7 Best FPV Simulators for Mac: Performance Review

Windows computers, especially gaming ones, are the ones to go for the best performance when practicing in FPV simulators. But what if you have a MacBook or MacOS PC? Can you use these FPV Simulators? How well do they work?

I have a MacBook Air with the M2 CPU which has 8GB RAM and passive cooling - so, it's on the low end of the performance spectrum. And I also have installed 7 FPV Simulators I will try at optimal video settings and see how they really work.

So, despite that I have a dozen FPV simulators purchased, only these 7 are worth mentioning at the moment if you're looking for one and you have a MacBook. Not every FPV simulator can be installed on a Mac.

These are TRYP FPV, Uncrashed, Liftoff, Liftoff Micro Drones, DRL, VelociDrone, and FPV SkyDive.

Therefore, just to be clear: If you have a lower-end Mac PC or Laptop, like Intel, or with a basic M1 CPU and the same amount of RAM, your performance may be worse. However, any newer ones, including the M2 or M3, Pro or Max versions, with 16GB RAM or even more, you should see a major increase in performance.

Now, let's start right into it, and I'm gonna pick TRYP FPV as the first sim.

Just as a note, at the end of this article, I will place all these FPV simulators in order performance-wise, so you know what to pick.

Moreover, I also created a video that is now live on YouTube if you're willing to watch it instead of reading a blog post.

TRYP FPV

TRYP FPV is known as one of the most resource-hungry FPV simulators out there. Their graphics are stunning and after the last December major update, this became not only one of my favorite simulators in terms of physics, drone dynamics, and customizability but also because of the... astonishing graphics.

But that is on a Windows Computer. If you install TRYP FPV on a Mac, you will be highly disappointed.

While in the past used to work just fine on a Mac, now the game freezes quite a lot, becomes unresponsive, the buttons cannot be clicked and I can't change even one single setting.

I tried to practice a bit on my MacBook Air M2 with the recommended settings, where the resolution is set quite high where it shouldn't be, and the game is very laggy, has frame drops and the details are simply terrible.

Moreover, I couldn't even enable the FPS counter so you see the real FPS.

But that's not all. If you're also watching the video, you can see that TRYP FPV has a huge delay response between the remote controller and the game - it's about nearly half a second latency.

This makes the simulator unplayable on Mac computers, even on a high-performance one.

TRYP FPV is a DEFINITELY NO for Mac. Don't bother until they will fix all these bugs and performance issues.

Uncrashed FPV

I love Uncrashed, not only because of its simplicity but because they have excellent performance even on medium-tier computers. And now with Mac, I shall say I'm a bitty bit surprised!

Uncrashed had several updates lately that increased their performance drastically, especially on Mac computers.

The gameplay is very smooth even if I am running on native 2.7k or similar resolution, a thing which I cannot say about many games or FPV simulators.

Moreover, I also tried to run Uncrashed at maximum details with maximum resolution on this little MacBook and the performance was super smooth most of the time. 

Of course, I prefer to keep the details on "medium" as the laptop gets quite hot and after a while, the laptop throttles down to keep the temperature under control.

Even like this, works many times better than TRYP FPV. And of course, it all depends on the map you're practicing. While the first map I tried is less resource hunger, the second one and some other ones will require a bit more resources to run smoothly like the first one.

But overall, I love Uncrashed on Mac computers - is very well-optimized. So a very big PLUS!

Now, moving on.

Liftoff & Liftoff Micro Drones.

Now, I want to combine these two FPV simulators because they're both created by the same company, however, they're different. But they have the same functioning engine so performance-wise they are kinda similar.

Or so I thought.

A while back when I made a dedicated video with the Liftoff Simulator on MacBook Air M2, the performance was not so great. I mean it was okay, but ever since, they improved a lot.

Now, at the beginning of May 2024, the performance is definitely not so great if you're using the recommended video settings (auto-set max resolution). 

I've tried changing and putting the resolution down but still, I had artifacts when I tried playing; it seems you must have the v-sync on to make it work, otherwise, you have performance issues.

Even like that, I had to drop the resolution quite a lot and the video details to make it run smoothly. It can run smoothly; however, it all depends on the map you're practicing.

Liftoff has a few large maps I didn't even bother to try them as I know I have performance issues with them even with my gaming PC. 

Once you tweak the video details and find the optimal settings, the Liftoff simulator is okay. Not as good as Uncrashed, but still, decent.

So, what about the Liftoff Micro Drones? That's also a decent decision, but I would recommend it only if you're into flying micro drones; it's as simple as that.

Performance-wise, this simulator is more than decent and quite far from the standard Liftoff. 

On my tests, I have set the graphic details to medium but I left the resolution as native 2.7K or similar on Mac, which is quite high.

While standard Liftoff would have struggled a lot, Liftoff Micro Drones run just fine.

However, I have noticed some of the maps have some bad artifacts; and as well, when you start a new map, you will have a few frame drops until resources are loaded.

Still, if you drop down the resolution, expect this simulator to run very smoothly.

DRL

Although DRL Simulator, or Drone Racing League, is not my first pick if you want to learn freestyle and free flight, it is my favorite in terms of racing capabilities as they have a massive online player base.

And DRL is not as resource-hunger as some other FPV simulators. 

When I started the game, it was smooth. very smooth. But I have noticed the low resolution, so the simulator set automatically for my laptop the lowest resolution and details they could do.

Of course, like this, the game was playable without issues. I tried to scale up the resolution and DRL remained playable, however, I've noticed some frame drops here and there. 

At a point, I also tried the native laptop resolution and higher graphics, but it was so bad, it dropped under 15 frames per second.

It's a big yes for DRL if you're willing to practice with the minimum details and resolution on a Mac computer. 

Temperature-wise, DRL got my laptop quite hot. But this was to be expected anyway.

VelociDrone 

VelociDrone was the top FPV simulator for many years in terms of physics, drone dynamics, testing PID and Rates, and the amount of content it has, now is in a close battle with TRYP FPV.

However, VelociDrone graphics are on the lower-end spectrum, so it's made to run well even on poor-performance computers.

And as for Macs, VelociDrone was supposed to work well.

I mean, really, really well.

When I started VelociDrone, it set automatically the lowest resolution and details. I practiced a bit on some maps, and I noticed some nasty frame drops that weren't supposed to be there. After a while, it became smooth.

Of course, that was at the lowest resolution. And the temperature was really low, probably the lowest registered in any simulators - so you can practice on your MacBook battery for quite a while without draining it too much.

Furthermore, I tested with a higher resolution and high quality, and I was surprised to see it as smooth as with the lowest resolution.

What I cannot explain is that rarely I could see any frame drops. It was as smooth as butter. 

Nevertheless, that's probably because VelociDrone did not focus on environmental details too much but on simulator physics and drone dynamics.

So, for now, I can say it's a big YES for VelociDrone on Mac computers.

Of course, it all depends on the map and environment you choose, but you should not have any issues if you have an M2 MacBook Air and even a lower Mac computer.

They also have full support for intel-based MacOS computers. 

And even at higher resolution and details, my laptop remained quite cold.

FPV SkyDive 

The FPV SkyDive from ORQA is one of the top free-to-play FPV simulators. So if you already have a Mac laptop or PC and wondering what FPV simulator to purchase, it costs you nothing to install and try FPV SkyDive.

It doesn't have amazing graphics and neither the physics are that great. But it's a decent simulator to start for free. I mean, zero cost.

When I started with my practice in FPV SkyDive on this MacBook, I set the highest resolution. I was surprised to see that it doesn't work that well.

I mean, at the native laptop resolution, the framerate in FPV SkyDive is quite low. Moreover, there are frame drops that make this simulator not that usable.

From that point, I dropped the resolution to half, or about there. The framerate improved but I could see it still doesn't compare with some other sims.

At the minimum resolution, FPV SkyDive was quite smooth and playable. But still, the framerate was somewhere under 60 fps. 

Of course, as I've mentioned before, it costs you nothing to download it and practice on your MacBook, even if there are some performance issues.

However, I can certainly say that if you have a better Mac than mine, you should not have issues using it even at higher resolution. But worse-performance Macbooks or any Mac computers may not be ideal to use with this simulator.

Conclusion.

So, after prolonged practicing and experience with so many FPV simulators - well, I have hundreds of hours of training and practicing and my content is around FPV simulators - here's what I have to share with you.

The best FPV Simulator PERFORMANCE-WISE that works well on MacBooks and other Mac Computers is:

1. Uncrashed FPV. That's without doubt because even at the highest settings and resolution, Uncrashed worked really well, it's extremely optimized and smooth on this Mac, or at least on M-type CPU Macs. 
2. VelociDrone is the second one I recommend. As I've mentioned, they optimized this simulator even for lower-end Macbooks, including intel-based ones. You will suffer a bit at the beginning with a bit of framerate drop but once it loads all the resources, it works extremely smooth.
3. The next one I recommend is Liftoff Micro Drones. It works very well and is smooth, but pick this only if you're into flying micro drones.
4. Liftoff is the fourth I recommend; it works smoothly on M2 with 8GB RAM and will work smoother on newer or better MacBooks than this one. But I cannot guarantee the same performance on lower-end MacBooks. Moreover, keep in mind that you will have to change a lot of video settings to optimize it and run smoothly.
5. Next is DRL. This is in a close battle with Liftoff, and sometimes, I feel is more responsive than it. But to make it work smoothly, you will have to drop the resolution and all details to a bare minimum, despite the simulator having poor graphics. 
6. FPV SkyDive is next; it should be optimized better. It doesn't require a lot of resources to run, but still, you have occasional framerate drops and will work under 60 fps even at the lowest settings. I recommend it just because it's free.
7. The last one is TRYP FPV. Is the most terrible and I will definitely NOT RECOMMEND IT on any Mac computers. Not only that the performance terrible, but the simulator is so buggy on Macs, that is unusable. You can't even click a few elements here and there, or change the settings and resolution because you can't click elements. It froze several times and proved to be a simulator to NEVER TRY ON MAC.

Well, here you have it. Now if you want to join the FPV world and get started like everyone with an FPV simulator but you ONLY have a MacBook or Mac computer, you really know what you should pick.

Of course, the list is not complete. There are way too many FPV simulators to pick from, but these are somehow the top ones I use.

Don't forget, if you haven't already watched the video, I strongly recommend you do it as you will see my tests in detail.