Cyberpunk 2077 Lands on Apple Silicon with Full M‑Series Support

[AleksandarK]

CD Projekt RED is about to rewrite the Mac's reputation as a second-tier gaming rig. At 8 am Pacific on July 17, Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, which includes the base game, Phantom Liberty, and Patch 2.3, will be available to download across the Mac App Store, Steam, GOG, and Epic. Players who already own the title on PC won't have to pay again. This isn't just a delayed port. Engineers have spent the last eighteen months rebuilding the REDengine pipeline to support Apple's Metal API, slicing each frame into parallel tasks that utilize every GPU core in M-series chips. The result is dynamic "For this Mac" presets that adjust resolution, effects, and memory usage in real-time. An M1 with 16 GB of unified RAM achieves 30 FPS at 1600×900, an M3 Pro with 18 GB maintains 60 FPS at 1080p, and the M3 Ultra or M4 Max with 36 GB sustains 60 FPS at native 1440p without thermal throttling.

Ray tracing is optional. Medium path-traced reflections run at 30 FPS on an M3 Pro and 60 FPS on an M3 Max or better, but the default settings keep neon effects rasterized for visual consistency. CDPR has also added AMD's FSR 2 frame generation and MetalFX upscaling, smoothing performance when the action ramps up. Storage requirements vary by platform: 92 GB on Steam, Epic, or GOG, and 159 GB on the Mac App Store due to pre-installed language packs. No matter where you buy it, cross-progression syncs your character across console, PC, and Mac. With Spatial Audio, dynamic HDR tuned for Pro Display XDR, and support for Metal 4 features like frame interpolation and real-time denoising, Apple aims to make AAA games feel native on Mac. If Cyberpunk 2077 runs as promised, the next studio to port a blockbuster might not wait years for a port, but plan from the beginning to tap the massive macOS market.



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[Grimling]

That is actually very impressive. coming from someone who does not have a mac but likes the game.

 

[ZoneDymo]

That is actually very impressive. coming from someone who does not have a mac but likes the game.

I fail to see what those things have to do with eachother.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I'm wondering what the hold-back was? GFX performance? Overall SOC performance? Or maybe just recompiling for Apples version of ARM...

I fail to see what those things have to do with eachother.

I understood it. Where is your misunderstanding there?

 

[Prima.Vera]

Let's not kid ourselves. The graphics will be on pair, or worst than on PS4, with DLSS most likely set on ultra performance.

 

[Rabit]

 

[lexluthermiester]

View attachment 408002

Um, what are you saying here? What does this have to do with the overall discussion of the article?

 

[Mitohondri]

Let's not kid ourselves. The graphics will be on pair, or worst than on PS4, with DLSS most likely set on ultra performance.

why would you think that? for example, M4 SoC are way better than PS5 SoC, so if they did their job and done native optimisation for Mac, as they did for PS5. it should be better no?

Quote from article: M1 with 16 GB of unified RAM achieves 30 FPS at 1600×900, an M3 Pro with 18 GB maintains 60 FPS at 1080p, and the M3 Ultra or M4 Max with 36 GB sustains 60 FPS at native 1440p without thermal throttling.

Since i dont have console, isnt this on pair/or better then console performance?

 

[Lew Zealand]

I have an M1 Pro with 32GB RAM 6P+2E CPU and own CP2077 from GOG.com so I'll test it out to see what it can do. This M1 Pro has a 1792 core GPU which sounds decent but as efficiency is the M# shtick the core clocks are low, around 1300 MHz. I wasn't going to bring it on vacation this weekend but... we'll see.

Edit: tech details

Edit 2: Annnnnnd I just remembered my SO got an M4 Pro Mac recently for work with the 10P+4E and 2048 core GPU (looks like @1800 MHz?). GOG is great, download once and install as many times as needed.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Let's not kid ourselves. The graphics will be on pair, or worst than on PS4, with DLSS most likely set on ultra performance.

Citation?

 

[dyonoctis]

Citation?

Just mindless Apple bashing. Probably read an article a decades ago about the mac pro 13 using the Intel iGPU, and figured that they never uppgraded from that level of performance.

Seriously though, the PS4 wasn't impressive even at launch, the mid-range PC quickly caught up, and something like a radeon 7870 was already better. Dude really got a twisted sense of reality.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Just mindless Apple bashing. Probably read an article a decades ago about the mac pro 13 using the Intel iGPU, and figured that they never uppgraded from that level of performance.

Seriously though, the PS4 wasn't impressive even at launch, the mid-range PC quickly caught up, and something like a radeon 7870 was already better. Dude really got a twisted sense of reality.

View attachment 408007View attachment 408008

That's kinda what I figured. While Apples SOC's are solid GFX performers, they are not on par with current PC GFX hardware. However, they are better than PS4 or PS4Pro. IF they'd said PS5, that would have been different.

 

[LastDudeALive]

18 months rewriting the engine to work on Macs, FSR4 and 3.1, XeSS 2 frame generation, Intel-exclusive HDR, etc...

When was the last time an AMD-sponsored title put this much time and money into supporting other brands?

I'm wondering what the hold-back was? GFX performance? Overall SOC performance? Or maybe just recompiling for Apples version of ARM...

They said they redid the entire rendering pipeline to support Apple's graphics API and unique method of rendering. It's not just recompiling, you actually have to go into the engine and change how it works, since Apple M chips are completely different in both the API and architecture from any DirectX 12 compliant PC or console.

Let's not kid ourselves. The graphics will be on pair, or worst than on PS4, with DLSS most likely set on ultra performance.

"M3 Pro with 18 GB maintains 60 FPS at 1080p, and the M3 Ultra or M4 Max with 36 GB sustains 60 FPS at native 1440p without thermal throttling."

That's at least PS5 level performance, depending on how aggressive the upscaling is on PS5 and the M chips. And if those numbers are with RT on, it's significantly better than PS5. TBH, I expect the CPU is what's limiting it to ~60fps on the higher-end chips. Maybe Apple will drop a load of L3 cache on their next lineup lol.

That's kinda what I figured. While Apples SOC's are solid GFX performers, they are not on par with current PC GFX hardware.

Could you explain this a bit more? How, exactly, are they "solid," but also "not on par?" ~60fps with upscaling at 1440p is perfectly respectable, especially since we're talking about a mobile package with a total power consumption of ~115W or so. And if these numbers are with RT on, that's more than great.

Storage requirements vary by platform: 92 GB on Steam, Epic, or GOG, and 159 GB on the Mac App Store due to pre-installed language packs

Gotta say, almost doubling the installation size, then charging $400 for 1TB of storage is a masterful ploy. Apple's sure to become a gaming platform this way!

 

[lexluthermiester]

They said they redid the entire rendering pipeline to support Apple's graphics API and unique method of rendering. It's not just recompiling, you actually have to go into the engine and change how it works, since Apple M chips are completely different in both the API and architecture from any DirectX 12 compliant PC or console.

Wow... Is context something you have issues with?

Could you explain this a bit more? How, exactly, are they "solid," but also "not on par?"

Are you kidding? I'm not explaining that. If you don't get it, that's cool, just move along..

 

[LastDudeALive]

Wow... Is context something you have issues with?

The context of you wondering why it took so long? Maybe it's because they had to rewrite the entire game engine, idk tho. Just a thought.

Are you kidding? I'm not explaining that. If you don't get it, that's cool, just move along..

lmao

 

[lexluthermiester]

Maybe it's because they had to rewrite the entire game engine, idk tho. Just a thought.

Not a very great thought. Kinda shows how little you know about programming. Just throwing it out there.

 

[Guwapo77]

What??? I'm fixin' to get this on my laptop! M3 Max

 

[dyonoctis]

The context of you wondering why it took so long? Maybe it's because they had to rewrite the entire game engine, idk tho. Just a thought.


lmao

Rebuilding a pipeline and rewriting a whole engine has different implications. The old red engine pipeline probably had no idea about what it should do to package a game for the Metal API.

That's the unity build window, as you can see, you just have to select the platform. You don't fire up a different version of the engine for each platform; the build settings are going to package the game in an appropriate way for each platform. That's probably the part that they fine tuned. I really doubt that they made a whole game engine just for the Mac. At its core, it's the same game engine; they just added instructions about how a game for the Metal API should behave.

Target architecture​

Before you build an application for macOS, be aware of the chipset differences between Apple devices. Some Apple devices use Intel chipsets and others use Apple silicon. You can use Unity to create both architecture-specific builds and builds that target both Intel and Apple silicon. The available target architectures are:

• Intel 64-bit: Creates a macOS build for Apple devices that use Intel chipsets.
• Apple silicon: Creates a macOS build for Apple devices that use Apple silicon architecture.
• Intel 64-bit + Apple silicon: Creates a macOS build that works on both Intel chipsets and Apple silicon. Note: This results in a build that is larger than the individual architecture-specific builds. This impacts overall application size.

 

[azrael]

While I applaud the feat, I have to wonder why similar efforts haven't been made towards a native Linux (Vulkan) version. Apparently, it's good enough for Linux users to have a translation/emulation layer. I wouldn't call the macOS market "massive" either.

 

[dismuter]

Linux and macOS are both sharpening their claws on gaming. Microsoft better get their gaming-optimized OS out fast and fix the Windows 11 experience. As soon as competitive games migrate their anti-cheat to those other operating systems, it's going to be rough competition for Windows.

I wouldn't call the macOS market "massive" either.

Apple has between 20 and 25% of desktop/laptop market share in the US, the percentage may not be massive, but that should still represent several tens of millions of machines in the US alone.
I can see that effort being easily profitable for CD Projekt RED.

 

[AlexKataev91]

Apple has between 20 and 25% of desktop/laptop market share in the US, the percentage may not be massive, but that should still represent several tens of millions of machines in the US alone.
I can see that effort being easily profitable for CD Projekt RED.

Apple spent decades promoting their machines for designers, developers and other specialists, basically as working machines. I would assume that share of people who want to game on their laptop/desktop is lower (maybe not significantly but still) for Apple users than for PC users.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

I am a little bit confused by this.

CDProjekt Red just spent 18 months porting their engine over to mac silicon which they have already previously announced they are discontinuing any further developlement on. Instead new IPs/works are going to be based on Unreal which they announced 36 months ago.

I fail to see both the technical reasoning for this and also a business case for this unless it was a way of keeping Redengine developers busy while cross training/getting up to speed with unreal.

 

[Mitohondri]

I found the test that was done 7months ago, for Cyberpunk via crossover for PC version of the game. so, if they did all this work, game will be even better than this screen shot

 

[LastDudeALive]

While I applaud the feat, I have to wonder why similar efforts haven't been made towards a native Linux (Vulkan) version. Apparently, it's good enough for Linux users to have a translation/emulation layer. I wouldn't call the macOS market "massive" either.

Per the Steam Hardware survey, if you take Steam Decks out of the Linux numbers, there's actually about as many Macs with Steam installed as there are Linux PCs with Steam installed. So at best, the markets are roughly equal in size.

 

[Guwapo77]

Well, I'm pleased to report that Cyberpunk works exceptionally well on my MacBook M3 Max. It doesn't look as good as my desktop, but I find it to well above acceptable. Hopefully more devs will port over to the Mac in the future. This goes to show just how capable Apple M processors really are... Additionally, the gameplay is very smooth, no choppiness at all. I'm impressed.