STALKER 2 Performs Well in Sales, but Doesn’t Satisfy Performance
STALKER 2 has been making headlines, selling over a million copies, but it fails to smoothly run even on the most powerful hardware. The Unreal Engine 5 title is power-hungry for even the most powerful gaming processor, AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D, while Apple’s latest M4 Max chip for the MacBook Pro burdens it even further. The capable portable silicon that the M4 Max happens to be does not justify its premium price tag for gamers.
Testing STALKER 2 on the M4 Max: How Well Does It Run with Emulation
As YouTuber Denis Gladkikh proves, STALKER 2 is playable on Apple Silicon with the CrossOver app and GPT2 files. But again, this is not native gaming on macOS, and emulation in any form will always be a compromise in performance. So, while it is impressive to note that an M4 Max can run such a heavy title, significant visual sacrifice will be required. Its shader compilation reportedly took only 5-10 minutes, which is fairly decent for the emulated setup.
Performance Results: Low Resolutions and Frame Rates
Gladkikh’s benchmarks brought to light the fact that STALKER 2 was being run on a MacBook Pro powered by the M4 Max at medium detail, with a resolution of 1,600 x 900. The resulting figures were unimpressive, with Apple’s most powerful SoC unable to consistently run at 30–40 FPS at even 1080p resolution. At its base M4 Max configuration price of $3,199, the MacBook Pro certainly seems like a disappointing gaming investment.
One critical omission in the test was the lack of visible settings details, such as upscaling or AMD Frame Generation usage. However, a real-time performance graph indicated that the game was running at native 1,600 x 900 resolution without upscaling, as the setting showed “1.0x.”
Potential for Better Performance with Native Apps
A native version of STALKER 2 for macOS might unlock better performance on the M4 Max, but until then, gamers relying on this system should lower expectations. The M4 Max’s current gaming output highlights the gap between Apple Silicon and dedicated gaming systems.
Developer Updates May Offer Hope
GSC Game World, the developer behind STALKER 2, promised future patches that would further bug and performance enhancements. Such patches may show improvements in the game across the board, but also for users who seek to test it out on more unconventional methods, like the M4 Max.
Final Thoughts: The M4 Max as a Gaming Machine
While the M4 Max is an impressive piece of silicon for a portable chipset, it is far from a replacement for a gaming laptop or desktop computer. For gamers, the expensive price of Apple’s high-end MacBook Pro may not be justified for mere gaming; however, at the same time, its capability to emulate and run some quite heavy titles, such as STALKER 2, shows how much Apple Silicon has to narrow the gap in the future. As such, until then, M4 Max gaming remains an experiment for niches rather than a mainstream solution.
News and Images Source: Denis Gladkikh
