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Best games for Base model M1 MBA?

achonody

achonody

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 29, 2021
63
25
Hello!

My MBA will hopefully be shipping soon but I have some questions if that's ok!

I have never been a gamer but excited at the possibilities the M1 Chip offers. A couple of games I would like to start with are Planet Coaster and Tomb Raider. However, which offers the best version of the game Steam or the Mac App store? How are the controls on the games? I am disabled and have almost normal use of one hand and severely limited with the other.

I was excited about Planet Zoo as well but I now know that they do not have a MacOS option. I haver used Bootcamp before and wondering how easy it is. Do you think they will come out with a MacOS version?

I've always heard of games like WoW, Fortnite, OverWatch, and CounterStrike but don't know if they are me at all? are there demos of these games? How do some of these classics do on the M1 chip?

I am an Amazon Prime member and will probably be trying Amazon Gaming because of Twitch. Does anyone know the tier Amazon Gaming gives you? Anyone tried Twitch with the M1 chip and how does it perform?

Lastly, what the best games that have been tested for the M1 chip? On Steam, Epic, etc. Thank you!
 
Keep in mind that you can also play many iOS and iPad games on the M1 Macs now.


achonody said:
I've always heard of games like WoW, Fortnite
Click to expand...
I have experience with both of these games. My daughters and I play WoW, and one of my daughters play Fortnite.

World of Warcraft was the first game (I think? At least the first AAA game) that was optimize for the M1 chips.

It runs great on my Mac Mini M1, I have the graphical settings turned up as high as they will go and I always have playable frame rates. Usually in the 40s and 50s, but sometimes as high as 60 and as low as 30s, but never even close to unplayable. I am currently playing in Legion area*


Fortnite plays very well, with the exception that is occasionally freezes the Mac. Sometimes I am able to force quit it, but twice I had to hold the power button to turn it off.

Fortnite looks great, but I personally haven't messed with the settings, as I do not play it. It appears to have around 60fps.

One thing to keep in mind is that Fortnite would be running using Rosetta, as there is not (and maybe will never be) an M1 optimize version. Considering it is an x86 app, it runs great.

Fortnite isn't really for me, and much prefer WoW.

achonody said:
are there demos of these games?
Click to expand...
Wow is free to play for up to level 20, but on as many characters as you want. There are restrictions with the free-to-play system.

It costs $15 a month for the full game, but there is a crazy amount of content that even a hardcore player would always have something to do. You can get it down to $12 a month if paying for a few months at a time.

There are also some in-game ways to get free months, but I never bothered with them.

There are IAP, but it is typically cosmetic, and has nothing to do with having an unfair advantage like other games.



Fortnite is free to play, but the latest season isn't available on Mac due to the Epic's and Apple's legal disputes. Although, I am unsure of why, because there is nothing stopping Epic from doing stuff on the Mac.

achonody said:
How do some of these classics do on the M1 chip?
Click to expand...
WoW is great, and an overall, well polished game. I have played it for almost 15 years, skipping only the Legion and BFA expansions. I started playing again and am playing catch up.

It runs great on the M1. I assume that on a MBA, that you may not to run graphic settings at 10 with no fan, but maybe you can.


Fortnite runs great except it occasionally crashes, but the gameplay is good.
 
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Wow! Vertical Smile THANK YOU for all the information!! Extremely helpful!
 
Can anyone help me who plays Planet Zoo?I know it’s a Windows game but have seen briefly how people play it on Mac OS? How easy is Boot Camp or Parallels to get/run/know how to use properly? Do I have to type things in Terminal etc? Also saw an article on Reddit how people downloaded some graphics chip and can now play it? How much is Boot Camp/Parallels to buy and which one is easier? I am going to have 256SSD. How much free space would I need? Also, doing something like this is it worth it for potentially one game?
 
achonody said:
Can anyone help me who plays Planet Zoo?I know it’s a Windows game but have seen briefly how people play it on Mac OS? How easy is Boot Camp or Parallels to get/run/know how to use properly? Do I have to type things in Terminal etc? Also saw an article on Reddit how people downloaded some graphics chip and can now play it? How much is Boot Camp/Parallels to buy and which one is easier? I am going to have 256SSD. How much free space would I need? Also, doing something like this is it worth it for potentially one game?
Click to expand...
Parallels is super easy to install (plus its free), as is the Windows for Arm Developer version. No need to type anything in Terminal at all. You'll need at least 50GB free to install any games on the Virtual Machine. Definitely worth it, just to prove to yourself you can be a tech nerd 😄

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-m1-macs/7082dca1-f70c-4986-a73f-4770a11c86d4
 
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Modernape said:
Parallels is super easy to install (plus its free), as is the Windows for Arm Developer version. No need to type anything in Terminal at all. You'll need at least 50GB free to install any games on the Virtual Machine. Definitely worth it, just to prove to yourself you can be a tech nerd 😄

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-m1-macs/7082dca1-f70c-4986-a73f-4770a11c86d4
Click to expand...
Ok thank you so much for the information!! Extremely helpful!!

Do you think Planet Zoo will have a Mac OS version?

Anyone remember the game Sim City? Do they have a game like this?
 
Does installing Parallels void Apple Care?? Sorry if it’s a stupid question but didn't know if it's considered jailbreaking.
 
achonody said:
Does installing Parallels void Apple Care?? Sorry if it’s a stupid question but didn't know if it's considered jailbreaking.
Click to expand...
No. Parallels is just like any other app. "Jailbreaking" a Mac isn't really a thing. (It kind of is with the new M1 Macs, but you shouldn't worry about that.)
 
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landonh12 said:
No. Parallels is just like any other app. "Jailbreaking" a Mac isn't really a thing. (It kind of is with the new M1 Macs, but you shouldn't worry about that.)
Click to expand...
Relieved to hear this. Thank you.
 
achonody said:
Hello!

My MBA will hopefully be shipping soon but I have some questions if that's ok!

I have never been a gamer but excited at the possibilities the M1 Chip offers. A couple of games I would like to start with are Planet Coaster and Tomb Raider. However, which offers the best version of the game Steam or the Mac App store? How are the controls on the games? I am disabled and have almost normal use of one hand and severely limited with the other.

I was excited about Planet Zoo as well but I now know that they do not have a MacOS option. I haver used Bootcamp before and wondering how easy it is. Do you think they will come out with a MacOS version?

I've always heard of games like WoW, Fortnite, OverWatch, and CounterStrike but don't know if they are me at all? are there demos of these games? How do some of these classics do on the M1 chip?

I am an Amazon Prime member and will probably be trying Amazon Gaming because of Twitch. Does anyone know the tier Amazon Gaming gives you? Anyone tried Twitch with the M1 chip and how does it perform?

Lastly, what the best games that have been tested for the M1 chip? On Steam, Epic, etc. Thank you!
Click to expand...
Try Warzone!
 
achonody said:
I have never been a gamer but excited at the possibilities the M1 Chip offers. A couple of games I would like to start with are Planet Coaster and Tomb Raider. However, which offers the best version of the game Steam or the Mac App store? How are the controls on the games? I am disabled and have almost normal use of one hand and severely limited with the other.
Click to expand...

Did you ever happen to get these games?

Steam has Tomb Raider (2013) for $2.24 this week ($5.99 for the second one in the series). Tomb Raider plays great on my M1 8GB Mac Mini.

Coincidentally, I just saw a deal on Planet Coaster for Steam on SlickDeals for less than $6.
 
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Didn’t buy the MacBook for gaming.
But after 100s of hours on the PS4 with Diablo 3.

I just bought Diablo 3 eternal collection for €25 and it runs like a charm on a base m1 air.
 

RVGL Project Page

RVGL - Cross-Platform Re-Volt Port.
rvgl.re-volt.io rvgl.re-volt.io

There is a problem with the AppleSilicon version for now, but you can either run it through rosetta (info on app in finder) or do this to fix it.
https://forum.re-volt.io/viewtopic.php?t=1408#p5651

If you don't have brew installed, it is easily installed:
brew.sh

Homebrew

The Missing Package Manager for macOS (or Linux).
brew.sh brew.sh

(I noticed that on my M1 machines, I cannot switch task to another app, without quitting. Don't know if that is a limitation of the Apple Silicon version)
 
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I own MacBook Air M1 16GB/1TB. It is an excellent gaming machine. Probably the only (Affordable) MacBook ever in history that can even run games lol.

I play RUST literally al day long. (Nearly maxed out) butter smooth experience of about 40-60FPS. Graphics are turned up really high.

This game uses about 13GB of ram. And I am amazed how this tiny machine can even run it like this. (Runs great on 8GB ram model too) “Don’t worry”

I have about 150 hours in on (Rust) just on my M1 MacBook Air.

I love it!!


I have a monster desktop PC with (2) watercooled and power modded 2080Ti’s full custom water cooling. My PC is capable of running anything. And I
enjoy gaming on my MacBook Air M1 nearly just as much. The M1 Air or M1 Pro is revolutionary!
 
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