How to Boost the Gaming Performance of Your Mac for Free

It’s no secret that Apple does not design their computers for gaming. From their parts selection, cooling, to upgradability the choices Apple makes when designing their computers stray far away from the preferences of PC gaming enthusiasts. But even when gamers are willing to accept Apple’s hardware, the software still disappoints. Case in point: Apple’s choice of Bootcamp drivers.

Bootcamp is a feature of Macs that allows them to run Windows in a separate partition. Mac gamers have been using it for years to play the plethora of Windows exclusive games out there on their Macs. But ever since Apple went exclusively AMD for their graphics, there has been a problem. 

When Apple went AMD exclusive, they decided to use “professional” GPUs instead of the more common gaming GPUs. Although AMD does make truly professional graphics cards, the GPUs Apple puts into their machines are often just rebranded gaming cards. This makes sense given Apple’s primary audience, but this rebranding has necessitated the use of professional graphics drivers in Windows Bootcamp. Or so we thought…

For those unfamiliar, professional graphics cards and by extension professional graphics drivers are usually optimized for, you guessed it, professionals. This means that pro applications like CAD might run better, but video games will often run worse.

If Apple truly did put professional GPUs into their machines this would be the end of the story, but as I said it was always assumed that Apple’s pro GPUs were just rebranded gaming GPUs and now we know that really is the case. 

Say hello to bootcampdrivers.com. Thanks to the hard work of a lone developer, we can now install AMDs gaming graphics drivers on Macs running Bootcamp to get all the best gaming performance these GPUs can provide.

So what’s the catch? Well, there are many. First is the fact that these are unofficial hacked drivers. That means there is no support from AMD or Apple, and, in fact, they put up a lot of barriers to prevent you from installing these drivers. Second is that, given this is done by only one person, not all Macs can be tested for compatibility. The drivers are only tested “with a Radeon R9 M295X on an iMac 5k (2014)” before release, so technically you are taking a risk when installing these on any other machine. And that risk can be big. I have had theses drivers corrupt my Windows install before, and have needed to do a complete reinstall, losing all my programs in the process. This is a hack after all, and not for the faint of heart. 

So what do you get in return for all this hassle? Most prominently is gaming performance. Unlike the professional drivers Apple uses, these drivers are optimized to run the latest games as fast as possible. You also get gaming-specific features missing in the pro drivers. Screen recording through ReLive, lower latency through Radeon Anti-Lag, and overclocking support to name a few.

If all that sounds worth the risk, then follow along as I guide you through the installation of these drivers.

1. Download the drivers from bootcampdrivers.com

While in Windows using Bootcamp go to the website and look in the downloads dropdown for the driver version that is compatible with your Mac’s GPU. If you don’t know which GPU your Mac has, you can press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to access the task manager and in the Performance tab go to the GPU section to see which GPU model you have.

2. READ THE README!!!

This guide is based on the readme provided with the latest version of the drivers as of publication, but the readme could change and you should always follow its instructions over the ones here. 

3. Uninstall Apple’s Default Drivers

Because these are hacked gaming drivers, they cannot be installed over top of Apple’s existing pro drivers. That means we need to uninstall the current drivers completely. Drivers from bootcampdrivers.com come with a utility called Display Driver Uninstaller. To use it, you first need to boot into Windows safe mode by holding shift while clicking ‘Restart’ from the Start menu, then navigating through the menu that appears to the ‘Restart’ option by going through ‘Troubleshoot -> Advanced settings -> Startup settings -> Restart’. After the restart a new menu should appear with different options. Press 4 on the keyboard to choose the ‘Safe Mode’ option.

Once in safe mode, you can begin the uninstall process. Open Display Driver Uninstaller and if you do not see the Radeon logo to the left use the dropdowns to pick ‘GPU’ and then ‘AMD’ in the menu. Once you have picked AMD as the GPU type click on the ‘Clean and Restart’ button.

4. Check that it worked

After the restart open the Device Manager app in Windows and ensure that Microsoft Basic Display Adapter is listed as the display adapter.

5. Install the drivers

After you’ve done all of that you are finally ready to install the drivers. Click on the Setup executable in the download and watch as it installs your new drivers. 

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Congratulations! You’ve successfully installed the drivers you need to get the best gaming performance from your Mac, and it didn’t cost you a penny. I know this whole process kinda breaks with the whole “it just works” philosophy behind Apple, but PC gaming isn’t really a place for the “it just works” attitude. If you want something that works perfectly out of the box, you can always buy a gaming console. PC is the home of endless tweaking and optimization for the best performance and I think this process is perfect for those that have bought into that philosophy.