Is the M2 Pro enough for light gaming?

[crsh1976]

I have been eyeing the Mini M2 Pro since it was announced - I already have a MBP M1 Max for work, but it's locked and I cannot use it for personal stuff (nor would I want to anyway). This is very much a home machine for pretty much everything.

Given I'm looking at the Mini M2 Pro as a home machine for pretty much everything, I wonder if the base M2 Pro 10/16 or the M2 Pro 12/19 is plenty to handle some light gaming - and by light gaming, I really mean playing around with the Game Porting Toolking and Crossover, as well as playing from native games from time to time without expecting high-end performance.

I get that the M2 Max in the Studio would offer plenty more power to that end, but I'm not sure buying a Mac specifically for gaming makes any sense at this point - and I really have no power-demanding use cases for it otherwise.

 

[interstella]

I would imagine you can do pretty much any sort of gaming. I run the MMORPG Eve Online on my M2 Pro with a studio display and I get 55-60 fps even with all graphics settings maxed out. It runs bit warm (around 85-90°C according to iStat Menus) but the fan still rarely goes above it's idling speed of 1700 rpm.

 

[crsh1976]

Great news, I played Eve a while back - I understand they have a native (Metal) client out that runs without the help of Rosetta or Crossover/GPTK - it's promising that on a Studio Display you get such decent performance too!

 

[LeeW]

Should be fine, just don't expect miracles. I mean I can play World of Warcraft on max settings when out and about playing casually and it gets about 40 FPS. Enough. But if I was in a dungeon or raiding the settings need to be lowered significantly.

 

[Jetfuel]

Xplane11 with add-ons runs from 20 to 40FPS. Thats full sliders at 4K. Xplane12 does ok around 15 to 30 FPS at 3K. I bought the 2023 MacMini M2Pro thinking it would be enough....it wasn't. MacStudio minimum for high end releases.

 

[crsh1976]

Xplane11 with add-ons runs from 20 to 40FPS. Thats full sliders at 4K. Xplane12 does ok around 15 to 30 FPS at 3K. I bought the 2023 MacMini M2Pro thinking it would be enough....it wasn't. MacStudio minimum for high end releases.

No doubt the Mac Studio is a better machine for gaming, I just have a hard time justifying the cost for something that isn't something I do on a regular basis (and as mentioned, I have no demanding workflow otherwise).

It sounds like the Mini M2 Pro will be on the low-mid range depending on the game, no guarantee non-native titles run well or at all even, but I'll try my hand with it and see how it goes - worst case scenario, it will make me buy a Mac Studio down the line. 😂

 

[Jetfuel]

You're in the same boat I'm in. I'll see down the road if a Mac Studio will be worth the extra cost.