 FPS at an internal resolution of 1, 800 x 1, 169 with high visual settings. The user set MetalFX upscaling to Balanced and enabled frame generation. It’s important to note that since NVIDIA’s Frame Generation isn’t compatible with Apple Silicon, it stands to reason that the performance may have relied on AMD’s FSR 3 Frame Generation technology instead. Additionally, the absence of path tracing in the configurations certainly preserved frame rates.

Comparison of Alan Wake 2 performance on different hardware — An RTX 4090-equipped gaming laptop running Alan Wake 2 with maximum settings, including path tracing and Frame Generation enabled. Note that we have undervolted for optimized thermal performance at a slight expense to overall performance.

Using our RTX 4090-powered gaming laptop as a reference, the performance metrics show the FPS counts plummeting when path tracing and Frame Generation are enabled. Although direct comparisons between the M4 Max and an RTX 4090 aren’t entirely fair, it’s truly impressive how far Apple’s silicon has advanced. The ability of Alan Wake 2 to perform well on a Mac that doesn’t run the game natively signifies great potential, and we hope to see even more visually extraordinary titles launched on this platform.

Meanwhile, it would be advantageous for Apple to consider lowering the prices of its high-end MacBook Pro models, which currently carry steep price tags. If Apple aims to make a significant impact in the gaming laptop market, addressing pricing strategies should be a priority.

For more details, visit the source: Reddit

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