Fortnite on Mac: How to Play & M1 Benchmarks

In recent times, Battle Royale games have become all the rage. Initially led by Player Unknown Battleground but now surpassed by Fortnite, 100-player last-person-standing games have caught more attention than any other genre before.

In Fortnite, you jet-glide to your chosen spot on an island and start hunting other players and gathering gear. Every encounter is critical, and as you get closer to the final ten players, you can feel the tension rise to incredible levels. No wonder the entire gaming community is so obsessed.

But can your Mac run it? And most importantly, how well does it play on M1 Macs?

Can you play Fortnite on Mac?

You can absolutely play Fortnite on your Mac, including 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.

But while Fortnite can technically run on Mac hardware, it is critical to mention that parts of the game are entirely deactivated on macOS.

Fortnite running on an M1 Mac

⚠️ Everything you need to know about Apple vs. Fortnite

Unfortunately, due to the legal dispute over in-game and App store transactions in 2020, Fortnite is no longer officially supported for macOS. It is a shame that macOS support was removed, but hopefully, things will change in the future.

Art	Game	Genre	64-bit?	64-bit	API	M1 Support
	Fortnite	Shooter	Yes		Metal	Rosetta

Fortnite on Mac: Everything you need to know

Fortnite Battle Royale didn’t become one of the top games in the world by chance. It’s just so much fun to play.

Seek out enemies or hide out and gather resources until the final moments of the game. You decide how to play, but with a narrowing storm center forcing players together, you’ll have to fight it out.

It’s easy to understand why both reviewers and gamers love this game. Battle Royale games create tension and excitement like no other genre can and the addition of crafting makes Fortnite even more unique.

However, there are some things to consider before diving right in.

Fortnite Mac requirements

These are the game’s official Mac requirements:

How to play Fortnite on Mac

As mentioned before, Fortnitely runs natively on Mac, including Intel-based and M1 Macs. But that is for the discontinued version of the game.

⚠️ If you want to play the supported version of the game, you’ll need either cloud gaming, BootCamp (for Intel Macs only), or a Parallels Virtual Machine.

M1 Mac users can use a cloud gaming service such as Boosteroid and GeForce Now. Please note that the cloud gaming experience will heavily rely on your internet connectivity, so keep that in mind before paying for any subscriptions.

Can YOUR Mac run Fortnite? Benchmarks!

These are the Fortnite M1 benchmarks we have gathered so far (you can find more details about the game’s Apple Silicon version here):

Intel Mac benchmarks

We usually test games using our 3 in-house Macs, but because Fortnite is the most popular game to come to macOS in years, we knew we had to do something bigger.

We started out by testing the game on these three machines:

• iMac (5K, 27-inch, Late 2014): 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, AMD Radeon R9 M290X (2GB)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016): 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris Graphics 540 (1.5GB)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2013): 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris 5100 (1.5GB)

On top of that, we launched a huge reader challenge, and with your help, managed to test the game on these models:

• 27-inch iMacs from 2012, 2014 and 2015
• 21-inch iMacs from 2013 and 2017
• 13-inch MacBook Airs from 2014, 2015 and 2016
• 13-inch MacBook Pros from 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017
• 15-inch MacBook Pros from 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017
• Mac Mini from 2012
• Mac Pro from 2010

Finally, these are the in-game settings we used:

• 1280×800 or equivalent resolution
• 100% 3D resolution
• Low Quality Preset
• VSync: Off

We tested the game using Count It, our in-house Mac FPS counter tool, playing a normal Solo battle royale game for around 5 minutes.

On our three machines, we recorded the following results:

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.

If you have a high-end machine with a fast dedicated graphics (like an iMac or 15-inch MacBook Pro), you’ll be able to run the game just fine.

In fact, if you have a high-end Mac, you can safely increase settings to the Medium Preset. That will result in good performance and much better-looking graphics.

Can my Mac run Fortnite?

If you’re reading this, that is probably the only question you care about right now. But as always, the answer is never straightforward: It depends.

With a little luck, we tested a machine very similar to yours and in that case, you only have to see the results. If the game runs at 40 FPS or more, you’re good to go. If not, you’ll have to skip Fortnite, at least for the time being.

From the 20+ results we received, we can conclude that:

• Fornite on MacBook Pro, iMac or Mac Pro: The game will run fine on machines from 2016 onwards.
• Fornite on MacBook Air or Mac Mini: Performance will be too limited to actually enjoy the game
• Fortnite on older Macs: Machines from 2015 or older won’t be able to run it unless they have a powerful dedicated graphics card.

My advice? Fortnite for Mac is free. If you really want to test it, download it and see for yourself if your Mac can run it. Even if it can’t, it won’t cost you a dime to try! But be beware that could find yourself buying rare skins in no time. Fortnite can be extremely addictive!

Can you play Fortnite on a MacBook Pro?

But what if you, like most Mac users out there, have a 13-inch MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air, will you be able to play and enjoy Fortnite on Mac? According to our data, you can if you have a very recent model.

Fortnite officially supports the Intel HD Graphics 4000 or better. As the last model to use it is from 2013, all recent MacBook Pros should be able to run Fortnite just fine.

The game runs great on most machines, with smooth and fast FPS levels. But only the higher-end models with dedicated graphics cards can handle settings higher than Medium. Using our 2016 13-inch MBP, we tested the following settings:

• 1280×800 and Low settings: 43.9 FPS
• 1280×800 and Medium settings: 22.1 FPS

Going from Low to Medium settings requires some horsepower but the graphical improvements are significant. We definitely recommend using Medium settings if your machine can handle it and still run at 40 FPS or better.

This is a point where we have to insist. Fortnite is a competitive shooter where stutters can be a disaster. You need the most fluid experience possible to have a chance to win a face-off.

What if my Mac can barely run it?

If your Mac can barely run Fortnite (below 35-40) on Low settings, there is one last thing you can try…

You can always reduce 3D resolution to 75% or less. That will result in a significant performance improvement but that comes at a cost. Using our 2013 13-inch MBP, we can see big improvements:

• 1280×800, Low settings, 100% 3D resolution: 23 FPS
• 1280×800, Low settings, 66% 3D resolution: 35.2 FPS

With the 3D resolution set to 66%, our 2013 MBP runs the game 40% faster. Even better, it brings us closer to much more acceptable FPS.

Reducing the 3D resolution obviously hurts the game’s looks. I was prepared to recommend against lowering 3D resolution because of how blocky and ugly the game looked, but in reality, I forgot all about it once I started tracking another player. It was glorious and fun.

Deciding how bad 66% 3D resolution looks or whether it is acceptable will be up to you.

I wouldn’t recommend going lower than 66% though because at some point gameplay will suffer too. Can you really be effective if you can’t differentiate faraway enemies from trees?

The best Fortnite Mac settings for performance

If you’re struggling with performance, you can try the following settings. These should increase the game’s FPS at least a little:

• Fullscreen mode
• Set frame rate limit to 30 (to decrease those big frame rate drops)
• Quality: Low
• V-sync off
• Reduce the 3D resolution setting

Don’t expect huge improvements, but this could provide those extra 5 FPS to make Fornite playable on your Mac. The biggest improvements come from reducing the 3D resolution but visual fidelity will suffer a lot…

Download Fortnite for Mac

Want to give it a try? After all, this is an excellent free-to-play game that doesn’t hide its best content behind paid walls or micro-transactions. That alone is reason enough to give it a try and see how much you like it: