Earlier today, watchful eyes spotted somekey updatesto the SteamDB listing for CD Projekt Red’sCyberpunk 2077which corresponded to a MacOS executable and depots being added to the game. The update is roughly in line with the “early 2025” timeframe given by CDPR on the MacOSCyberpunk 2077release [h/tNotebookcheck.net]. At the time of writing, we have yet to see any footage of the MacOS port running, but it has been promised to also support ray tracing on Mac models that actually support the functionality, namely Apple Silicon M4 Mac Minis and M3, M3 Pro, or M3 Max-based Macs.
So, how well should we expectCyberpunk 2077to perform on Mac? With hacky workaround methods, modern Macs can already run the game at a consistent-ish 40+ FPS, but not with ray tracing enabled. With the native port, which is already stated to provide ray tracing support, 60 FPS performance should be totally possible… butwithRT enabled? Well, things start getting a little dubious there.
As an example, another recent game with Ray Tracing support,Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, also got a native MacOS port with ray tracing functionality intact in the past year.Benchmarkingthat game with ray tracing enabled does show that playable AAA experiences with ray tracing are indeed possible on the Mac platform, butRift Apartalso isn’t going to push ray tracing hardware nearly as hard asCyberpunk 2077can in its “RT Overdrive Mode”.
Based on existing performance information on recent Macs, it would seem likely that theCyberpunk 2077MacOS port will perform perfectly fine without ray tracing enabled, likely be capped to 30-40 FPS with some ray tracing enabled, and most likely be overtly unplayable with current-gen hardware when RT Overdrive is enabled. It will likely take at least a few generations for Apple’s own native silicon to be able to provide RT hardware that can actually pushCyberpunk 2077to its upper limits of fidelity (consider how expensive such a feat remains even on PC, with theBest Gaming GPUsavailable to you), but even having the game playable on the platform in the interim should serve as a great benchmark for Mac gaming for quite some time to come.
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Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.
