Tweak this OS X setting to make games run better

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Boost your gaming performance with this simple trick.
Boost your gaming performance with this simple trick.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac (original photo: Alejandro Escamilla/Unsplash CC)

When you’re running a video game on your Retina Mac, the highest resolution can bog things down onscreen, making it tough to play smoothly.

Typically, we suggest trying to use your game’s options panel to reduce the fancy graphics to get smoother performance, like increased frame rate and better draw rates.

If that doesn’t appeal, or your game doesn’t include the option, there’s another way to constrain the resolution and make games run more smoothly on a Retina Mac.

First up, quit the game if it’s running. Next, head into your Finder and find the game’s application. It’s typically in the Applications folder, but if you’re a Steam user, you’ll need to right click on the name in the Steam list and choose Properties, click on Local Files, then Browse Local Files.

Find your Steam game here.
Find your Steam game here.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Now, with the game application highlighted in the Finder, right click and choose Get Info. Alternatively, you can hit Command-I on your keyboard with the app selected in the Finder.

Find and check the Open in Low Resolution checkbox. This will make sure that your Mac will force the game to open in a non-Retina resolution, which should improve your performance.

Get Info, then Open in Low Resolution.
Get Info, then Open in Low Resolution.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Launch the game again and see if you feel like things are a little snappier. I ran Rust in both Retina and Low Resolution mode, and while the actual FPS only jumped up a few points, the whole game felt smoother and less laggy. This is good in a game where everyone else wants to kill you.

It’s equally useful in a game like Civilization V, where the large number of on-screen happenings make for some serious slowdown. Once I enabled low-resolution mode, I got at least another 10 frames per second, and the game just seemed speedier.

The overall graphical performance is a bit lessened, but I don’t typically run my games on high graphics settings anyway, so it doesn’t affect me too much.

Your mileage may vary, but this is one more tool in the continuing battle to make games run better on your Mac.

Via: OS X Daily

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