VsniipezXI Cyberpunk 2077 Review

I really wanted to love this port, but the experience is wildly inconsistent — and not in a predictable way. At times, the laptop stays completely silent, and the game runs somewhat smoothly, but the Metal upscaling option makes everything look blurry. It’s clearly thermal throttling to keep the fans off, even when the charger is connected and power isn’t an issue. Then — especially in the evenings or late at night — the fans suddenly kick in at what sounds like 90% speed, and the game transforms. Sharp visuals, steady 60+ fps on medium-high settings, nothing feels like an obstacle. It genuinely rivals a PS5 or better. So what’s going on? Either the game isn’t well optimised, or macOS itself acts on mood swings. Some sessions it refuses to engage the fans properly, leaving you with a blurry mess. Other times it unleashes full performance and feels amazing. Helpful (but annoying) troubleshooting: I’ve found that toggling a few graphics settings — high → low → high again — right after launching the game seems to kick the graphics chipset into gear. Why? No idea. But it shouldn’t be necessary every single time you play. Tested on M5 MacBook Pro 16 as well: Same behaviour, even with ray tracing enabled. During the day, the game throttles back and fans stay quiet. At night, RT works beautifully and the game looks like a high-end PC. This is clearly something Apple needs to tweak in their graphics controller / software stack to sustain consistent top performance. Until then, it’s not fun having to fiddle with settings before every playthrough just to get the experience you paid for. Frustrating, because the potential is absolutely there.