Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Game became unplayable on M1 Macbook Air

Hi all, I posted a similar story on Reddit a couple days ago and I thought I might give the forums a try as well.
Since the ARM64 implementation post Patch 5, the game's performance on M1 Macbook Air (13", 8gb ram) starts to drop significantly after some time into the story; whether it's playtime-wise or progress-wise I'm not sure. It is strange because up until a certain point (even at the druid grove with lots of NPCs and objects, fps was manageable and there was no lag like this) the game runs at a higher fps than before, seemingly working all fine and at higher performance as advertised in the patch notes. However, after some time the fps drops significantly, especially around wide open areas with lots of objects lying around i.e. anywhere that is not an "indoors" dungeon or the camp. Even worse –as can be seen in the screenshots - some actions and bonus actions take multiple tries before they actually take effect. Usually, attacks and direct spells are fine, although due to severe lag enemy reactions and damage calculations are delayed/offset to the character animation. Some of the spells, cantrips, actions and bonus actions that give buffs or affect character status I have found to be straight up just broken. You can see that I had to spam Dash several times before it actually works; the same goes for Wild Shape. This has never happened before Patch 5. In fact, it still hadn't happened a few days into Patch 5, specifically before the delayed ARM64 was implemented. That doesn't mean that switching back to Intel-Rosetta would solve this problem because it doesn't. I have tried and it's just slower and somehow even worse. Before, the game was occasionally laggy and slow but now even at the lowest settings it has become absolutely unplayable. [img]https://imgur.com/0CtR65p[/img] [img]https://imgur.com/YRXbDuz[/img]

I don't know what to do, I've tried reinstalling already and is there really anything I could do on my end besides that and lowering the settings (already tried and failed)? I had high hopes when I created a new character and the problem seemed to dissipate, only to weep again later because after reaching the Blighted Village simply walking around a house takes forever to do, casting eldritch blast takes several seconds until that new, awesome beam of energy blasts the ground (again, this doesn't happen until some time into the playthrough); and my imp can't go invisible anymore.

I had some problems reading this Text wall.
So with all due respect no offense meant, just wanted to give it more readability.
Please dont be offended.
The Problem at hand you have seems serious enough.
And of course you want to be sure, your bug report gets read.

Thanks mate, first time using the forum and was very tired last night haha no offense taken!

The 8GB RAM is your problem. But there is hope performance will improve, they are working on it. This video explains the issue really well

Yup, most definitely. I checked on activity monitor just how much BG3 devours RAM. Welp, call me shortsighted. Too bad you can't just upgrade RAM on a macbook T.T

The video is absolutely correct. I've played for hours on my 16GB M1 MacBook Air. I know that's no consolation to you right now, but hopefully they can optimize RAM usage. A 16GB RAM requirement will rule a lot of Mac players out, and I'm sure Larian wants as many people as possible to be able to buy, play and enjoy the game.

Thanks. Yeah, with no way to install RAM afterwards, I'm torn that I didn't get that upgrade although $200 was just too much. If only Stadia were to launch in my country. I understand Larian wanting their game to run at a certain standard but I hope they implement some compromise so people with 8GB system can play as well. The game still looks magnificent at medium settings. On a brighter note, the video mentions Elverils – the company working with Larian to bring BG3 to Mac – is already working on improving performance on 8GB so I have high hopes!

It’s absolutely astounding a AAA game like this can run as well as it does on only 8GB of SHARED RAM.

At first I got the 8GB model too, but after playing a few native games, as well as some in a VM, I found the 8GB was just too little. Since I was within Apple's 15 day return period, I took my Air back in and traded it for a refurbished 16GB model. No regrets so far, though my wallet is lighter.

Damn, if I could go back in time I most definitely would. I'm not much of a computer person in the first place and 8gb was just fine up until patch 4. Oh well, they said improvement on performance for 8gb systems is already underway so I'll just wait til patch 6! Or maybe get a new laptop or perhaps a desktop later on because the full released isn't scheduled for another year anyways.