The latest Apple Silicon lineup gets a meaningful bump in gaming performance, with the M4 Max offering top-tier specifications thanks to its 16-core CPU and 40-core GPU, to the point where it was demonstrated that the chipset could successfully run Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition at 120FPS. While it is impressive for this SoC to render games at high framerates, what exact video settings was the AAA title tweaked at to achieve this performance? We may have some insight, and given that path tracing is an extremely taxing visual upgrade, it is doubtful that the M4 Max could run at the aforementioned framerate with this setting enabled.
No specification data was provided for the M4 Max, but it was possibly the 40-core GPU configuration that could run Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition at a higher FPS
A recent demo at the Apple Park revealed how the M4 Max could deliver around 120FPS in Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition at ultra settings. The game is slated to launch this year, with CD PROJEKT RED mentioning that players can enjoy advanced features such as path tracing, frame generation, and built-in spatial audio. Keep in mind that ‘ultra’ settings are different from ‘max’ settings, meaning that some graphics options might not have been tuned to their highest available values, giving the M4 Max some breathing room in this regard.
Also, there should be no surprise that Apple’s MetalFX upscaling likely came in handy to boost the framerate in Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, but unfortunately, there are no details as to which setting was applied. Bear in mind that both the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models have an exceptionally crisp resolution, with the lowest native one measuring 3,024 x 1,964 pixels. Firing up Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition at the native resolution without any upscaling and running at ultra settings means the M4 Max would easily succumb to the overwhelming graphics inflow, leading to a sub-30FPS gameplay.
During WWDC 2025, when Apple unveiled macOS Tahoe 26, one of the features added to the Metal 4 graphics API was interpolation, or frame generation, which adds an extra frame between two input frames to increase the framerate and smooth out gameplay. Given that M4 Max ran Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition at 120FPS, we suspect that frame generation was definitely enabled, and we will explain why. When running the same game on the laptop version of the RTX 4090, we cranked the visual settings to their maximum values, with DLSS set to quality over the default resolution of 2,560 x 1,600, with frame generation and path tracing enabled.
During the first 15 minutes, we witnessed performance between 60FPS and 80FPS, which helped us conclude that the M4 Max would be running Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition at 120FPS without path tracing, with the likelihood of frame generation being enabled. Of course, Apple and CD PROJEKT RED could surprise when the game launches this year, and as always, we will provide all the details in due time, so stay tuned.
