Thanks a lot for this! This really helped me understand a lot. I've been tweaking on an iMac M3 but, ugh, it's so much work for what is meant to be a game, not a job. It really annoys me that things aren't optimised for Mac. An M3 should have more than enough grunt to run this game well but doesn't because whomever is in charge of the money, doesn't care enough to do so.
Most definitely! I really wish I had stressed not using a "non-native" resolution and FSR at the same time because that's when things get really blurry.
great explanations! I’d add that second column of fps (minimum of 1,5secs) is more preferable to look at as there are situations when current fps is 70-80 and minimum drops to 20-30 and feels laggy and awful
From my testing on this Mac, borderless and full screen made no difference. There is a slight 1-2 bump in FPS when the metal hud displays Direct vs Composited... Direct refers to the window only drawing the app vs Composited is when there are some additional layers being drawn above the app. For me, it will always display composited because of some weird Apple security and privacy indicator that pops up when recording and it shows up in both modes.
If you're on a mac, then you really don't have too much control over GPU. You can certainly pull off 60+ frames, but I don't think the fidelity loss is worth it. This game is a slow, strategic, turned-based game...even 60 FPS might be overkill. 🙃
Give or take a few specific in-game graphical settings...when it comes to resolution and FSR/DLSR, the general rules apply. - Start with native resolution and start with FSR first - If not enough, play with in-game graphic settings If that doesn't have enough FPS, then: - Reset everything back to max and reduce Native resolution - When reducing, you might have to play with Anti-aliasing and Sharpening ...the last resort, would be to: - Reset everything to max, and reduce FSR 1 level and reduce resolution If you have to use FSR & Resolution, you're going to get a blurry game, but at least I'd be playable. 🤷🏾♂️
I sure did...but it'd say it's pretty overkill for the results you get. I don't think it uses more than 12-14 GPU Cores or anything above 12 GB of ram.
The developer of the game literally said to turn AMD FSR off on Mac. I have not tried it out myself yet, I am downloading the game right now on my M3 Max laptop, but just relaying what the developer said.
If you could show me that source…that’d be great. I’ve watched the interview with the devs who said otherwise. In any case, having FSR on has never been an issue on Mac.
it it worth getting on a base model me pro? the one with only 14 gpu cores? I'm pretty torn. i don't want to buy this unless it's totally playable and decent on the machine. this isn't the reason i got the mac but its fun to have a game on it
You should be able to, especially if you dial it down to 30fps…but there currently is an issue with performance and patch #4. I'll have a new video out soon to explain a fix!
@maximecassady7918 make sure you are either: - using a reduced resolution with FSR off (you might have to adjust sharpening to fix blur) Or… - resolution set to your screen's native value with FSR being adjusted. (you might have to adjust anti-aliasing to fix pixelation) If you do both, it's a blurry nightmare.
Yes, by lowering the FPS the mac heats up less and blows much less often. Although it is still hot, I think that by changing a few parameters it becomes playable. Thank you so much !@@Alexander-om3ui
@Alexander-om3ui hooked you up with a great answer! It's actually pretty normal for your macbook to be considerably hot when doing graphically intensive tasks...and the M1 (and most computers in general) are pretty efficient enough to throttle to computer if it becomes way too hot. My general rule of thumb is...if your computer is not showing signs of slowing down, then it's most likely at a efficient heat range for the task it's doing.
"0" would represent an off state, so this command will work: launchctl setenv MTL_HUD_ENABLED 0 You can also optionally use a shortcut command Shift+F9 (or Shift+Fn+F9 if F9 is not a dedicated key) if you want to keep the HUD on but hide it.
FSR tends to be blurry if you are also not at your monitor's native resolution...because when not at its native resolution, your monitor also does its own scaling interpolation to match its display resolution. Having 2 scaling effects causes blurriness. (Check part 11+ of my playthrough, and you can be the judge. It looks great on video playback, even when compressed by RUclips, but looks even better on my screen.) If you run a 4k monitor with an M1 Max, your choices are 4k with FSR set to quality (essentially 1440p) or running 1440p. The difference is whether you want the monitor or FSR to scale for you. Even FSR 1.0 is better than your monitor's native interpolation of upscaling...but if you have a scaled-down resolution and FSR on, you'll get a blurry nightmare. TLDR: FSR + Non-Native Resolution = Blur Native Res + FSR Quality (1440p upscaled scaled) = Slightly better than 1440p Monitor interpolation upscaled.
I put my Mac air m2 on high settings with shadows and clouds on low with fsr on balanced and AA at TLAA. Hard set fps limit at 30. Works fairly well. Good luck! Also my m2 is the 8GB model.. honestly didn’t expect to game but … why not when it works!
But why it have to be 4k resolution? Obviously M1 is too slow for this mode (M2 also) so it's better to go 1440p or lower but with better graphical settings. It's better to play in 1080p than using FSR in terrible performance mode.
For the M1 Max, 4k with FSR at Quality (1.5x upscale) performs nearly identically to 1440p native. - They are mathematically the same (2160p / 1.5 = 1440p). - If you are using a 4k screen, this basically means you are choosing which upscaling algorithm is better...FSR using native resolution or your monitor's built-in interpolation scaler if using a lower resolution than the monitor. FSR is superior by a far margin. - The cost of using FSR is minimal and, on M1+ machines, unnoticeable. - All of the graphic settings are currently maxed except Shadows and sub-scattering It's only better to play at lower resolutions when the cost of native resolution is too great. You should always prioritize native resolution first...then base everything off your target stable FPS using FSR before reducing resolution. I'm targeting a stable 30, which is possible with native resolution. Targeting the same at 1440p natively without FSR does nothing for me because running natively at 4k with FSR set to quality is running the same 1440p game. I'm just choosing the superior upscaler.
Casual gamer here, thanks you SO MUCH for making such a clear tutorial !
Man this is one awesome video! I've managed to adjust my settings for my stock Mac Studio M1 Max to an acceptable 30 FPS. Thank you FAM!
Had to stop by and just say again, THANKS for this vid bro, awesome stuff, please keep putting stuff out!
No problem. Hopefully it helped your settings. I'll try to catch one of your live streams!
@@NPC_Rey same, see you out there! 😎
Thanks a lot for this! This really helped me understand a lot. I've been tweaking on an iMac M3 but, ugh, it's so much work for what is meant to be a game, not a job. It really annoys me that things aren't optimised for Mac. An M3 should have more than enough grunt to run this game well but doesn't because whomever is in charge of the money, doesn't care enough to do so.
Nice, thank you for describing the Pre and GPU
An excellent tutorial. Thanks so much.
Thank you, really did the trick for me. Clear and super helpful.
Fantastic video!! The quality is insane! You just earned a sub.
Great, thanks! MetalFx is coming, performance will get better
I, truly, cannot wait to see how game changing that is!
Fantastic video and explanation. Thank you!
Outstanding video and explanation. My only comment is to be sure the text is readable based on resolution and FSR settings.
Most definitely! I really wish I had stressed not using a "non-native" resolution and FSR at the same time because that's when things get really blurry.
Your advice really helped me to get the best out of my Mac. Thanks!
No problem! Glad I could help.
I am actually going to upload another video for Mac users soon with the results of a new config that looks even better!
Thank you so much this helped my game look so much better!😊❤
Respect, very helpful vid🫶
Exceptional video, really helped me!
great explanations! I’d add that second column of fps (minimum of 1,5secs) is more preferable to look at as there are situations when current fps is 70-80 and minimum drops to 20-30 and feels laggy and awful
This video is a brilliant, thank you for explanation
great content brother. really appreciate the video
My game looked like runescape before, thank you so much for this video 🙏
Thank you so much for this. Respect.
Thanks, super helpful and explained well.
Awesome tutorial man thanks so much
thank you so much for this
Thanks for the content)
Tank you for the analysis. Have you compared Borderless Window with Fullscreen ? I have had applications in the past where it made a real difference.
From my testing on this Mac, borderless and full screen made no difference.
There is a slight 1-2 bump in FPS when the metal hud displays Direct vs Composited...
Direct refers to the window only drawing the app vs Composited is when there are some additional layers being drawn above the app. For me, it will always display composited because of some weird Apple security and privacy indicator that pops up when recording and it shows up in both modes.
Thank you!
appreciate this
Amazing video bro, I learned a lot !
Just one question I have in mind, why only 30 or 60 fps ?
If you're on a mac, then you really don't have too much control over GPU. You can certainly pull off 60+ frames, but I don't think the fidelity loss is worth it.
This game is a slow, strategic, turned-based game...even 60 FPS might be overkill. 🙃
Thank you! Can you please make a video for the best settings for Total War: Warhammer 3??? I would love it!
And is this instruction in general transferrable to other games?
Give or take a few specific in-game graphical settings...when it comes to resolution and FSR/DLSR, the general rules apply.
- Start with native resolution and start with FSR first
- If not enough, play with in-game graphic settings
If that doesn't have enough FPS, then:
- Reset everything back to max and reduce Native resolution
- When reducing, you might have to play with Anti-aliasing and Sharpening
...the last resort, would be to:
- Reset everything to max, and reduce FSR 1 level and reduce resolution
If you have to use FSR & Resolution, you're going to get a blurry game, but at least I'd be playable. 🤷🏾♂️
launchctl setenv MTL_HUD_ENABLED 1
Am I the only one who doesn't have the option to change the resolution? its greyed out for me
How do I disable the MetalHud? Can't seen to find a solution
For some reason when I launch this on my M1 Pro macbook Pro it hangs loading at 33% :(
That sucks, wish I could help with that loading issue but I never encountered that.
Did you do this on the 32 Core GPU M1 Max with 64GB of Ram?
I sure did...but it'd say it's pretty overkill for the results you get. I don't think it uses more than 12-14 GPU Cores or anything above 12 GB of ram.
Hi, will the Terminal command work even I use an external hard drive to play?? I’m not very techy
The developer of the game literally said to turn AMD FSR off on Mac. I have not tried it out myself yet, I am downloading the game right now on my M3 Max laptop, but just relaying what the developer said.
If you could show me that source…that’d be great. I’ve watched the interview with the devs who said otherwise.
In any case, having FSR on has never been an issue on Mac.
it it worth getting on a base model me pro? the one with only 14 gpu cores? I'm pretty torn. i don't want to buy this unless it's totally playable and decent on the machine. this isn't the reason i got the mac but its fun to have a game on it
Honestly, if you have decent internet connection…using a cloud service would be the most flexible option.
Is there any way to enable launcher on macos?... --skip-l and opening from application do not work, im just wondering if anybody knows.
Will it run nicely with macbook pro m1 8gb?
Hi bro! Does this mean I should be able to run this game smoothly on my Apple M1 Pro (2021)?
You should be able to, especially if you dial it down to 30fps…but there currently is an issue with performance and patch #4.
I'll have a new video out soon to explain a fix!
I’m on a MacBook air M2 16gb, and it’s gets super blurry :/
@maximecassady7918 make sure you are either:
- using a reduced resolution with FSR off (you might have to adjust sharpening to fix blur)
Or…
- resolution set to your screen's native value with FSR being adjusted. (you might have to adjust anti-aliasing to fix pixelation)
If you do both, it's a blurry nightmare.
Hey, my macbook 14" M1 Max is hot and blows a lot when I play, do you think this is normal ?
Yes, by lowering the FPS the mac heats up less and blows much less often. Although it is still hot, I think that by changing a few parameters it becomes playable. Thank you so much !@@Alexander-om3ui
@Alexander-om3ui hooked you up with a great answer!
It's actually pretty normal for your macbook to be considerably hot when doing graphically intensive tasks...and the M1 (and most computers in general) are pretty efficient enough to throttle to computer if it becomes way too hot. My general rule of thumb is...if your computer is not showing signs of slowing down, then it's most likely at a efficient heat range for the task it's doing.
What is the name of the software used for display fps and gpu/cpu usage please?
If you are referring to the top right in the game display, It's the built-in Metal FPS HUD display for developers on Mac.
How can I get rid off this HUD now? It's permanently there and I can't find a way how to disable it.
Instead of 1 at the end, do 0
@@NPC_Rey doesnt work, not even after the restart
This is also not working for me. Any help would be appreciated!@@NPC_Rey
Isn't the Macbook Pro 16 M1 max at 120 Hz or the reason why the 120 FPS was not considered is because this laptop will not be able to do it?
If playing on the mac screen itself, then it could go to 120Hz, but honestly...this is not the game to even consider that.
please how do you remove the METAL after putting it on?
"0" would represent an off state, so this command will work:
launchctl setenv MTL_HUD_ENABLED 0
You can also optionally use a shortcut command Shift+F9 (or Shift+Fn+F9 if F9 is not a dedicated key) if you want to keep the HUD on but hide it.
@@NPC_Rey Hi, please write how to enable MTL_HUD_ENABLED in the steam version of the game, I can't do it.
Sorry but FSR looks terrible on BG3. Not using it, ever. it runs great without any FSR anyways. It's a blurry mess and awful with FSR1.0 on
FSR tends to be blurry if you are also not at your monitor's native resolution...because when not at its native resolution, your monitor also does its own scaling interpolation to match its display resolution. Having 2 scaling effects causes blurriness.
(Check part 11+ of my playthrough, and you can be the judge. It looks great on video playback, even when compressed by RUclips, but looks even better on my screen.)
If you run a 4k monitor with an M1 Max, your choices are 4k with FSR set to quality (essentially 1440p) or running 1440p. The difference is whether you want the monitor or FSR to scale for you.
Even FSR 1.0 is better than your monitor's native interpolation of upscaling...but if you have a scaled-down resolution and FSR on, you'll get a blurry nightmare.
TLDR:
FSR + Non-Native Resolution = Blur
Native Res + FSR Quality (1440p upscaled scaled) = Slightly better than 1440p Monitor interpolation upscaled.
The advantage with FSR is it scales the game but not the UI. If you're trying to avoid a pixelated UI, the FSR is the way to go.
Do you use steam or gog ?
Steam…but I did test and realize that if you want to gain a few more FPS, you should run the game without their overlays.
Whats your recommendation for macbook air m2 at 30 fps without drops?
I recommend this game in 30fps in general. BG3 is not a fast-paced action game where reaction time matters. Definitely recommend quality over frames.
Have you tried? Which model are you using 8 or 16gigs of RAM?
I put my Mac air m2 on high settings with shadows and clouds on low with fsr on balanced and AA at TLAA. Hard set fps limit at 30. Works fairly well. Good luck! Also my m2 is the 8GB model.. honestly didn’t expect to game but … why not when it works!
Thank you very much!
But why it have to be 4k resolution? Obviously M1 is too slow for this mode (M2 also) so it's better to go 1440p or lower but with better graphical settings. It's better to play in 1080p than using FSR in terrible performance mode.
For the M1 Max, 4k with FSR at Quality (1.5x upscale) performs nearly identically to 1440p native.
- They are mathematically the same (2160p / 1.5 = 1440p).
- If you are using a 4k screen, this basically means you are choosing which upscaling algorithm is better...FSR using native resolution or your monitor's built-in interpolation scaler if using a lower resolution than the monitor. FSR is superior by a far margin.
- The cost of using FSR is minimal and, on M1+ machines, unnoticeable.
- All of the graphic settings are currently maxed except Shadows and sub-scattering
It's only better to play at lower resolutions when the cost of native resolution is too great.
You should always prioritize native resolution first...then base everything off your target stable FPS using FSR before reducing resolution.
I'm targeting a stable 30, which is possible with native resolution. Targeting the same at 1440p natively without FSR does nothing for me because running natively at 4k with FSR set to quality is running the same 1440p game. I'm just choosing the superior upscaler.