If you have the
M1 MacBook Air, you may notice that performance begins to deteriorate after a period of lengthy gameplay, particularly if you’re running the game on an external 4K display at native resolution.
Unlike the Mini and the MacBook Pro, it doesn’t have a fan to keep itself cool. You should be alright if you have this problem. Lower your resolution a notch or reduce the render distance by a few chunks, and you should be fine.
This is especially true if you have an entry-level MacBook Air with a binned GPU and only seven cores, as described above.
Windowed Mode
If you want to play your game in a windowed mode, the window size determines the resolution at which the game will run. This may appear unusual at first, but the size of the window determines the resolution of the game.
As a result, the amount of performance you can achieve will be determined by the size of the window you create.
Apple has some of the hottest computers in the world. The new silicon is only going to get better as the software gets optimized.
Pick one up internationally from the Apple store.
Full-Screen
Assuming you're playing on a laptop screen, choosing full-screen will be your best option because you only have 13" to work with. You'll need to make the most of all those pixels to fill that little view with Minecraft content.
If you're using an external display, the size and resolution of the monitor, as well as your personal preferences, will determine how large the show will be.
If you run it in full-screen mode, you can adjust the resolution independently of the frame rate in the game's display options to make it appear scaled. In full-screen mode, you have the option of targeting any number of resolutions up to the highest that your display can handle.
If you're using an external monitor, the quality of the image will be determined by the capabilities of the display. The most commonly used monitor sizes are 1080, 1440 (2k), and 2160 pixels in width and height (4k).
1080 x 720 (High Definition)
As you’d anticipate from a lower resolution, the gameplay is incredibly smooth and fluid. There are no concerns with Minecraft running at this resolution.
2560x1440 pixels
Even though the averages were nearly identical to those of the 1080 test, the results were buttery smooth, which was a pleasant surprise.
But you won't notice anything because the most significant peaks are higher at 1080 (fps peaked in the 90s at 1080, whereas the maximum at 2k was in the 70s), and the lowest elevations are the same at both resolutions.
Final Thoughts
Minecraft runs well on the M1 Macs. Whatever your setup (13" MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with the laptop screen, or plugged into any of the most common monitor sizes), you should be able to play as you like.
Ideally, further optimizations of Java and Minecraft will be implemented, theoretically resulting in a significant increase in performance, allowing us to push higher resolutions and render distances for even more extraordinary lengths of time. In 2022 or 2023 we should see Mac GPUs that support Ray Tracing, similar to what we see on the RTX line of Nvidia graphics cards.
