Hi @Jon - do you know if something has changed recently? I seem to have lost a lot of graphical detail on my M1 Pro and no longer have any form of rider shadows…
I’ve been using an M1 Pro for the last year or so and there have never been rider shadows despite supposedly getting the “High” profile.
@T_Ali1 I just tried running on my M1 Max laptop and I do see that they’ve recently added a new resolution option called “Ultra 1440p”, also known as “Quad HD”. It’s basically an intermediate step from HD and 4K.
For the past month or so, I’ve been using a “hack” setup, which I posted about a few weeks ago (maybe on another thread) on my M2 Pro Mac Mini, such that I’m getting 4K resolution with shadows and good foliage detail (albeit on Medium profile).
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Right, so I have finally got my long awaited upgrade and I wanted to circle back to this and try what’s possible with Zwift and Apple Silicon. Sadly the default settings won’t allow for the top quality graphics settings (yet) so I had to edit the config files (medium.txt is the default best menu selectable at the moment) manually. The results though are quite amazing. I have now rock solid 60fps in 4K on the external 4K monitor with the best possible settings and visually it is quite stunning. Night and day. I also had fairly stable 120fps with drops to around a 100 on the internal Liquid Retina XDR 3456x2234 ProMotion screen, so there’s definitely plenty of headroom. Mind you this is all still running on Rosetta 2 as Intel code which is frankly a bit of a miracle. Also well done developers with the Metal code.
I’ve only tested Watopia, Makuri and New York and only few larger groups so far, but it’s all there - dense foliage (500% !), detailed shadows and all. All 8 M2 performance cores are used, but only roughly at 10-20% which is brilliant. GPU somewhere around 70-80%.
The Configuration:
Apple MacBook Pro 2023 16" M2 Max, 12 Core CPU, 38 core GPU, 96GB Memory, 4TB SSD
Config File:
~/Library/Application Support/Zwift/data/configs/medium.txt
res 1920x1080(0x)
sres 2048x2048
aniso 4
set gSSAO=1
set gFXAA=1
set gSimpleReflections=0
set gSunRays=1
set gHeadlight=1
set gFoliagePercent=5
set gLODBias=0
set gShowFPS=1
Prefs File:
/Users/<user>/Documents/Zwift
...
<USER_RESOLUTION_PREF>3840x2160</USER_RESOLUTION_PREF>
...
Thanks very much @marclennox for the tips and @Jon for the coding team information updates and work on the code 
I have almost started thinking about a PC specifically just for Zwift 
Now please make this configuration user selectable, as it definitely works with plenty of headroom.
Note: The screenshots are degraded size and quality due to forum settings.
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Wow, this is really gorgeous! Is your sense that this is only possible because the M2 Max isn’t on Zwift’s list of 'supported" processors at the moment?
Hard to say. I’m not even sure it’s the best possible, as there can still be some settings that are not in config files and are used purely as per detected hardware. Developer’s answer would be quite welcome here. Also I don’t have a PC with decent GPU so can’t compare.
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Apparently 4K is now enabled for M2 Macs? According to the video M2 processors now have rider shadows. Can anyone confirm? Not seeing them on the M1.
4K is available on M1 MacBook Air. No shadows though. In the video, Tariq is on the medium profile, so it still hasn’t been fully unlocked - the M2 should have high graphics profile and 2160p (I may be wrong though).
Right. He confirmed in the comments that shadows are only M2. I guess this aligned with the guidance earlier in this thread that they would be turning on switches slowly over time, so maybe High is coming. Hope M1 doesn’t get left behind.
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Very nice, happy for those of you on macOS!
Hopefully M2s running iPadOS see more than Basic graphics someday!
Tested it today in Watopia, Makuri and Scotland.
4K is selectable in the settings, so I would say now officially available
On MBP M2 Max it is still defaulting to medium profile, but with the file edited to the best of ultra and maxed out foliage it’s still looking great with high res textures and high res shadows, light rays, water reflections and everything. Haven’t seen less than 50fps so far in the deepest densest Makuri forests. 100+ is quite normal anywhere else.
CPU is literally doing nothing (below 20%), GPU used well (around 90%).
Today’s hour and half in and around Scotland in the latest 1.39.0. Profile says medium, but really is modified maxed out ultra.
Scenery looks kinda amazing and the Mac holds it together pretty well 
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Looks like still no proper shadows on my M1 Pro Macbook 
My log file suggests that all variants of M1 (regular, pro, max) are considered equal.
That’s pretty disappointing given the power discrepancy between those three. Hopefully this gets updated over time.
I changed to 4k in the zwift menu and everything works very well 
Edit: it is a Basic mac mini M1 8GB
Can someone with a mac mini m2 test the fps on Makuri at 2160p? Not the m2 pro, just regular m2.
60fps on an M1 Pro CPU but the graphics profile is unchanged. It’s still pretend “High” but actually “Basic” with no shadows. Nothing new here.
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Anyone notice M1 shadow love on the latest update? It hasn’t come through for me yet so can’t check.