I currently use The Sims 4 on a MacBook Pro 2015 (2.7 Ghz Intel i5, 8GB 1867 MHz DDR3 RAM, Intel Iris HD 6100). However, I have noticed that it has started becoming sluggish and stuttery and I am thinking about getting a MacBook Air 2020 (1.3 Ghz Intel i3, 8GB 3733MHz LPDDR4X RAM, Intel Iris Plus). Based on the specs I have written here, will the 2020 MacBook Air give The Sims 4 even a slightly smoother performance than my MacBook Pro 2015?
I presume the Mac mini suffers the same problems as the MBA i7? How would it perform vis-a-vis my existing MBP 4-core? I am talking about the higher-end MM with six cores.
As you have probably heard, Apple has released new MacBooks with the M1 chip. Given that they feature up to 16 cores and their claims to be power efficient, would you recommend this in the future for TS4?
I've had the privilege of testing the game on an M1 MacMini. It is fairly quiet, not as heat generating, and functions. But there seems to be a catch (and maybe this is due to the nature of a MacMini requiring the user to source the other accessories): the FPS seems capped to correspond to the refresh rate the monitor is capable of if the game is to run without crashing. I've switched Vertical Sync on as advised on another forum to prevent crashing. But one thing I did not anticipate is that since I am using a TV monitor (as large as a standard PC monitor) capable of only 60 Hz refresh, I won't be able to go north of 60 FPS. Even weird is that if I attempt playing at full screen 1080p, the refresh rate drops to 24 Hz on the M1 Mac mini. My Intel-based MBP has a 60 Hz refresh rate too but does not crash without Vertical Sync on and sometimes the game performs north of 100 FPS.
Is this what should be expected when Vertical Sync is on and if we use the game on an external monitor (especially a TV one)?
I have also tried The Sims 4 on an MacBook Air with M1 and tried a side-by-side comparison with my mid-2020 13-inch MacBook Pro (high-end with four ports) by having identical graphics settings (including Retina display on but Laptop Mode off) and making my Sims do almost exactly the same tasks. After 10 minutes in each, I noticed that the MBP battery life dropped by 8% and was usually playing around 35-50 FPS (it did go occasionally to 60 but not too often). Meanwhile the MBA M1 battery for some reason rose by 1 point (86 to 87% though I think there might have been an error in the battery's reading of the percents). Also, the FPS of the MBA M1 has gone smoother, much less lag and stayed close to 60 most of the time.
Is this what was expected?
