Path of Exile is not yet another Action RPG, as it is considered the only true competitor to the critically acclaimed Diablo series. GGG did a fantastic job with Path of Exile, and it seems like a tribute to Diablo 2, if anything.
Where Diablo 4 holds your hand along the way, Path of Exile punishes you at every turn. We’re currently going through the campaign using a Monk leveling build, and the experience feels as brutal as it is rewarding. But how does Path of Exile run on MacOS and MacBooks these days?
| Art | Genre | 64-bit | API | M1 Support | Performance | Optimizations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | RPG |  | Vulkan | Rosetta | Good | None |
Can you play Path of Exile on Mac?
You can absolutely run Path of Exile on Mac natively. In fact, on top of offering support for Intel Macs, Path of Exile has been updated to offer native ARM support for Apple Silicon Macs, including M1, M2, and M3 models.
While the official system requirements don’t mention Apple’s M1, M2, or M3 chips, we can confirm they are supported, and the game runs beautifully on any of them at a steady frame rate. Hopefully, Path of Exile 2 on Mac will run this well.
Path of Exile on M1 Pro MacBook Pro
Path of Exile Mac Requirements
If you have an Apple M1 Silicon chip or higher under the hood, you’re pretty much good to go. Intel-based MacBooks can handle the game surprisingly well.
There were a few problems with running the game on M1 MacBooks, but GGG has fixed this problem with an update. Still, if you’re concerned about the spec sheet, here are the game’s official Mac requirements:
| Requirements | |
| OS: | 10.13 |
| Processor: | 2.6 GHz Intel i7 |
| Memory: | 8 GB RAM |
| Graphics: | Radeon Pro 450 |
| Hard Drive: | 40 GB |
| A 64-Bit OS and processor are required | |
Initially, Path of Exile was unsupported on M1-based Macs. For some reason, the game would systematically crash at launch, which was surprising because most “unsupported” games run just fine on M1 Macs, thanks to Rosetta 2. Luckily, developer Grinding Gear Games eventually found and released a fix:
Owners of M1 Macs can now play Path of Exile through Rosetta, with minimal impact on performance. A native version will be available in a future update.
Path of Exile Mac Settings
Can Your Mac Run Path of Exile? Benchmarks and Performance
These are the benchmarks we have gathered so far for Path of Exile, including tests from friend of the channel MrMacRight:
| Game | Machine | Resolution | Settings | Other | FPS | Tester | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Path of Exile | 💻 M1 MacBook Pro 13", 8-core GPU, 8 GB | 1920x1080 | Max | 70 | MrMacRight | ||
| Path of Exile | 💻 M1 MacBook Air 13", 7-core GPU, 8 GB | 1920x1080 | High | 55+ | Mac Gamer HQ |
If you own an M1 MacBook Pro 8GB, then you can expect to garner a solid 70 FPS at 1080 with all the settings cranked to the maximum. You can also flawlessly run this game on the base MacBook Air at High Settings at 1080p and get a solid 60 FPS.
Previously, users reported instances of crashes when trying to boot Path of Exile on M1-based MacBooks, particularly on Patch 3.17.4. Fortunately, GGG, or Grinding Gear Games, quickly released a patch with no hits in performance. The game runs on the Vulkan API (Molten VK) via Rosetta with 64-bit support.
While many macOS gamers were expecting the Metal API to be utilized, the hard truth is that Metal is not widely used for games that have been previously published.
Path of Exile Mac Gameplay
Path of Exile requires Rosetta 2 to work on Apple Silicon MacBooks. But thanks to macOS updates and Rosetta improvements made along the way, the game tends to run flawlessly. The whole installation process is as seamless as it is playing the game on Windows.
While owners of Path of Exile can play the game using Rosetta for the time being, M1 owners will get a native Apple Silicon Mac version of the title, as promised by GGG in the future. Will it run on the Metal 3 API? Time will tell.
Path of Exile Mac Download
You can download the Mac version of Path of Exile from Steam. While GGG does provide a standalone Mac client to play the game, the game is barely updated over the standalone client. The game is capped at 60 FPS from the get-go on the Mac Client. You can download Path of Exile for free by signing up on their website.
Path of Exile Mac Support
The forums have been flooded with many bugs and artifacts, yet few have been addressed. Your best bet would be to go for the Steam Version, which receives updates slightly slower.
This is great! It’s one of the few games you can play on MAC, that’s hard for sure and I hope people can get used to it.
Which do you think is better in a Path of Exile vs Diablo 3 contest?
I hope they plan to bring it on Mac App Store too
Well I do have MacBook Pro with m1 8gb and it runs terrible. 15-20 fps on low settings, also I cannot use Vulcan / Direct etc. there is no option to swap it.
yes it is true, I also have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports) M1 and it runs horribly, 20 fps max on the lowest settings possible, I have managed to deal with it until I got to Act 2 and now averages at 5-6 fps.
I have the same MacBook Pro. Just installed today, everything to the lowest settings and I can’t even kill 3 scorpions because it lags like crazy…what is this non-sense?
On my Mac Studio M1 Max+64GB Memory, I can play the whole campaign at lowest setting. It’s smooth. Don’t know the actual FPS, though. But when I reached the map, FPS could drop too low, especially facing bosses. It’s pretty much unplayable. Get ready to die a lot. Optimized for silicon? I don’t see it. Baldur’s Gate 3, that is what “native” is like. My Mac Studio can play BG3 smoothly without any FPS drop through the whole game at the highest setting.