Borderlands 4 on an M4 MacBook Air: Test Reveals a Choppy 10 FPS

Users are actively pushing the limits of the M4 Mac, trying to run modern games on it. One such experiment with the newly released Borderlands 4 backfired, laying bare the problems with both the "Apple" hardware and the game's code.

A Reddit user with the handle Ialsofuckedyourdad decided to see if their M4 MacBook Air could handle the latest installment of the popular looter-shooter. Using the CrossOver emulator to run the Windows version of Borderlands 4, the results were dismal: frame rates barely hit 10 FPS in action-heavy scenes, only climbing to around 20 FPS indoors, making the game practically unplayable.

The laptop's owner noted in the comments that they weren't expecting high performance and treated this as more of an experiment. The core issue lies in the MacBook Air's architecture—it lacks active cooling, so under sustained load the processor quickly overheats and begins to throttle to prevent damage, causing the framerate to tank. Other commenters were quick to point out that Borderlands 4 has major optimization problems even on powerful gaming PCs.

That said, some users report a degree of success. One owner of a MacBook Pro with an M4 Max chip and 48GB of RAM claims they managed to hit a stable 60 FPS, though the game consistently crashed after a few minutes. So it seems that for a playable experience, you'd need not only a more powerful Mac, but a significantly more expensive one.

This whole situation calls into question the readiness of Apple's laptops for AAA gaming. For now, the M4 MacBook Air remains an excellent machine for work and everyday tasks, but it's clearly not cut out for demanding new titles like Borderlands 4. To fix this, either the game's developers need to significantly improve its optimization, or Apple needs to implement a more effective cooling system in its ultra-thin laptops.