The Sims 4 on Mac: How to Download for FREE (& Benchmarks)

While not everyone’s cup of tea, it is undeniable how popular The Sims franchise is. Hell, I’ll go ahead and admit there was a brief period in my life when all I played was The Sims. Create a Sim, build a house, get a job, make friends, and find love, all in the comfort of your computer.

But a lot has changed since the heady days of the 2000s, and after 3 main entries and countless expansions, developer Maxis has now delivered The Sims 4, one of the most addictive simulation games for Mac. But it gets better. Starting October 18, 2022, The Sims 4 is available for free.

Can you play The Sims 4 on Mac?

You can absolutely play The Sims 4 on your Mac, and that includes Intel and Apple Silicon Models. Even if the official system requirements don’t mention M1 or M2 Macs, our benchmarks confirm the game runs great on Apple Silicon Macs.

The Sims 4 is not a particularly demanding game, but that shouldn’t take merit away from Maxis, a studio that, in spite of being on the receiving end of a lot of criticism, has always ensured that The Sims 4 is fully supported on macOS, even during the debacle that was moving from 32-bit to 64-bit with macOS Catalina.

Art	Game	Genre	64-bit?	64-bit	API	M1 Support
	The Sims 4	Simulation	Yes		Metal	Rosetta

The Sims 4 on Mac: Everything you need to know

With the enormous success of every Sims game ever released, The Sims 4 should have been flooded with pre-orders. But with the catastrophic launch of SimCity, fans were cautious.

So did The Sims 4 delivered? Is it as good as its predecessors? Reviewers can’t seem to agree. The game has a 70/100 Metascore, which is good but not great. When looking at the user reviews on Metacritic, it doesn’t look good for The Sims 4. The game has a 4.1/10 average score of over 2500 users. Often, the criticism comes for the same reasons: the world is too small and there aren’t enough things to do…

The Sims 4 is now free

But that was a long time ago (2014). A lot of features and new content has been added to the game. And now that you can get it for free on Origin, there is no reason not to give it a shot.

If you have, The Sims 4 should have enough depth and new features to be worth a shot, especially now that enough Expansions have been released that add more stuff to do. Having said that,  if you want to have it with all DLCs included, The Sims 4 can be very expensive.

The Sims 4 Mac requirements

⚠️ Note that these requirements do not mention Apple Silicon Macs, but we can confirm that M1 machines are perfectly capable of running The Sims 4.

Into Simulation games? These are our favorites:

Game	★ Our Pick	Also Great	Best Value
	Cities: Skylines	Farming Simulator 2022	Euro Truck Simulator 2
Genre	City-builder	Farming-sim	Truck-sim
Release date	2015	2021	2012
Metascore	85	78	79
Our rating	★★★★★ Full Review	★★★★☆ Full Review	★★★★★ Full Review
Requirements	High	Medium	Low
Check Price	Check Price	Check Price	Check Price

How to play The Sims 4 on Mac

As mentioned before, The Sims 4 runs natively on Mac, and that includes Intel-based and M1 Macs.

The game does require Rosetta 2 to run on Apple Silicon Macs. But Rosetta 2 works so seamlessly (it installs automatically the first time it detects an Intel-based app), and it integrates so well with macOS, that the experience is virtually the same as running a native Apple Silicon Mac.

The Sims 4 running on an M1 Mac

This means The Sims 4 can run on macOS without requiring any third-party software. Therefore, we won’t waste your time talking about Parallels, Crossover (both excellent tools, but only useful for Windows-exclusive games…), or Streaming services.

Can your Mac run The Sims 4? Benchmarks!

These are The Sims 4 M1 & M2 benchmarks we have gathered so far:

As a reminder, this is how we describe the different levels of performance:

• Below 20 FPS: Unplayable: Laggy gameplay, full of stutters and slowdowns.
• 20-30 FPS: Borderline: Can be OK in slow-paced games. Still, not optimal.
• 30-45 FPS: Playable: Acceptable for most (most gaming consoles do this).
• 45-60 FPS: Smooth: Fluid gameplay, with no perceivable stutters.
• 60+ FPS: Very Smooth: For hardcore and professional players, a luxury for most.

Intel benchmarks

We tested the game on the following machine:

• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016): 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris Graphics 540 (1.5GB)
• iMac (5K, 27-inch, Late 2014): 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, AMD Radeon R9 M290X (2GB)
• Mac Mini (Late 2014): 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris 5100 (1.5GB)
• MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012): 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 GB RAM, GeForce GT 650M (1GB)

These are the settings we used to test The Sims 4 using our in-house FPS counter Count It for a fixed duration of 5 minutes:

• 1280×800 resolution
• Graphics Quality: Medium
• Vertical Sync: Off
• Retina display: Off

Can my Mac run The Sims 4?

If you own an M1 or M2 Mac, you can run The Sims 4 at high settings and resolution without a problem.

If you still own an Intel Mac, then it will depend on the type of machine you have. If you have a high-end Mac with dedicated graphics, you will be fine. Case in point, my 2014 iMac’s results. While nowhere near as fast as the latest M2 Macs, it still ran the game at 60 FPS using the Medium settings defined for these tests. And it only did 60 FPS because the game locked frame rates at 60 FPS maximum.

But what happens when we bump the graphics to make The Sims 4 shine? When increasing the settings to Ultra and raising the resolution to 2560×1440, the iMac still ran the game at 56.2 FPS.

Can you play The Sims 4 on a MacBook Pro?

In this case, The Sims 4 did great on my older Intel-based 13-inch MacBook Pro. The game ran at 54.9 FPS, which is almost double our 30 FPS target.

These results mean you could slightly increase the graphics settings and still get a smooth experience out of The Sims 4. I did two more tests on high and ultra settings, and as expected, there was still some room (although ultra is a little too much):

• 1280×800 and high settings: 44.5 FPS
• 1280×800 and ultra settings: 24.1 FPS

Takeaway: The Sims 4 is properly optimized for macOS and not particularly demanding. Any recent Mac should be able to handle it, even those with integrated graphics.

But what if you have an older Mac?

According to our results, there is hope for you. Our test 2014 Mac Mini ran the game at 45.40 FPS, which is way above our target. If your Mac is even older than that, it will depend on your machine’s graphics. If you have dedicated graphics, like our 2012 15-inch MacBook Pro, you should be fine.

And if you don’t and worry yours won’t be able to take it, you can always try Stardew Valley, an excellent, albeit different, simulation game that supports macOS.

Bottom line: Turns out, The Sims 4 is a forgiving game that should run just fine on most Macs out there (unless you have a pre-2012 Mac with integrated graphics). Maxis did a good job optimizing the game, but this is an inherently simple game (graphics-wise) that is not meant to push your machine to the max. After all, there are plenty of other games out there for that!

Download The Sims 4 for Mac

The Sims 4 is available for download for free on EA’s Origin platform.