Buying question: MacBook M2 Pro 14 vs MacBook M2 Air 13

Now there are M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max MacBook Pros to throw into the mix.

The 14"/16" M3 {Pro/Max} MBPs seem to be drop-in replacements for the 14"/16" M2 {Pro/Max} MBPs, but with the new SoC. Apple's description claims the M3-family chips have hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing that might be useful for some games.

The 14" M3 MBP seems to be a replacement for the 13" M2 MBP (that was basically a M2 Air with a Touch Bar and without a MagSafe 3 port). It's gotten closer to the {Pro/Max} MBPs, but it's not quite there yet.

What it picked up:

• M3 chip, instead of M2.
• A 14" Liquid Retina display with 3024x1924 pixels, instead of a 13" Retina one with 2560x1600 pixels
• Mini-LED backlighting and support for playing HDR video content.
• An upgrade from 720p to 1080p for the FaceTime camera
• Improvements to the sound system
• A HDMI port
• A SDXC card slot

What it didn't pick up:

• Support for more than one external monitor
• The third USB4 (Thunderbolt) port that is present on 14"/16" MBPs using the {M1/M2/M3} {Pro/Max} chips
• Thunderbolt 4 certification (since that would require the ability to drive at least two external monitors)
• The option to buy more than 24 GB of RAM

What it lost:

• The Touch Bar – I believe there are now no new Macs that have it

The size of the Mac is irrelevant, it's the OS that matters.

If Baldur's Gate 3 is compatible with macOS 11.6, which you list as your OS, it will run on either Mac.

If asking about current Macs, same comment but compatibility would have to be with Ventura macOS 13

The performance will be better on the Pro. More processing power with the M2 Pro, and active instead of passive cooling. Your Mac will become warm when playing an intensive game as Baldur's gate 3. The pro has fans that will keep the MacBook cool for longer periods of time

On the Apple Silicon Macs, the CPU and GPU use the same pool of memory. You might to contact the developer (or check reviews) to see how much RAM they recommend. You cannot add RAM to any of these machines after purchase, which makes it important to try to figure out how much you need up-front.

The 14" MBP has a bit more screen real estate (3024x1964 pixels, vs. 2560x1664 pixels). But the pixels on the 14" MBP are packed closer together than the ones on the 13" Air. So when you're not playing games, you might want to crank the Displays "Resolution" on the MBP one notch towards "Larger Text."

BG3 plays extremely well on a base no-options 13” MacBook Air M2. The battery lasts 2.5 hours with the screen at 100% brightness. IMO this is the best way of playing BG3 on a battery regardless of hardware. (Opinion from a diehard PC gamer that uses current PC hardware).