Play Fort Solis on Mac: M1 Native support & Benchmarks

Fort Solis wasn’t the best game to behold when it came out–but now that it’s available on macOS, we might as well cover it. In Fort Solis, you’re thrown into a claustrophobic and abandoned base on Mars and in a once-occupied base. This is a narrative-driven science fiction horror “walking simulator” with a few quick time events added into the mix.

Mac owners looking for a claustrophobic thriller may want to check it out. For the rest of us, we just want to know how well Unreal Engine 5 games can run on macOS. After all, this is the first high-profile Unreal engine game to come to macOS. So how does it run? 

Art	Genre	64-bit	API	M1 Support	Performance	Optimizations
	Adventure		Metal	Native	Poor	None
	Racing		Metal	Native	Excellent	MetalFX
	Action		Metal	Native	Good	MetalFX
	Action		Metal	Native	Excellent	MetalFX
	Adventure		Metal	Native	Good	MetalFX
	Simulation		Metal	Native	Good	None
	Simulation		OpenGL	Rosetta	Good	None
	RPG		Vulkan	Rosetta	Good	None

Can You Play Fort Solis on Mac?

You can play Fort Solis natively on Mac, but performance is subpar when running the game on base models. Fort Solis supports Apple Silicon processors (M1, M2, M3) natively, and while native support taking full advantage of the Metal graphics API should result in better performance, that’s seriously not the case with Fort Solis.

In addition, Intel-based Macs are unsupported and cannot run Fort Solis. If you’re running the Pro and Max variants of the M series of chips, Fort Solis is playable with some minor issues, but don’t expect 60 FPS. This title is poorly optimized for Apple Silicon from the get-go.

Fort Solis Mac Gameplay

Fort Solis System Requirements

These are the official Fort Solis System Requirements, as stated in the Mac App Store:

• macOS 13.00 or later
• A Mac with an Apple M1 chip or later
• 4.1 GB

Can You Run Fort Solis on Mac? Benchmarks and Performance

These are the benchmarks that we’ve gathered for Fort Solis so far, including tests from friends of the channel MacProTips and SomeMacStuff:

M1 Pro and M1 Max: Low Settings

Despite native support and running on the Metal API, Fort Solis was an adequately playable experience on the PRO and MAX series of Apple Silicon Chips. 

The game ran at 1920x1080p at the lowest settings, with occasional dips into the 30s and edging the high 40s at times. But the difference in the performance bump from the M1 Pro and the M1 MAX was around 3–4 FPS at best. Performance was pretty similar across the board. 

M1 Max and M2 Ultra: High Settings?

On the M2 Ultra, Fort Solis saw a bump in performance by 10 FPS, hovering around the high 30s on the lower end of the spectrum and jumping up to 50 FPS in closed sections of the game. Still, this was on 1920x1080p at the lowest settings.

Comparing the M1 Max and the M2 Ultra on High Settings at 1920x1080p, Fort Solis ran hovered around the 30 FPS mark, with the M1 Max edging out the M2 Ultra at times.

Fort Solis: Can It Run On Base MacBook Air?

Fort Solis can technically run on the base M1 MacBook Air. But with only 8 gigs of RAM at your disposal and a base M1 chip, the game runs terribly. You could potentially play the game at 1280×720 at the lowest settings with MetalFX enabled and set to performance mode.

Inside the Fort, you could expect to get a somewhat decent 20–30 FPS with minor drops here and there, but outside is a completely different story. Expect to play the game at under 20 FPS out in the open on Mars, which is unacceptable by all standards…

The Verdict: Should You Play Fort Solis on Your Mac?

Considering the varied performance across different Mac models, the decision to play Fort Solis on a Mac should be made with some considerations in mind. If you own a higher-end MacBook Pro or Mac Studio, especially the models with M1 Pro, M1 Max, or M2 Ultra chips, you’ll experience a reasonably playable game, albeit with some compromises in frame rate and settings. However, on these devices, you can expect a smoother experience with fewer performance issues.

For those with base model Macs, particularly the MacBook Air or the base M2 Mac Mini, the experience may not be as enjoyable. The game struggles to maintain even modest frame rates on these models, particularly in more demanding scenes. This can detract from the immersive experience that a narrative-driven game like Fort Solis aims to provide.

In conclusion, if you have a high-end Mac, Fort Solis can be a worthwhile experience, especially if you’re interested in narrative-driven games and can tolerate some performance hiccups.

Fort Solis Mac Download

You can download Fort Solis for the Mac on the Mac App Store. Alternatively, you can also download the game via Steam.