When Apple announced its M4-powered MacBook Air, the company proudly touted its efficiency, performance, and potential for gaming through its new Metal and Game Porting Toolkit improvements. However, a brave experiment recently reminded the internet that not every game is meant to run on Apple’s ultrathin machine. One daring Reddit user decided to push the limits by running Borderlands 4 – a demanding, graphics-heavy AAA shooter – on the M4 MacBook Air, and the outcome was nothing short of disastrous.
The problem, as expected, begins with Borderlands 4 itself. 
The latest entry in Gearbox’s chaotic looter-shooter series boasts vastly improved visuals, advanced lighting effects, and a heavier load on the GPU. Even high-end PC hardware struggles to handle the game’s graphical appetite. Reports have shown that NVIDIA’s flagship RTX 5090 – an absurdly powerful card – barely manages to sustain 60 frames per second at native 4K resolution. That alone paints a grim picture for Apple’s fanless M4 Air, a device built for portability, not for heavy gaming warfare.
In the test shared by Redditor Ialsofuckedyourdad, the MacBook Air managed a painfully slow 10 FPS during outdoor combat and about 20 FPS indoors. That’s with CrossOver, a Windows compatibility layer that allows macOS users to run Windows games. Since Borderlands 4 isn’t available natively for macOS, this was the only way to test it. Although CrossOver has been a game-changer for running titles like Diablo IV or Cyberpunk 2077 on Apple silicon, it’s far from perfect, and it magnifies performance bottlenecks when games are as resource-hungry as this one.
What makes the situation even more challenging is the MacBook Air’s thermal design. The M4 Air is completely fanless, relying on a passive aluminum heatsink that doubles as the device’s shell. When the system gets too hot, it throttles performance aggressively to avoid overheating. In other words, even if the GPU could theoretically push a few extra frames, it quickly slows down as temperatures rise – effectively turning the laptop into a very expensive slideshow player.
Interestingly, another Redditor claimed to achieve 60 FPS on the M4 Max – a much more powerful chip – paired with 48GB of unified RAM. But that configuration is several tiers above the Air and costs more than some gaming PCs. Clearly, Borderlands 4’s optimization favors high-end dedicated GPUs rather than integrated solutions, regardless of how efficient Apple’s silicon is.
Still, this doesn’t mean the M4 MacBook Air is a failure for gaming. Lighter titles and optimized indie games run beautifully under macOS or through CrossOver, and Apple’s continued push for gaming adoption may eventually bear fruit. But when a game like Borderlands 4 can barely breathe even on a system with an RTX 5090, the takeaway is simple: don’t expect miracles from a fanless ultrabook. Until developers optimize their engines for Apple’s architecture – or Apple introduces active cooling in a future Air – Mac gaming will remain more of a novelty than a serious alternative to a dedicated gaming rig.