Unity Issue Tracker - macOS stutters in a minimal project in the Editor in Play Mode

Active

Under Consideration for 6000.6.X

Won't Fix in 6000.4.X

Votes

24

Found in

2021.3.45f1

2022.3.51f1

6000.0.24f1

6000.3.9f1

6000.4.0b9

6000.5.0a1

6000.6.0a1

Issue ID

UUM-85256

Regression

No

macOS stutters in a minimal project in the Editor in Play Mode

Metal

Oct 22, 2024

Reproduction steps:
1. Open the attached “Repro“ project
2. Open the “Assets/Scenes/Scene.unity“ Scene
3. Enter play mode and observe it
4. Build and Run the project
5. Observe it

Expected result: No stutters are present in both editor and standalone application
Actual result: The sphere stutters in both editor and standalone application

Reproducible with: 2021.3.45f1, 2022.3.51f1, 6000.0.24f1

Reproducible on: M2 Max 15.0 (User’s platform), M1 Max MacOS 14.6.1, Windows 10
Not reproducible on: No other environment tested

Notes:
- The reproduction depends on the specific setup. The user has noted that stuttering was more prominent on the 2021 Macbook Pro M1 Max than his 2023 Macbook Pro M2 Max. On the built-in retina display, I was unable to see any stuttering, but the user mentioned otherwise, meanwhile, on external monitors the stutter was very clear.
- The user mentioned that in 2023.1.20f1 the stutter did not occur, but I found it reproducible.
- This issue is about Mac Editor only. For the Mac Standalone Player see
UUM-112011.

Resolution Note (6000.4.X):

We will investigate fixing this issue in a later Unity version and reconsider backporting it to 6.4 once a fix lands.

Comments (14)

Ashanex

Mar 11, 2026 13:47

Hi Joao! Thanks for clarifying the difference I didn't realised it was a Player vs Editor situation. Good to know thanks! :)
joao_maia_u3d

Mar 11, 2026 05:33

Hi Ashanex! Thank you for the feedback! Great to hear that the stutters have been fixed!
I just wanted to clarify that UUM-112011 is about the Mac Standalone Player (which has now CAMetalDisplayLink). Whereas this one (UUM-85256) is about adding CAMetalDisplayLink to the Mac Editor which hasn't been implemented yet.
Ashanex

Mar 10, 2026 19:26

I want to confirm that after testing Unity 6000.5.0a8 this seems to have been fixed by enabling in Project Settings > Player > Other Settings > "Use MetalDisplayLink".

After enabling the project runs PERFECT.

Stutters are complete gone both with Vsync ON and OFF. It also fixes other stutters that I thought were unrelated.

I had a large but simple object in my project that when spawned it would completely freeze the game for 5+ seconds. I thought it was because it was also enabling some post processing effects on spawn but nope, completely gone after this. Curiously I just discovered also that this particular freeze stopped happening when building in Mono instead of IL2CPP.

I've tested turning "Use MetalDisplayLink" ON and OFF to fully confirm and yep, turning it OFF makes all stutters and the Freeze come back instantly.

Thanks Unity team! I've been suffering from this stutters for 5+ years but I guess better late than never :)

Additional context, this bug seems to have been fixed because of this bug report: https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues/built-project-stutters-intermittently-when-vsync-is-enabled
So apparently the fix will soon be added to Unity 6000.3.11f1. This is great! I hope it also gets added to Unity 6000.0.*
Ashanex

Feb 10, 2026 12:20

Apparently this may have been fixed already in version 6000.5.0a6, as this entry has been added to the release notes:

macOS: Added support for CAMetalDisplayLink on the Mac Player.
It is disabled by default and can be enabled in Player Settings by toggling "Use MetalDisplayLink (Mac Player only)" or by using the environment variable UNITY_USE_METAL_DISPLAY_LINK=1.
Using CAMetalDisplayLink decreases stuttering, improves frame pacing, and makes Time.deltaTime more stable.

I still haven't tested it but I've got my hopes up. Also because in this other reported issue by me (which I believe is a duplicate of this bug report), it said (until for some reason it was deleted), that in 6000.5.0a6 this bug has been fixed:
https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues/built-project-stutters-intermittently-when-vsync-is-enabled
Ashanex

Feb 05, 2026 10:15

This stutter has been happening for 5+ years for me. On different Mac machines and many different MacOS and Unity versions. (It says found in 2021.3.45f1) but I believe this happened in 2020.3 and also 2019.3.

The stutter is very visible with either Vsync ON or setting the Application.targetFramerate to 60.
Ashanex

Feb 05, 2026 10:12

I believe this is the same bug as this one that I reported a few months ago and is being worked on, it said it was fixed in Unity 6000.5.0a6 but now it just says fix in review again:
https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues/built-project-stutters-intermittently-when-vsync-is-enabled
HofiOne

Jan 31, 2026 07:43

This is the same issue I faced in my project, and I reproduced it in this Unity 2022.3.62f3 example:
https://github.com/HofiOne/Unity-macOS-Scroll-Jitter-Demo

It is unbelievable that this serious issue is still not fixed, as it renders games unenjoyable on macOS.
Goidel

Jan 15, 2026 23:37

COME ON! HOW HAS THIS NOT BEEN FIXED YET!!!
hamzakhan201021

Dec 21, 2025 19:13

I am facing the same issue, its in 6.3 lts also, sadly, I expected unity to have solved this by now 😔
UDN_56f31da6-955c-40e0-8db3-b1c4fdd04d17

Nov 02, 2025 06:16

This seems like the same issue I'm having on Windows machine.

For me this issue only reproduces on Build in Windowed mode and with VSync enabled (tripple buffering the worst). The huge stutters feels like Time.timeScale is randomly changing and sometimes staying at 0.

For some context, this was tested on a plugged in laptop with rtx 5070, Laptop monitor (150% scaling, 2560x1600), 2nd monitor (100% scaling, 2560x1440). The issue reproduces on both monitors but 2nd monitor is way more frequent.

We've currently quick fixed the issue by fully removing vSync selection from the build.

Reproduces on a new URP project with Unity versions:
6000.0.61f1
6000.0.57f1
2022.3.21f1

Once again, not sure if this is the same issue, cause this is tagged for Mac only. But the description seems to match.

I was actually trying to find another vsync issue all of the team members are having, where GPU is at 90% when vsync is ON, and is at 15% when vsync is OFF. But was unsuccessful on a minimal project.