Member Avatar for Macgomes

Hello everyone,,
Okay so I play this game called x-plane on my 2016 mpb base model. It runs decent given its specs and it’s a Mac. Now I know macs are not good at gaming but I can’t stand windows and refuse to get one ever again. I looked at the MacBook pros now and if I get a 15” it has a Radeon 550X graphics card. Will that suffice? Will it be able to run a flight simulator noticeably different than now? Please and thank you

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Short summary tied to the thread: comparing Radeon model numbers alone isn’t the best way to decide whether a 15" MBP with a 550X will make X‑Plane noticeably smoother. The crucial question is whether the simulator is being held back by the CPU, the GPU, or by settings that push VRAM and draw distance. X‑Plane on Mac can use Metal (since the 11.50 renderer rewrite), so driver/API differences on macOS are no longer the old OpenGL-only story. (x-plane.com)

A practical decision workflow: (1) show X‑Plane’s performance numbers (frame rate / frame time / CPU load) and watch them while flying a heavy scene; (2) interpret the numbers — a CPU load near 0.95–1.0 means the sim is CPU‑bound and a faster GPU will do little, while a low CPU load with long frame time points to the GPU; (3) if GPU‑bound, upgrading the GPU (or using an eGPU) will help; if CPU‑bound, lowering world/object settings or moving to a machine with better single‑core performance helps more. This CPU/GPU bound method is the diagnostic recommended by the X‑Plane developers. (developer.x-plane.com)

Concrete settings to try first (fastest payoff): reduce world‑detail/draw distance, lower number of objects/trees/cars, drop cloud puff count, simplify shadows and water reflections, reduce texture resolution until the “total size of all loaded textures” is comfortably under the GPU’s VRAM, and lower anti‑aliasing or render resolution. Use X‑Plane’s rendering presets to iterate quickly and restart the sim after big changes to get reliable numbers. (x-plane.com)

Mac‑specific notes: forcing the discrete GPU (disable Automatic Graphics Switching) can avoid the system staying on the integrated GPU when the sim is active. macOS also supports Thunderbolt‑3 eGPUs (Apple’s official eGPU workflow favors AMD cards), which can be a good non‑Windows route to much higher GPU performance if the laptop’s cooling or VRAM is the limiter. Expect thermal and chassis power limits on a laptop to cap sustained gains, so profile first and use eGPU or a CPU‑strong machine only when diagnostics point to those bottlenecks. (support.apple.com)

References: X‑Plane developer performance notes and renderer changes, X‑Plane rendering/VRAM guidance, and Apple documentation on graphics settings and eGPU support were used to compile the above.

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Member Avatar for rproffitt

Which Apple? https://support.apple.com/kb/SP749?locale=en_US

Let's compare the 450 to the 550X.
I can't find a head to head comparison but I'll try these two.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-Pro-450.181778.0.html
https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-RX-550-Laptop-GPU.215182.0.html

It's really tough to pull out a comparison but the few games seem to eek out under 10% more frames per second.

"According to the specified peak performance, the chip should be similar fast as a Radeon Pro 455 in the MacBook Pro 2016. In our tests it reaches the Radeon Pro 455 and bests the Nvidia GeForce MX150, but stays behind the GeForce GTX 1050." Notebookcheck.

My answer is I expect no noticeable performance increase.

Member Avatar for Coralz

X-plane is a very old game released in 1995. I don't see a problem with running it on 2016 year Mac or MacBook pro. For a newer games it really matters, but Radeon 550X should be enough for your needs. It even supports DirectX 12.

Edited by happygeek because: spammy link removed
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