Cyberpunk 2077 runs on MacBook Neo at over 30 FPS

MacBook Neo running Cyberpunk 2077 — (Image credit: ETA Prime - YouTube)

The MacBook Neo is Apple's most affordable laptop to date and is tuned for entry-level buyers who need a computer for email, web browsing, video watching, and other simple tasks. However, YouTuber ETA Prime discovered Apple’s latest entry-level device is surprisingly capable for PC gaming thanks to the iPhone 16 Pro SoC housed inside. The YouTuber tested several games and found that the Neo could achieve playable frame rates in AAA titles, including Cyberpunk 2077.

ETA Prime tested several games on the MacBook Neo: Hades 2, Drive Rally, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Hollow Knight: Silksong, BioShock 2, Roblox, Resident Evil Village, RoboCop: Rogue City, and Cyberpunk 2077. Hades 2, Drive Rally, and Roblox ran at 60 FPS at 2816 x 1762. Bioshock 2 Remastered and Resident Evil Village, but ran at significantly lower resolutions to do so. Hollow Knight: Silksong encountered strange behavior during the YouTuber's tests, only achieving 56 FPS average with the built-in display. However, it achieved over 100 FPS when the laptop was plugged into a high-refresh-rate external display.

Gaming On The New MacBook Neo! - YouTube

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The most demanding games the YouTuber tested were Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Robocop: Rogue City, and Cyberpunk 2077. Shadow of the Tomb Raider ran at an average of 42 FPS at 1280 x 720, upscaled from 896 x 584. Robocop: Rogue City ran at around 45 FPS using the same resolution and upscaling ratio, and Cyberpunk 2077 ran at around 40 FPS at 1204 x 753, upscaled from 708 x 443. We also benchmarked the MacBook Neo in Cyberpunk 2077 in our review, but only ran the built-in benchmark, achieving 33 FPS.

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ETA Prime’s tests prove that Apple’s entry-level MacBook is capable of playing PC games, even AAA games, if you are willing to make sacrifices to image quality. Further, it proves Apple’s modern iPhones have the hardware chops to run PC games since the Neo uses Apple’s A18 Pro rather than M-series silicon. PC emulation on Android is growing in popularity and is already possible on flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered phones such as the Red Magic 11 Pro. The only problem now for iPhones is that PC emulation support is in a weak spot compared to Android.

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Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

10 Comments Comment from the forums

thewindmind

Admin said:
YouTuber runs several PC games on the MacBook Neo, including Cyberpunk 2077 at around 40 FPS. Testing proves that Apple's iPhone SoCs can emulate PC games at playable frame rates.

Cyberpunk 2077 runs on MacBook Neo at over 30 FPS — PC gaming is possible with A18 Pro iPhone chip : Read more
I know it would have been less sensational, but the headline should have mentioned that it only ran at 720p and that was upscaled from an even lower resolution
Reply
PEnns

Word on the street it can run Crysis at 180p.
Reply
chaos215bar2

Admin said:
YouTuber runs several PC games on the MacBook Neo, including Cyberpunk 2077 at around 40 FPS. Testing proves that Apple's iPhone SoCs can emulate PC games at playable frame rates.
"Emulate"? The reason these games run well is because they were adapted to the native macOS graphics APIs and built natively for the platform.

What this proves is that the power is there if game publishers care to take advantage of it. Just imagine what an M5 Pro or Max could do with these games if this is what a measly A18 can manage.
Reply
warezme

You might actually get 60fps if you upscale from 320x240 and low resolution everything...., whatever
Reply
chaos215bar2

warezme said:
You might actually get 60fps if you upscale from 320x240 and low resolution everything...., whatever
This is a modern AAA title running on a phone SOC that's powering an entire 13" computer.

Having played Cyberpunk on an M3 Max, I can report zero difficulty hitting 60 fps at higher resolutions with quite decent graphics settings. And unlike older Macs and most gaming PC laptops I've experienced, the system does not turn into a hairdryer sitting on your desk when doing this.

The performance is actually quite impressive, IMO. It would be great (for everyone, really — Windows monopolizing PC gaming benefits no one but Microsoft) if publishers and gamers collectively noticed that actually Macs have pretty good gaming performance these days and we started getting more major titles on the platform.

If a game is well written from the start, porting isn't even that much of an issue. Most major game engines already natively support Metal graphics. A game just needs to be written with that support in mind.
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Daniel15

This is interesting because it's (hopefully) going to show regular users how much more their iPhone could do if it had a more powerful OS and was not locked down in Apple's walled garden. I don't mean for games specifically, but more broadly things like running apps from outside the App Store, proper multitasking, etc., taking full advantage of the CPU's power.
Reply
chaos215bar2

Daniel15 said:
This is interesting because it's (hopefully) going to show regular users how much more their iPhone could do if it had a more powerful OS and was not locked down in Apple's walled garden. I don't mean for games specifically, but more broadly things like running apps from outside the App Store, proper multitasking, etc., taking full advantage of the CPU's power.
One can hope. But the same is true of iPad and Apple Vision, which have used Mac SOCs since the switch to Apple silicon.

That's the real downside of these products. Even the pro versions literally don't support local network backups, instead expecting you to pay for potentially terabytes of iCloud storage if you actually use them to produce content you care about as opposed to just consuming media you can redownload any time.

Macs of course remain fairly open, but you can still see the desire to lock things down and guide users into ongoing revenue streams reflected in default settings. Subscription revenue is like a drug to corporations. One hit, and they'll slowly squeeze their users and destroy the quality of their own products to maximize just how much they're able to extract.
Reply
Penzi

chaos215bar2 said:
One can hope. But the same is true of iPad and Apple Vision, which have used Mac SOCs since the switch to Apple silicon.

That's the real downside of these products. Even the pro versions literally don't support local network backups, instead expecting you to pay for potentially terabytes of iCloud storage if you actually use them to produce content you care about as opposed to just consuming media you can redownload any time.

Macs of course remain fairly open, but you can still see the desire to lock things down and guide users into ongoing revenue streams reflected in default settings. Subscription revenue is like a drug to corporations. One hit, and they'll slowly squeeze their users and destroy the quality of their own products to maximize just how much they're able to extract.
As someone deep in their ecosystem, their monopolistic and anti-competitive behaviour is indeed a sore spot. I’m slowly weaning myself of non-Mac hardware as specifically their inflexibility and unwillingness to let others be flexible with their hardware is chafing more than ever. I need to upgrade to the glitchfest that is iOS 26 because Safari has a (catastrophic) bug?!
Reply
Gururu

I wonder if a 10 year old PC can beat that.
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Peacetechcombat

Why we excited about running Cyberpunk at 30 fps? I am genuinely confused... Honestly who is the weirdo that will actually play it at 30 fps... My eyes hurt after about 10 mins
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