Bringing the Gacha genre back on the map, Genshin Impact is one of the most popular RPG games in the world. With frequent updates, new characters, and a developing storyline, the game has enjoyed massive success on PC and PlayStation. The game has also made its way to iOS. But, it was not supported on macOS for a long while.

Thankfully, you can now play Genshin Impact’s PC version on macOS. In this article, we’re going to go over how exactly you can do that, alongside detailing benchmarks that’ll help you make the decision of whether you 

Can You Play Genshin Impact on Mac?

Yes, you can play Genshin Impact on Mac using the YAAGL launcher which uses the Apple Game Porting Toolkit to be able to run the PC version of the game. While you can also sideload the iOS version of the game on Mac, the PC version promises better framerate, visuals, performance, and controller support. The game is not natively supported. However, it is easy to download and install on the Mac and offers great performance and frame rates for all Apple Silicon Macs which include the M1, M2, and M3 series of chips. 

How to Play Genshin Impact PC Version on Mac

Playing Genshin Impact on the Mac is completely free and only requires you to install the YAAGL launcher. This will install the full PC version of the game and not the mobile version. The PC version has better graphics, and better controller support and is overall a much smoother experience on macOS.

Note: This method will only work on macOS version 14.4 or above, previous versions will crash on launch.

• Head to the GitHub page of YAAGL and download the latest release.
• If you are playing on the International servers, then download Yaagl.OS.app.tar. On the Chinese servers, download Yaagl.app.tar.
• After installing the application, open it from the Applications tab.
• YAAGL will now download its basic files and will request you to restart.
• After doing so, the game will start downloading. You will need around 180 GBs of free space to install the game, with the game itself taking up 90 GBs after being installed.
• You can now start playing the game by clicking on Launch Game.

Genshin Impact on Mac: Benchmarks and Performance

Genshin Impact is not an extremely demanding game. Because of this, it runs well on all Apple Silicon MacBooks, including the base Apple Silicon M1 Mac as well. Depending on your Mac, you can play the game from Very Low @ 1080p to completely maxed out at 4k. Sadly, the game is hard-capped to 60 Hz regardless of whether you have a Mac that’s capable of 120 Hz or not. 

Here are some quick benchmarks we’ve gotten with Genshin Impact running using YAAGL:

With these benchmarks, we can confidently say that you can play Genshin Impact on the MacBook Air M1. The game runs buttery smooth on all the Apple Silicon devices we’ve tested them on. The only issue we’ve run into with the M1 Air is in regards to memory, as the game does stutter if you have 8 GB of RAM. However, after you play the game for a while and everything seems to load, the issue seems to subside very quickly. We did not experience this issue on any MacBook that had more than 8 GB of RAM. 

In terms of controller support, we were able to use both our Xbox Controller and DualSense 5 controller right out of the box with no issues whatsoever. YAAGL promises plug-and-play support for Genshin Impact and it is very clear that the launcher has been specifically optimized for its intended purpose.

The Verdict: Should You Play Genshin Impact on Mac?

Yes, you should absolutely play Genshin Impact on the Mac. The full PC version of the game is easily playable thanks to the YAAGL launcher. It runs on a base level MacBook Air M1 with a few stutters here and there because of its low RAM. However, if you opt for any other Apple Silicon Mac that has more RAM, you will have an extremely pleasant experience. There are no graphical stutters or glitchers whatsoever, and all controllers are supported right out of the box, both the Xbox and PlayStation. It also supports cross-platform with Windows, iOS and all other and PlayStation as well.

The open-source developers of the launcher have also promised improvements coming to the launcher very soon, which means that you can expect better performance from Genshin Impact on the Mac as well. Plus, since you don’t need CrossOver for this, downloading and installing Genshin Impact on macOS is completely free.

Is Genshin Impact Coming to the Mac Natively?

No, as of yet, miHoYo, the developers of Genshin Impact, have given no indication about Genshin Impact being natively supported on the Mac. While an iOS version does exist, which you can sideload, there is no official macOS version. However, there really does seem to be no need for it as while we’re huge fans of native releass, YAAGL does a pretty great job of providing a near-native experience for Genshin Impact which means that there’s no urgent need for the developers to whip out a Mac version.

Genshin Impact Mac Requirements

There are no official system requirements for Genshin Impact for the Mac. However, according to our benchmarks, these are the recommended Mac specs to be able to play the game without any errors:

Given these requirements, it is clear that Genshin Impact will run on any Mac that has more than 8 GBs of RAM and has more than 180 GB of storage space to spare. 

The post How to Play Genshin Impact on Mac: M1 Benchmarks appeared first on Mac Gamer HQ.