**The MacBook's Gaming Experience: A Rollercoaster Ride**

It all started with an attempt to play a game on the MacBook, which seemed promising at first. "I was hoping to pick it up and start playing immediately," the reviewer said, "but it wasn't quite that easy." The MacBook had other plans, and it took four attempts for it to finally connect and allow gameplay to begin.

At this point, the reviewer was getting frustrated with the lack of progress, jokingly accusing the MacBook of trying to "Gaslight me a bit" by disconnecting and reconnecting repeatedly. But just when all hope seemed lost, the game suddenly started working as if nothing had happened. The reviewer exclaimed, "Finally we can play the game!" This sudden success came after numerous failed attempts, leaving the reviewer wondering what was going on.

Despite the rocky start, the MacBook's motion rendering capabilities left the reviewer in awe. "That motion rendering is so wild," they said, marveling at the display's ability to produce smooth and realistic movements. However, when the review switched from native 4K resolution to 1080p, the performance improved significantly. The reviewer noted that the mini LED display was "too good" at producing contrast, similar to OLED technology, but with its own set of issues.

As the reviewer continued to explore the MacBook's capabilities, they began to realize just how demanding gaming could be on this device. In fact, the zombie battles leading up to this point were described as the hardest thing the reviewer had ever experienced. There was a noticeable delay between input and screen output, making it difficult to react quickly enough to the zombies' movements.

However, after adjusting some settings, such as turning off camera acceleration, the gameplay experience improved significantly. The reviewer noted that while motion rendering was still rough, it was now only "pretty bad," rather than catastrophic. With these adjustments in place, the MacBook became a viable gaming option, allowing the reviewer to play games like Dota 2 with relative ease.

But just as things were looking up, the reviewer encountered another issue: the built-in display's limitations. Despite trying different resolutions and settings, they found that the display was still not suitable for competitive gaming. It felt "like swimming in treacle" when playing on it, making fast-paced games like Dota 2 almost unplayable.

Fortunately, switching to an external monitor, such as the NZXT display, made all the difference. The reviewer noted that once they switched over, the MacBook's performance improved dramatically, and they were able to play competitive games without issue. In fact, they even managed to win a ranked game using the MacBook!

**The Display: A Major Concern**

One of the biggest concerns with the MacBook's display is its motion blur, which is described as "heavy" and "one-way." This made the reviewer experience eye fatigue, especially during fast-paced gameplay. They joked that plugging the MacBook into a decent gaming monitor would be the best solution to alleviate this issue.

The built-in display also has another problem: Apple's infamous "smear," which appears on non-OLED devices as well. The reviewer notes that this is a major drawback of using the MacBook for gaming, and it's something that needs to be addressed in order for the device to become a viable option for gamers.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, the MacBook's gaming experience is still marred by several issues, including its display limitations and motion blur. While some settings can mitigate these problems, they are not sufficient to make the MacBook a top-tier gaming option. The reviewer remains skeptical about Apple's approach to gaming, joking that it feels like a "suspicious package at the airport" due to their efforts to buy game publishers.

Despite these issues, the MacBook is still an impressive device with excellent performance and features. However, for gamers, it will likely remain a niche option until Apple addresses its display limitations and motion blur issues.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enThis is easily the most expensive thing I've bought for a video and it doesn't really  surprise me that the first Apple product I buy handily takes that crap but anyway in today's  video we're going to talk about gaming on this very expensive laptop because I think it may fix  some of the problems I had with my first gaming experience on a MacBook not too long ago I think  it may but we'll find out but first a word from today's video sponsor that's going to help me  financially recover from this MacBook I hope today's video is sponsored by a deep pool AIO  the LT 520 but now available in white if you're the type of person that color codes your socks  to your eyebrows you can now match your fancy deep cool AIO to your pet arctic fox even the fans will  match and if you have a real hot CPU and you think 240ml won't cut it there's also a 360 mil variant  so with its ease of installation great performance and sexy looks check out the deepcool LT 520 in  white using the link in the description below thank you deepcool for sponsoring today's videonow I broke my MacBook gaming virginity with this 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro an experience that  left me much colder than I was expecting oh wow it even struggles to run dodo which I didn't know  was possible aside from the fact that there's like half a game that runs properly on an Apple silicon  MacBook the main thorns in my side was a display that has the input lag and motion rendering of  an axis sketch and that connecting an external display to that MacBook using a dongle is an  extremely buggy and frustrating process so with the display that makes gaming feel like you're  swimming through maple syrup it just wasn't a good gaming laptop which is why I thought the  16-inch MacBook Pro may solve this problem because for your massive additional outlay amongst other  things you get a 120 hertz display which should be good for gaming right well let's find outnow this is the base model of the new 16-inch MacBook Pro now I didn't want the base model  but we'll talk about why I refuse to spec it up later in the video Even though I wanted tooh that's a lovely tear   yep there's that neutral clean smell very niceoh it's a heavy boy this is always the case the packaging is immaculate and then down here it  says designed by Apple in California which somehow never stops being funny to me but I guess built by  Foxconn in China doesn't quite have the same ring to it so you know I guess it makes sense  that's nice yo Apple really knows how to make good packaging don't they open that up just like that  and then in here we've got like a nice braided power cable cool and then over here we've got our  metal magsafe connector this power cable situation really gets the juices flowing It's pretty dopeyou know it's fancy when the corners of the paper  is rounded it's a diagram of what the two ports on the laptop do cooloh never mind look I found the mention of it being assembled in China in the  smallest letters I've ever seen at the base of the power brick packaging this  just makes me feel like at some point there was a boardroom meeting at Apple with like 50  high-paid Executives in pastel color shirts discussing the least conspicuous place to  put the legally obligated assembled in China text yeah that'll do a good job of it I'd sayand then this is our 140 watt USBC power adapter it's nice and small okay so now  I've washed my hands for the 17th time and I think I'm finally ready to touch it oh this  looks exciting almost dropped it holy what a magnificent device  damn first impressions are something Apple does better than anyone this laptop really grabs you  by the crotch it's very impressive that they can Mass produce a laptop with this kind of  build quality the panel gaps are remarkably even the material quality is amazing even the screws  that hold the bottom panel on are beautiful those Foxconn workers really know how to make a nice  laptop damn but the moment it turned itself on I noticed a problem what no way this is  what the 100 okay it has to be not running at 120 hertz otherwise that is a complete outrage  that's that's what it looks like 60 hertz blocks and feels exactly the same look at that ghosting  what now this is something that's very difficult to accurately capture on camera but let's do a  comparison to give you an idea this is a video frame of movement over a similar color palette  on the not particularly special display of a gaming laptop I paid 500 for and this is  what similar speed of movement looks like on the pro motion MacBook display and this doesn't even  illustrate the input lag which is very noticeable on the MacBook even on the desktop but we'll talk  more about that when we get to the gaming section now I want to clarify I'm not saying the MacBook  has a worse display in it than the little Aces that would be ridiculous when it comes to Colors  brightness contrast and sharpness the MacBook display is nothing short of physically arousing  but to achieve this it sacrifices the two arguably most important characteristics for a good gaming  display input latency and motion rendering luckily it's got a dedicated HDMI so that could help one  of the problems at least I'm really glad I didn't spec it up because again it's not the internals  that are going to be the problem on that note let's crack open this beautiful laptop and have  a look at those internals well this is terrifying uh although one thing that is  already promising about this bottom plate is that it kind of ends over here and it doesn't  wrap around halfway through the i o in the way that a lot of Windows laptops's bottom  plates do so it may actually be less annoying to get off but I am ready to eat those wordsit does feel like there's a little bit of glue and after quite  a bit of struggle and with the fear of accidental Hulk smash setting in I  decided to refer to a teardown video which taught me about the clips ohthat's not nice but I was the only one that came away from that experience injured I keep  hurting myself with tech stuff lately look at that oh it smells very neutral clean in here  that's where most of the neutral clean smell lives actually again it it is a beautiful thing  Majestic undercarriage aside it all fairness to Apple according to ifixit's repairability  guide this laptop's not a complete train smash important things like the battery  are relatively easily replaceable the problem comes with upgrade ability Apple just loves to  solder things like storage and RAM down almost like they're scared you're gonna steal it and  then they charge you what I can only describe as an extortionate amount when you spec these  up while buying them which I think is a good point to explain why I only got the base model  while specking up the laptop I wanted to go for this M2 Max upgrade to get the additional 11 GPU  cores because gaming right and I thought that the 250 upgrade was steep but I was willing to pay it  however when you click on it the price goes from 3 200 Canadian dollars to almost 4 000 Canadian  dollars now I'm not very good at math Apple but I'm pretty sure that 3200 plus 250 is not 4  000. now it's not really difficult to see why this happens if you just scroll down you'll  see that Apple forces you to upgrade to 32 gigs of memory for the M2 Max upgrade which costs you 500  Canadian dollars for 16 gigs of RAM and at that point I just refused there is no way I'm paying  500 for 16 gigs of RAM I don't even want so that I can get 11 extra GPU cores this is just Madness  yeahoh that smearing always catches me off guard anyway in terms of game Library it looks pretty  much exactly the same as it did six months ago when I was on here last a selection of  games that are primarily played by under sex middle-aged people on their iPads in terms  of top paid game we've got Resident Evil Village which is quite funny it's like it's the only game  they ever talk about like every time at a press conference they need to mention gaming they wheel  out Resident Evil Village like we're all supposed to be super excited by that oh but we've got limbo  on here which as we all know is a game that you definitely need 2 500 worth of Hardware to play  oh I see civilization still five dollars more than on Steam for some reason actually let's  start off with some civilization five that ran very well on the little Berber MacBook now for  a more relaxed game like Civilization 5 gaming on a MacBook is really nice because of the very  efficient Apple silicon I don't even think the fans have turned on it is extremely quiet  which means you can comfortably game with the Fantastic speakers on this laptop which is not  something you can do on a normal gaming laptop which would sound like a Harrier taking off at  this point and considering that there isn't much movement going on in Civilization 5. the motion  blur isn't that much of an issue and you don't have to react to anything quickly so the input  lag though noticeable isn't really problematic but for two thousand five hundred dollars a nice  civilization 5 experience isn't quite enough so let's try some Resident Evil Village which should  run very well considering how proud apple is of it application you must first sign in I I am signed  in with my Apple ID signed in as and then there's my name yeah but it is signed in what do you mean  how do I sign in more than I'm already signed in account settings which wasn't a great start  to trying out Apple's showpiece game which is apparently a reasonably common problem so this is  a known thing that the one game that Apple brags about being great on Apple silicon just doesn't  work for some reason you've just gotta love that lack of bugginess on Mac OS and after ages of  struggling the only way I could get it to work was by creating a new user on the MacBook specifically  for Resident Evil Village but at least I can finally play the game aside from another quick  problem I'm confused it just said that it was connected will not reconnect I forget it  and then it it instantly reconnects why has nothing worked on it yet but apparently it just  wanted to Gaslight me a bit because eventually it just worked like nothing happened so finally we  can play the game so that only took four attempts very good I don't know this is this is definitely  a horror game this is the most terrifying thing I've ever had to do in a video game oh there's  no button to drop it so we're good okay that motion rendering is so wild but aside from the  motion rendering once I dropped from the very high native resolution of the MacBook down to  1080p it started running pretty well it is so dark see anything the mini LED is is too good  at producing contrast it actually has a similar problem to OLED but aside from Resident Evil  being very dark I was quickly getting invested in the plot package is secure no Hall and he  says about the bay as he hands the baby over and once we got outside at 1080p with this expansive  Vista the combination of the great frame rate beautiful visuals and complete lack of noise  the MacBook was making a compelling argument for it being a good gaming laptop until actual  gameplay happened so last night I took the laptop home to do some gaming on it and the  zombie battles leading up to this point was like the hardest thing I've ever had to do you can see  here that there's a bit of a delay between when you do the input and things happen on the screen  so you just couldn't react quickly enough to what the zombies were doing and it meant I just missed  all of my shots it was really crazy although I will say it is way better since I turned camera  acceleration off with that on it was crazy bad whereas now it's only pretty bad and oh that  motion rendering is rough it's like there's heavy motion blur built into the Monitor and  that smearing is just a one-way Street to eye fatigue even for my seasoned gamer eyes which  really makes me want to plug this into a decent gaming monitor so let's try out the HDMI ports hmmwow when switching over to this display you can really tell how  good the colors are on that MacBook display this looks so much worse  and this isn't even a bad monitor but again there was a problem wait a minute why can't I set it to  above 60 hertz it eventually let me set it to 240 hertz but only once I changed from the Default  Resolution to a different resolution and then back to the Default Resolution For some reason now I  use Dota 2 a game that I play a lot to gauge the difference between the built-in display and the  external NZXT Monitor and again on the built-in promotion display it felt like swimming in treacle  for any kind of competitive game you just can't use the built-in display on this laptop but once  I switched over to the NZXT monitor it felt like I was gaming on a completely different system I  did have to drop the settings to potato levels to deal with the stutters but now it was playable I  actually won a ranked game using the Macbook so when all said and done putting aside game  optimization what you can and can't play on the MacBook which in my opinion even if they fix all  that this MacBook won't be good for gaming because its display isn't good for gaming and that's kind  of an important part of it they really need to fix the Apple smear it's a problem I've had on all of  their non-o-led devices either way I still stand by my conclusion in the previous apple video I  don't mind that Apple treats gaming like it's a suspicious package at the airport because Apple  buying game Publishers is my idea of purgatory and with that until the next video bye-bye  foreign