(funky music) - A lot of you
have requested me
to make a video
on how to increase your FPS or performance
whilst playing Mac games.
So that is exactly what we're going to do.
Before we start
it is advised that your Mac
is running the latest version of mac OS
which right now is Mac OS Mojave,
and it is best
that your Mac was released
from 2012 and up,
as these machines
support Apple's new graphics API Metal,
which actually improves performance.
Both of these are not a must,
but to easily follow this guide
I highly recommend following those two steps.
- Let's go kick some Kang.
Whoa!
- Before you launch a game
let's make sure your Mac
is actually ready for gaming.
First, make sure (various mouse clicks)
no applications are running in the background
which can use up your Mac's resources.
Also go into System Preferences,
Users & Groups,
Login Items,
and remove any unwanted login items
that are also using up resources.
Next if you are gaming with a Magic Mouse
you may have noticed
it is not suitable for gaming
as it has no right click button.
Put it aside
and invest in a two-button mouse.
I personally use the Razer Death Adder Elite.
Next, for those of you who use Time Machine
to back up your Mac,
it's best to turn it off when playing games
as it can slow down your Mac.
To turn it off
just safely eject your external hard drive.
Next, I like to put on Do Not Disturb.
This way, no one can interrupt me when gaming
with messages, phone calls, et cetera,
but don't forget to turn it off later.
Moving on,
I like to have the app Count It open
before I launch the game.
Count It allows you to track a game's frame rate
which is helpful to find the best settings
for smooth game play
at the highest possible settings.
Use the link in the description
to download this app.
Now you're ready to launch
whatever Mac OS game you want.
(Lara Croft struggling)
You should always adjust
the in-game settings for a Mac game
so it plays the best for your system.
Try to aim for a frame rate
of at least 30 to 60 FPS.
Typically you can adjust the in-game settings
from the main menu under Options,
Settings, or Display.
With the Settings page open,
let's link Count It.
For the game you're in
change the Display Mode to Window.
Now press command plus tab
to exit to the desktop or to choose Count It.
Find Count It
and head to Game,
Add Game,
and then Running.
Choose the game you are currently playing.
If your game it doesn't appear
click Show Hidden Apps and it should appear.
Now find your game in Count It
and hit the play button.
You may have to enter your Mac computer password.
Then go back to your game
and change the display mode
back to full screen,
or sometimes it's called Window At Full Screen.
Okay let's adjust some settings.
First of all
if you have an old Mac or a Macbook,
Macbook Air, Mac Mini or 13 inch Macbook Pro,
I suggest you play in a resolution of 1280 by 800.
If your Mac doesn't support this resolution
use 1280 X 720,
or 1344 X 756,
or 1600 X 900.
Remember the lower the resolution
the more FPS you'll get.
Also, if you can,
change the aspect ratio.
Make sure it's 16 X 9
and not 4 X 3.
For additional or advanced settings
like View Distance, Shadows,
or Textures, for example,
it's best to have these on low or medium
and I would suggest turning VSync off
for these lower end machines.
Now if you have a more high end Mac
like a 4K or 5K iMac,
a 15 inch Macbook Pro, or a Mac Pro,
try playing in a display resolution of 1920 by 1080.
And for advanced settings
you can play in medium and sometimes high settings.
It's also best to have VSync turned on.
As for high end to Macs
it is recommended to play with VSync on
as it allows for the smoothest
and most consistent experience,
free from screen tearing.
Also you can try playing games in Window mode
to see if this improves gameplay performance more.
I suggested you now
actually benchmark or play the game
to see if you're hitting a stable 30 FPS
or hopefully 60 FPS.
If the game is just laggy
or your FPS is still too low,
try lowering the resolution and additional settings.
Okay, once you've found your preferred settings
you should then disable Count It
as it does use a very small amount of resources.
(Rocket League cars revving and crashing)
There are a few Mac OS system settings
you can alter
to improve Mac performance.
First, you can actually open a Mac OS game
in low resolution mode.
The easiest way to do this
is by going to the Apple icon,
About This Mac,
Storage,
and then Manage.
From here,
go into Applications
and find any game you want
and click Show In Finder.
Now with the game application
highlighted in the Finder,
right-click and choose Get Info.
Find and check Open In the Low Resolution checkbox.
This will force the game
to open in a non-retina resolution
which should improve your performance.
Some games
will automatically have this setting checked.
Also, if we head back
to that handy Storage Manager,
you can use Disk Utility
to optimize a Mac's storage,
to reduce clutter, free up disk space,
and store files in iCloud.
Remember having less than 10 gigabytes of space
will lead to a Mac slowing down.
Now head to System Preferences
by going to the Apple icon
and then System Preferences.
From here go into Software Updates
and make sure
Automatically Keep My Mac Up To Date is checked.
Now exit here and head into the Dock tab.
From here change Minimize Windows Using
to Scale Effect,
then uncheck Magnification for the Dock.
Then exit this tab
and go to Accessibility
and then the Display tab.
Check Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency.
You may notice
this changes the way
that your operating system looks,
from how the way tabs close
to how the Dock works, blah blah blah.
Bear in mind,
if you play in full screen mode
then these changes
will have no noticeable impact.
However, in Windowed mode
they may have a small impact.
Some games don't allow you
to change your Mac's display resolution
but you can manually change it
under System Preferences if need be.
Head into Display,
then whilst holding the Alt key on the keyboard
click Scaled,
choose 1920 X 1080 for high-end Macs
and 1280 X 800 for low-end Macs,
or you may have 1280 X 720,
or 1344 by 756,
or 1600 by 900.
And we're done here.
You can close System Preferences now.
Next, running First Aid from the app Disk Utility
can also isolate and fix issues on your Mac.
To find it
simply go up to Spotlight and type in Disk Utility.
And last,
many of you use Discord in the background
whilst playing games
but this can cause small FPS drops.
Let's turn off Discord's hardware acceleration.
To do this,
make sure Discord is open
and go up to Preferences.
From this window find Appearance.
Now simply turn off Hardware Acceleration.
Discord should automatically restart.
There are a few things you can do
to actually upgrade your Mac.
First, new Macs utilizing Thunderbolt 3
and running Mac OS High Sierra or later
can now support additional graphics performance
by connecting an external graphics processor
also also known as an eGPU.
There quite a few supported eGPUs.
Too many to list here,
so I've included a handy link by Apple
showing a list of compatible ones.
Next, if you are lucky enough
to have a 5K iMac or a Mac Pro
you can upgrade the RAM from eight gigabytes
to, in some cases, 32 gigabytes.
I've included a handy link
in the description
that goes into more detail about this.
And last,
I suggest you buy
and put your Mac OS games
on an external, portable SSD,
utilizing either USB 3 or USB C.
It will really reduce load times.
I suggest either the Samsung T5
or the Western Digital My Passport,
but there are many other options out there.
There are quite a few programs on Mac OS
that can help with gaming performance.
It would be that much
but it's worth a go.
These programs can be downloaded in the description.
Memory Clean is a program
that can free up RAM on your Mac.
It is best used when you close applications.
Disk Inventory X clearly shows you
what is taking up the most space on your Mac.
This is great to free up your drive
leading to a faster and snappier Mac.
CCleaner does an overall cleansing of your Mac.
Activity Monitor is built into Mac OS
and provides a complete picture
of which processes and applications
are using the most memory, CPU, and disk resources.
It also allows you to close unwanted apps.
(side scrolling game play)
If nothing has worked so far
I have two final methods.
First, you can install Windows 10
via Boot Camp on your Mac
to run games through the Windows operating system.
Windows is better optimized for gaming
so you should get better performance here
when running games.
Or you could try using GeForce NOW,
a cloud streaming game service.
However it is only available
in North America and Europe right now.
A guide to use these programs is in the description.
- We are victorious.
- Okay, yeah, thanks.
- And that's my guide
on increasing a game's performance
on Mac computers.
I hope this has helped in some way.
Let me know which Mac model
are you playing games on
and how is it performing
after watching this video.
Leave a like and subscribe to show your support.
Anyway, I'll talk to you guys later.
Bye bye.