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it does still exist as far as i understand it. the resolution you select affects the size of the mouse cursor and then when switching away from the game you can see the rest of the system resizing back to normal

Regardless of how it worked, the game asking for it caused problems

Yes. On Apple Silicon Macs (w/ macOS Sonoma or later), native fullscreen automatically triggers Game Mode. This feature slashes input lag by prioritizing CPU/GPU resources and doubling the Bluetooth polling rate to 240 Hz for wireless accessories. Gaming works very well in this mode, even with PC titles played thru crossover.

Conversely, using borderless windowed mode instead of native fullscreen on macOS adds rendering latency due to the Desktop Window Manager (DWM) compositor. The latter is 'doing it wrong' and has the lag people don't like.

I didn't know that part about the bluetooth polling rate. That's clever.

Game mode also breaks background audio playback through Bluetooth. And it's hard to turn off with no global setting. I hate it.

macOS doesn't have Desktop Window Manager, it has WindowServer.