To the uninitiated: I am the primary Mac/Metal graphics programmer at Epic Games, developers of the Unreal Engine on which the game runs. I have not personally run this game so I don't know how well it runs specifically.
The spec requirements are only just barely lower on Windows. An i3 and a Geforce 660.
Correct. CPU wise the specs. are lower on Windows but the GPU performance floor is actually similar, the 660 is a desktop part that is in the same performance ballpark as the 680M & M290.
If these GPU requirements are accurate, this is more limiting on Mac than most people are thinking.
The Radeon Pro 560 does not match a 290m or gtx 680 in benchmarks, so 21.5" iMac is out.
The pro 570 in the 27" iMac is just barely under, and you need a pro 575 to meet the requirements.
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So your options are limited to the highest end 27" iMacs, a Mac Pro, or an iMac pro. The iMac pro being the only one to comfortably exceed the requirements to play at high settings/frame rates.
All the 2014, 2015 & 2017 27" iMacs will meet or exceed the specifications. The M295X, M395X, 570, 575, 580 all exceed the required specifications significantly.
I'd expect a 2013 Mac Pro D300 or D500 to meet the minimum and the D700 to exceed it noticeably.
The 2012 & 2013 27" BTO iMacs are capable (680M & 780M).
I'd also not write off the Radeon Pro 460 & 560 - they should be in the ballpark of the M290, which is slower than the M290X that is commonly listed in benchmarks but I don't have a lot of hands-on experience with them (unlike the above). The 455 & 555 are probably a little slow.
The iMac Pro is overkill - it should be the fastest by far, but the 2017 27" iMacs will also be plenty fast.
That's a decent range of supported models given the significant increase in hardware demands between the 360/PS3 and the current PS4/Pro/XBONE generation of games and Apple's relatively slow adoption of faster GPUs in consumer models.
A single d700 GPU in the 2013 Mac Pro is also slightly under performance, but If it uses both GPU's well, even the dual d500 should handle it..
It is infeasible to use both GPUs for rendering on macOS in a way that is applicable to high-performance game-engines. All resource synchronisation between the GPUs has to transit through system-memory which is just too slow and requires inordinate amounts of code as Metal doesn't handle this for you. Even then on Windows with multi-GPU setups UE4 does not scale linearly with GPUs.
Plus a quad core 3.3 GHz i5 proc? How many people have that? I just checked, and the only Macs that have that are the current iMac & Mac Pros. That's a VERY small audience! I'd be really mad if they pull it and say that there isn't enough interest in it.
Most of the Mac models I've listed above shipped with a faster Core i5 or even Core i7 which will perform better than the minimum listed.
I got email yesterday alerting me to this title being released for Mac. Cool, but no Intel video support at all? That's the thing that really holds back the Mac as a viable gaming platform. EVEN when you finally get a publisher writing a native OS X edition of a game (which is rare enough!), they tend to limit it to very few Macs that can even run it.
I can play this on my 2013 "trash can" Mac Pro workstation, but let's face it. That's NOT the system most Mac owners have. A brand new 2017 Macbook Pro 13" still only has Intel Iris video so it can't run this title. Nobody with ANY version of a Macbook Air can run it. A 21.5" 2017 iMac can't run it either (Iris video again).
The Intel GPUs aren't fast enough for modern AAA games so there's not much developers can do about that - the same problem exists on Windows. As other commenters have pointed out, it is up to Apple to ship more Mac models with faster, modern discrete GPU designs. In the interim external GPUs should allow older Macs with Thunderbolt but slower GPUs (and fast enough CPUs) to play as well.
