The Apple M4 Max is flexing serious gaming muscle, with a recent demo showing Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition running at a smooth 120FPS on the new chipset.
But before you ditch your gaming rig, there’s some context to unpack.
The demo, showcased during Apple’s WWDC 2025 event, highlighted the power of the 16-core CPU and 40-core GPU inside the M4 Max. Apple is clearly pushing the envelope for gaming on macOS, especially with the introduction of Metal 4 and its new frame generation feature. This tech adds interpolated frames between rendered ones, boosting smoothness and framerate-much like NVIDIA’s DLSS 3 frame generation.
Although the game was reportedly running on ultra settings, that doesn’t necessarily mean everything was maxed out. Apple likely tuned some options down a notch and leaned on its MetalFX upscaling tech to hit that 120FPS target. Importantly, no one has confirmed whether path tracing-the most performance-hungry graphics feature-was enabled. Given what we know, it’s extremely unlikely.
In comparison tests, even a laptop with an NVIDIA RTX 4090 struggled to maintain 80FPS at max settings with path tracing and frame generation enabled. That alone makes it pretty clear that Apple’s smooth gameplay demo likely had path tracing turned off, and relied heavily on upscaling and frame generation to hit that impressive framerate.
With Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition coming to macOS later this year, and features like spatial audio, MetalFX, and frame generation built in, it’s an exciting time for Mac gamers. Just temper your expectations: 120FPS is possible, but not with everything cranked to 11.