So the answer is it works, but as expected emulation means it’s compromised performance until they make the app native.
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Out of interest, I took the settings from the ultra graphics config file and put them into the medium config file, and ran Zwift on my M1 Air (while I was on a Teams call with my camera off 
) and ‘watched’ some riders. The forced resolution was 1920x1080 instead of 1280x720, with shadow resolution of 2048 instead of 1024. I’ve confirmed in the log file that these settings are used.
The Zwiftalizer output of the run is below. The M1 Air barely broke sweat!! Remember it’s running x86 code that’s been translated (not emulated) and there seems to be loads of GPU capacity remaining according my Activity Monitor. And I’m achieving an average of 47 fps.
Very promising.
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I’m a little confused. Is 4K not an option in Zwift on the M1 Air ?
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No. Zwift haven’t made any changes (yet) to accommodate the M1 platform.
So the previous Air did not support 4K ?
Tweaking config files doesn’t change the polygon count, or what you actually see. As I said, it’s GT 1030 performance at present. Meaning you could build a PC to do this for about a tenth of the cost. Need Zwift to allow for it properly.
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I did two 1 hour group rides comparing my MacBook Pro 16 5500m 8GB with my new MacBook Pro 13 M1 both running at their native screen resolutions.
The group rides were on different courses and there were less riders on the second ride with the M1. Both can have a big impact on the frame rate. It is also worth noting my MacBook Pro 16 will run out of battery running Zwift in about 1:15 hours and the fans will running at full speed. The MacBook Pro M1 battery went down from 100% to 63% after this ride and I don’t think the fans even turned on during the ride. I’m really happy and impressed with the results of the M1 considering it has not been optimized for Apple Silicon.
Unfortunately I cannot upload images to the forum as a new member. The results are:
13" M1: Profile Medium, Resolution 1600, Shadow res 2048, Min 28, Avg 44, Max 60, Samples 547
16" i9: Profile Ultra, Resolution 1920, Shadow res 2048, Min 22, Avg 31, Max 62, Samples 485
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Welcome @Vincent_Meijer7! Would you, or @KevinL, have the time to send me a log file so that I can update that blank field in the zwiftalizer CPU entry? You can contact me here Zwiftalizer Blog (doesn’t allow attachments, but it will start a dialogue with my personal email address without me having to give that out here). Thank you!
@zwiftalizer sure thing, it’s on its way.
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Shon (or anyone,) it’s my first time with a new Mac (an M1 Mac mini,) my old one is from 2006 so I’m more used to that! I’ve fired up the App Store on the new machine but try as I might I can’t find anything to do with Zwift (but found the other two ‘lesser’ cycling apps though, go figure) Do you have to do something for it to show up? Thanks for any help, Pure ZOOG.
I can’t create links… but head to Zwift’s website and get it there.
Hi
I assume that’s the highest resolution Zwift is offering you for your M1 ? It should be able to push 4K I would think…
Let us all know where we can buy this complete low-end gaming system for $100 please.
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As an aside, can successfully run Companion iPhone app on M1…
It’s a little bit involved, but doable.
The iPad version of Zwift hangs as startup on M1, so I guess that’s a no-go.
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The highest resolution you can choose in the menu is 1080p. You can get around this by editing the prefs.xml file so Zwift can run the native resolution of my MacBook Pro (2560x1600). Running any higher resolution on this Macbook makes no sense. I’m not sure if it will do 4K fluently on an external screen. Maybe it will do 4K after Zwift includes support for the M1.
Cheers Justin, don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Now downloaded it and it’s running sweet, way, way better than the work laptop PC I’ve been using lately 
SFF PC from eBay and a GT 1030. Easy doable for £100, and will do 1080p Medium profile at 60fps. Want some links? 
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Zwift performance on new Macs doesn’t look good so far. We will see how native app will run on it but it may take some serious time before its ready. Too bad, because MacBook Air in theory looks like perfect portable, battery powered Zwift machine.
I do expect them to make a native app for it. May be relatively quickly give that they seem to be big Apple fans due to the walled garden. Whether any native app comes close to realising the full potential of the hardware remains to be seen; I’m unsure how the big swings from GPU to CPU bottleneck in the game will work out when they’re the same chip.
However, the fact that Zwift works on these new systems without them doing anything at all - albeit at rather low performance - may mean it actually gets lower priority than if there were a bunch of Macbook owners jumping up and down about the game not working at all on their new premium device.
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