It has been a number of weeks since Apple’s WWDC 2025 occasion, and whereas Apple did announce a brand new Video games app that shall be included within the new macOS Tahoe later this 12 months, there wasn’t a whole lot of information on forthcoming titles that Mac avid gamers can look ahead to taking part in.
There was, nonetheless, one essential games-related announcement throughout WWDC that may have gone somewhat bit below the radar. The announcement got here from UL Options, with the launch of a brand new Mac model of its 3DMark benchmarking app.
This is a vital improvement for Mac avid gamers, as 3DMark is without doubt one of the hottest instruments used to check the graphics efficiency of gaming PCs – and its arrival on the Mac displays the truth that Macs are lastly being taken significantly as a gaming platform. With that in thoughts, I might prefer to take a while to debate how precisely you’ll be able to go about benchmarking the greatest MacBooks and Macs.
And, with A-Listing video games resembling Murderer’s Creed: Shadows and Cyberpunk 2077 now out there for Macs, many people Mac avid gamers are questioning how effectively these video games will run on our Macs. Because the identify suggests, 3DMark does focus particularly on testing efficiency with video games and 3D graphics, however there are different choices out there that you should use to benchmark your Mac (and likewise to match your Mac’s efficiency with Home windows PCs, too).
DIY Benchmarking
Some video games (together with the aforementioned AC: Shadows and Cyberpunk) do have their very own benchmarking instruments already in-built, which let you check your Mac’s efficiency and see the frames-per-second (FPS) rating that it could actually obtain whereas working the sport.
These instruments might be helpful as they help you experiment with totally different graphics settings inside the sport as a way to strike the most effective stability between graphics high quality and efficiency to your explicit Mac mannequin. However, after all, these instruments solely work inside particular person video games, in order that they don’t offer you a lot indication of how your Mac will work with different video games, or the way it compares with different Macs or PCs – plus, you will have to truly purchase the sport to run the benchmark normally.
PC avid gamers who use Steam in all probability know that the Steam app contains an possibility for displaying framerates in-game. Sadly, the Mac model of Steam might be… somewhat erratic, and its FPS counter went AWOL someday round 2023. Nonetheless, one other welcome little bit of gaming information that arrived throughout WWDC was Valve’s announcement that it’s at the moment testing a brand new model of Steam, up to date particularly for the newest Macs with Apple Silicon processors, so hopefully it’s going to work extra reliably sooner or later.
Steam apart, Apple really supplies its personal possibility for testing gaming efficiency. It’s referred to as the Metallic HUD (heads-up show), because it’s a part of the Metallic software program that Apple makes use of to show 3D graphics on Macs and different Apple gadgets. The Metallic HUD was initially designed for builders who want to check their video games or apps in macOS, however anybody can use it in the event that they don’t thoughts dipping into the Terminal app on their Mac.
The Terminal is present in Functions/Utilities, and you may simply double-click on it to launch it, like another Mac app. When the Terminal window seems on display, you’ll be able to activate the Metallic HUD by typing the next command:
/bin/launchctl setenv MTL_HUD_ENABLED 1
You received’t see something occur instantly, however the Metallic HUD will seem robotically the following time you launch a sport with 3D graphics in your Mac. The Metallic HUD shows numerous technical data for builders, however your display decision and refresh fee are proper on the high, adopted by the present common FPS rating. This lets you regulate decision and different graphics settings inside any sport to be able to see how they have an effect on efficiency.
And, if you’ve completed with the Metallic HUD, you’ll be able to merely flip it off by typing one other command into the Terminal window:
/bin/launchctl setenv MTL_HUD_ENABLED 0
Testing with Geekbench 6
The favored Geekbench check suite has been out there on the Mac for a few years, and it runs on Home windows PCs, Linux, and Android as effectively, so it’s possibility for evaluating your Mac’s efficiency with quite a lot of PCs and different gadgets. There’s additionally an enormous database of check outcomes on geekbench.com that you could search by way of as effectively.
Geekbench contains two major units of instruments, with a CPU benchmark that assessments the efficiency of your pc’s major processor, and a GPU benchmark for graphics efficiency. Nonetheless, the GPU assessments have a tendency to focus on 2D graphics duties, resembling making use of filters for photo-editing work, so it’s not essentially the most effective indicator of 3D efficiency for gaming. Even so, Geekbench remains to be a useful gizmo for getting a basic overview of your Mac’s efficiency, and there’s a free model that you could obtain from geekbench.com, in addition to a Professional model that prices $99.00 for individuals who want to check computer systems regularly (like TechRadar’s personal diligent reviewers).
3DMark For Mac
Mac avid gamers will in all probability begin leaping up and down at this level, telling me that 3DMark has been out there on the Mac App Retailer for a number of years. That’s true – however if you happen to look carefully on the Mac App Retailer, you’ll discover the small print that states that this model of 3DMark was “designed for the iPad, and never verified for Mac”. It’s additionally fairly previous, so it doesn’t embrace assessments for the newest graphics methods, resembling ray-tracing.
Nonetheless, the brand new model of 3DMark for Macs that we have a look at right here is at the moment solely out there on Steam, and is particularly written to run on the newest Mac fashions with Apple Silicon processors. There’s a demo model of 3DMark out there on Steam, which helps you to run the principle efficiency assessments freed from cost. The complete model prices £29.50/$34.99 and contains further options, resembling the flexibility to regulate the display decision used within the numerous assessments. And, if you purchase 3DMark on Steam, a single buy lets you obtain both the Mac or PC model as required, so that you don’t must pay twice for the separate Mac and PC variations.
In contrast to GeekBench, 3DMark focuses particularly on benchmark assessments that assess your pc’s efficiency with 3D graphics in video games. The brand new Mac model doesn’t embrace the total vary of assessments which can be out there within the PC model, however the 4 assessments that it at the moment contains ought to offer you overview of your Mac’s gaming efficiency. Scores in these assessments are additionally instantly corresponding to these within the PC model of 3DMark, making it simple to match the efficiency of Macs and PCs.
There are 4 major assessments at the moment out there for macOS, though two of them are very related. Metal Nomad is a general-purpose check of 3D graphics efficiency. It’s designed to run on extra highly effective Macs and PCs – moderately than on smartphones and tablets – so the 3D graphics scenes that it creates run at full 4K decision. There’s additionally a check referred to as Metal Nomad Gentle, which runs at 2560×1440 decision, and is designed for much less highly effective computer systems, such because the MacBook Air.
There’s an analogous check referred to as WildLife Excessive, which runs at 4K however is designed for a wider vary of cell gadgets, so it could possibly be possibility for evaluating a high-end iPad Professional with a MacBook Professional laptop computer or a PC gaming laptop computer. Nonetheless, neither the Metal Nomad nor the Wildlife Excessive assessments use the ray-tracing graphics know-how that’s now utilized in many trendy video games, resembling Murderer’s Creed: Shadows. So there’s yet another check, referred to as Photo voltaic Bay, which is particularly designed to check your Mac’s efficiency when utilizing ray-tracing inside video games.
Ray-tracing is a method that creates spectacular and practical lighting results inside video games, but it surely’s very demanding and requires a reasonably highly effective Mac or PC. The truth is, Apple solely launched ray-tracing on Macs round 18 months in the past with the introduction of the M3 processor – and, after all, the present M4 as effectively – so Photo voltaic Bay may be very a lot designed for the newest Macs and high-end iPad fashions which have M3 or M4 processors.
The excellent news is that almost all of those benchmarking instruments are free to make use of – or at the very least present a helpful working demo freed from cost – so it received’t value you something to obtain them and take a look at them out.