The Callisto Protocol, Mac M4 Pro, Heroic Games Launcher: Benchmark & Gameplay

The Callisto Protocol (Epic Games Store version)

Setup: MacBook Pro M4 Pro (24GB 14CPU/20GPU), macOS 15.7.1 Sequoia, Heroic Games Launcher 2.18.1, Game Porting Toolkit 3.0, MSync.

Settings: 1440p resolution, unmodified High Graphics preset.

The benchmark average is 59 FPS without screen recording. The game suggests using "High graphics“ for the M4 Pro after the benchmark.

Frame rates drop to as low as 30 FPS at some places, but the performance is usually over 50 FPS in closed spaces (most of the game).

I run the benchmark on a Mac Mini M4 base model. The benchmark average is 42 FPS on Mac Mini M4, at 1080p with unmodified Medium graphics preset.


The Epic Store version of the game can be installed and played just using the free Heroic Games Launcher app. The only downside for this game is that the HDR option cannot be enabled with Heroic.



Notes:

1. Screen recording at 1440p resolution had a big impact (20%) on performance. The FPS values in the gameplay part of the video are actually 8-10 FPS higher without screen recording.

2. The game only supports FSR2 upscaling. It automatically chooses "FSR balanced" with High graphics preset, and "FSR performance" with Medium graphics preset. Using FSR Quality instead of Balanced did not make a notable difference in terms of performance on the M4 Pro.

3. CrossOver 26 Preview 20251216 runs the game with similar performance, and HDR can be enabled.



How to Install Heroic and play the game:

1. Heroic Games Launcher has a GitHub page and it is updated regularly. The latest stable release can be downloaded from the releases page. The one to download for M series Macs ends with "macos-arm64.dmg". To install, just open the dmg file and move Heroic.app into the Applications.

Heroic Games Launcher GitHub Page:

https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launc...


2. Upon running Heroic, the latest Game Porting Toolkit can be installed within it, under the "Wine Manager" menu. It will download and install the latest GPTK (currently 3.0).

3. By logging in to Epic Store under "Stores", the game will be available to install in the Library, if it is claimed from Epic Store. "Default Installation Path" can be set under the "Settings" menu, especially if an external SSD is available.

4. Once installed, go into the game settings page in Heroic, select "Game Porting Toolkit" latest version (currently 3.0) as the CrossOver/Wine version. Uncheck Esync, check MSync and check AVX advertise (no harm). You can enable performance overlay if you want. These settings are shown in the video at the beginning.

That is all. If you start the game, then it should launch with Game Porting Toolkit 3.0. The first run takes longer due to shader compilation.

5. If you get a “Visual C++ Runtime" error, then it can easily be fixed. A tutorial video on how to fix this problem is on the channel:

Heroic Games Launcher C++ runtime error fix video:
   • Heroic Games Launcher, macOS, Visual C++ r...  




Timeline:

00:00 Test setup
00:14 Heroic Settings
01:10 Graphics settings
01:40 Benchmark start
02:37 Benchmark result
02:55 Gameplay
07:22 Results summary