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Parallels for Gaming on M1 Pro and Max?

xeilon

xeilon

macrumors newbie
Jun 2, 2008
26
9
Australia
pudcraft said:
FF14 UPDATES (with screenshot settings):

I had some time to tinker with FF14 and Parallels. I am still unable to get the game to load in Crossover, which I feel would perform better. None the less, with some tweaking, I was able to get a boost of 10-12 FPS. Parallel's settings - I limited the VM to 40GB of RAM because I don't see the need to give it full allocation, the return of results with unlimited and limited RAM access did not make a significant difference, just for FF14.

Average FPS in busy city: 42 FPS
Average FPS in open world: 50-65 FPS
Average FPS in solo combat: 50 FPS
Average FPS in group combat: 18-32 FPS (varies dramatically)

I would ultimately state that I do not believe the game is playable at the end-game level with current optimizations. Hopefully we see better support from Parallels with the latest MBP Pro/Max models. If you are a solo player and enjoy leveling then this would probably work out just fine for you. If you are traveling and want to log in here and there and craft or farm, then this would probably work for you. If you are looking to raid, group play, or PvP then you are probably going to get frustrated with some FPS drops.

I need another game to test...any suggestions? Halo: Master Chief Collection maybe? I own all Blizzard games if it helps.
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Huh, are there problems running the Mac version of FFXIV? That uses Crossover/Wine and should offer much better performance than Parallels, I would think.
 
macpot

macpot

macrumors regular
Feb 14, 2017
168
249
LoopsOfFury said:
Why are you interested in running the first two through Parallels when there are Mac native versions?
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Personally, sometimes I even run native games with Parallels, because they don't support the full native resolution on Mac (unless I use EasyRes app, which makes everything insanely small).

Not sure about those 2 games though.
 
pudcraft

pudcraft

macrumors regular
Sep 23, 2013
239
201
Houston
xeilon said:
Huh, are there problems running the Mac version of FFXIV? That uses Crossover/Wine and should offer much better performance than Parallels, I would think.
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I was unable to run FFXIV efficiently or well enough to say I can comfortably game on it outside of solo gameplay


straightMacin said:
Anybody tried Halo MCC yet? Curious if online multiplayer works or not.
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I have not but I am happy to try it tonight/tomorrow!
 
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madisonm

madisonm

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 3, 2011
59
224
92D8783B-5946-48CE-B01C-274FACD1988D.jpeg
First thing I did upon opening my MBP today ?
 
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m3lover1

macrumors member
Nov 4, 2015
33
7
pudcraft said:
On games I tested unplugged I found battery drain to be not as much as expected. I played a mixture of Rocket League, Diablo 3, and WoW unplugged starting at 79% and ended at 63% after 1.5 hours of game time.

I can confirm Diablo 3 provided an average of 110 FPS on a M1 Max 64GB - but you must tinker with resolution and some settings. I removed reflections, turned on V-Sync, and lowered resolution a tad. I did have some random stutters with max settings (excluding the aforementioned settings) but gameplay remained playable. It can be presumed that by lowering some video settings down a notch or lower resolution that these stutters can be avoided. This was playing on the native Battle.net on MacOS (not using Parallels).


I am still struggling getting FF14 to launch on Crossover but other games using Crossover can result in better performance over Parallels. Some games may or may not perform equal or greater between the two mediums (Parallels/Crossover). It is worth trying your desired game on both to determine the best path to take.

Parallels setup is fairly straight forward these days. I made sure to have GAMING mode selected, resolution set best for Retina (lowering this can result in better game play if you have poor FPS in your chosen game), and allow Parallels access to unlimited resource use so it can take advantage of all the RAM and CPU/GPU power you have.
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I see. I just bought Metro Exodus over the weekend and have been playing that. I have the graphics setting at ultra and runs pretty well on one the middle settings for resolution (forgot which one off the top of my head). However after 2 hour of playing unplugged battery went from 100% to 18% lol.
 
F

Flo51

macrumors newbie
Nov 2, 2021
1
0
With a M1Pro 16 core, how many RAM to make game working with Parallels ? 16 or 32 GO ? Is there a huge difference ?
 
miamialley

miamialley

macrumors 68040
Jul 28, 2008
3,577
1,051
California, USA
madisonm said:
Hello everyone, I hope you are all as excited as I am for official launch day!

I am looking for information about your experience with Parallels’ gaming performance on the M1 Pro or M1 Max. I have reviewed the list of M1 game compatibility/performance through Parallels (https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/M1_Parallels_Windows_compatible_games_list) and I’m confused, what exactly is the real-world difference between Perfect and Playable?

Will the added heft of the M1 Pro and Max change any of these Playable games to Perfect, or is it based in the game itself? For example I’m quite eager to be able to play Overwatch casually alongside native World of Warcraft.

Any insight at all into your experience is welcome! I’m a complete beginner.


Note: I will just add that I do have a dedicated Windows Desktop PC for gaming, and intentionally chose an Apple laptop despite its gaming challenges. I purchased a 16” M1 Max basic config.
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I would like to know how Human Kind runs on a new M1 MBP.
 
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miamialley

miamialley

macrumors 68040
Jul 28, 2008
3,577
1,051
California, USA
tmoerel said:
Don't expect too much regarding to gaming on these machines. Apple does not make machines for gamers but for creative professionals. Gaming is just not the use case.
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I came to see if someone would say this. Only had to scroll to the first comment!

Someone people really want to make sure you know you *can't* game on these machines...despite whether or not you can.
 
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Spidder

macrumors regular
Dec 31, 2012
219
501
miamialley said:
I came to see if someone would say this. Only had to scroll to the first comment!

Someone people really want to make sure you know you *can't* game on these machines...despite whether or not you can.
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He didn't say that you can't, he just said that you shouldn't expect too much. He was right. The gaming performance is far below expectations. Lots of people (including me) expected about 3080 performance on the M1 Max and about 3050 performance on the M1 Pro. Now we got 3060 performance on the $3000 machine and 1060 performance on the $2000 machine.

Yes, you can game on all of them, but you're paying double compared to a windows machine... and you have to tinker with Parallels and Crossover, if you want to have access to more than a handful of AAA games. Yikes.
 
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madisonm

madisonm

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 3, 2011
59
224
Harthag said:
And people said the notch wouldn't interfere with full screen content. ?

Sorry, it's the first thing I saw when looking at the image. Atrocious. To each his own.
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miamialley said:
Is there a way to hide it?
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I’ll be honest I haven’t tried yet because I appreciated the extra height it gave me on my screen and don’t even notice the notch while playing.

I’ll check to see if I can change the aspect ratio so it will disappear like other apps.
 
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madisonm

madisonm

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 3, 2011
59
224
I personally cannot figure out if there is an option to hide it in WoW. I couldn’t find a way to change the aspect ratio.
 
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