The Mac OS X Client's absymal performance is a joke.

I got my refund this morning, I reminded them I was a customer of XI and 14 for over 10 years and provided my Mac CD key if they wanted to invalidate it. Good luck everybody else!

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Originally Posted by MiniTofu

Quoting myself here, like I said 1-2 months ago when they said Transgaming. I knew these issue would come and I've been telling people this is a wrapper not a native. They all either ignored me or deny my assumptions.

Here we go here, where we are. c: good luck spending $60 on wrapper for OS X.

Was speaking from 15+ yrs of pc (win/mac) gaming experiences.

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Transgaming also did the wrapper for the Guild Wars 2 client for OSX, and it works flawlessly on my machine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AosiClericsguard

I got my refund this morning, I reminded them I was a customer of XI and 14 for over 10 years and provided my Mac CD key if they wanted to invalidate it. Good luck everybody else!

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How did you contact support? I tried to go the chat route, but after 2 hours in queue, when it finally popped, I got a message that there was no agent available to chat with me. I've got an email ticket submitted now.

I used the email support, https://store.na.square-enix.com/docs/email_support

Their response was pretty funny

Square Enix Support (Square Enix Online Store Support)
Jun 24, 11:30

Dear -,

Thank you for contacting the Square Enix Online Store Support.

By the power the Moogle King has bestowed on me, I've gone ahead and cancelled this order. You should be receiving another separate (less awesome) mail, informing you about this.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate contacting me.

Best,
Henry

The Square Enix Online Store Team

What a great answer haha, its pretty cool really, about it, if you ask for a refund, they invalidate your mac account? its just that i want to ask for a refund in order to buy the windows version (bootcamp as i have been doing), if i do so there is a chance that they will fix the mac client, and i will have to buy it all again (i really prefer native versus bootcamp as we all do).

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Originally Posted by KrelianJudah

What a great answer haha, its pretty cool really, about it, if you ask for a refund, they invalidate your mac account? its just that i want to ask for a refund in order to buy the windows version (bootcamp as i have been doing), if i do so there is a chance that they will fix the mac client, and i will have to buy it all again (i really prefer native versus bootcamp as we all do).

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I'm not sure if they do or not, I just included it as a sign that I wouldnt need it any longer (and hopefully expedite the refund process/avoid any disputes on their end). I figure you cant return opened software to a retailer store, so there may be an issue returning a digital download too.

You probably don't have to, but I did just to be sure.

for those of you reporting mac issues, does turning off the graphics switching (i think in the power saving settings in OS X) help?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blayde

for those of you reporting mac issues, does turning off the graphics switching (i think in the power saving settings in OS X) help?

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I doubt it. I have an app that lets me know when I switch between graphics cards, and it says I'm switching to the nvidia when the client starts up.

At this point, I personally would like to hear something from SE regarding the client. I can't imagine anyone involved in the game think the performance of the client is acceptable. I have to wonder, however, what the agreement with Transgaming is.

Hi! like a number of people, I've been waiting for a mac client for quite some time. Bootcamp does get a little long in the tooth sometimes, especially since FFXIV is a game I'd like to keep logged in in the background while doing other things. The lack of communication about the mac port until its final release has been absolutely appalling, considering Guild Wars 2 has had the same form of port, and for the most part, was optimised quite well for what it was. It even had multitouch support for the trackpad.

It would seem that Transgaming was looking at making a quick buck with FFXIV which is troublesome considering how difficult it was for the wine community to make a custom wrapper for the game. It had to do with a lot of windows dependencies outside DirectX.

The other problem is that Transgaming just sold its porting technology to Nvidia, which doesn't bode well for future support of FFXIV or any Cider wrapped games.

It is also a shame considering how well the PS4 port runs, as OSX and the PS4 platform share a lot of similarities, from OpenBSD to OpenGL. I would assume that porting from the PS4 to OSX would have been a smoother transition. It would have been more work initially but far more sustainable.

Going forward, it seems like the only possibility for a Mac Client at this point is handing over the project to yet another third party studio for a complete rewrite. The two major names that come to mind are Aspyr and Feral as their ported games do run quite well. I also believe that a focus on the newly introduced Metal API on OSX 10.11 would probably yield the best performance, especially since the claimed minimum requirements for the Mac client also happen to be the base hardware requirements for Metal in OSX 10.11. If it had been completely rewritten, then the asking price of 60$ would have been arguably warranted, even though most other publishers treat Windows and Mac licenses as one and the same.

I believe the initial volume of sales for the OSX port including customers asking for a refund as well as potential clients like myself that held off until we've seen some feedback about performance should indicate to Square Enix how viable a Mac port would be.

In the meantime however, the game is best played on PC/Bootcamp or PS3/PS4. The Mac promise has been broken for now.

I'll be back to levelling my Paladin after a long break to try to finish the story quests before getting Heavensward.

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Originally Posted by Quiksloth

It is also a shame considering how well the PS4 port runs, as OSX and the PS4 platform share a lot of similarities, from OpenBSD to OpenGL. I would assume that porting from the PS4 to OSX would have been a smoother transition. It would have been more work initially but far more sustainable.

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Neither the PS3 or the PS4 use opengl; PS4 provides 2 APIs, GMN and GMNX.

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Originally Posted by Delily

Transgaming also did the wrapper for the Guild Wars 2 client for OSX, and it works flawlessly on my machine.

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Same here. Wine wrappers needn't be terrible, but an FPS loss of around 20% is what you should expect, not around 90%. This is just a shoddy job. We'll probably never know how it came to be that way:

• maybe there's something unusual about the way FFXIV is coded (to make it run well on PS3/4) that doesn't map well to Cider;
• maybe Transgaming only received the code they needed late in the day and had to do a rush job;
• maybe they were all too busy preparing for the Nvidia sale to spend much time on FFXIV;
• maybe Transgaming's senior management simply didn't care any more once that part of the business had been sold.

Fundamentally, though, it doesn't matter how it came to be. SE are the ones who sold the product and they are the ones who need to take responsibility for the state it's in. If I were them, I'd have accepted the embarrassment of a delayed Mac release rather than release something sub-standard that will cause long-term harm to their reputation.

Remaining silent on it won't help, either. Hold your hands up, admit you got it wrong and offer people a refund. At least that way you've only lost the money for that transaction, rather than losing a customer forever.

I dunno if I should be relieved or irritated to read so many people share my problem with the Mac client. Like everybody else, I have encountered outright crashes and horrible frame rates. The game seems to not recognize or use my graphic card's entire 4 GB VRAM, but maxes out the GPU even when inside my unfurnished small player housing. It really does seem like a shoddy, unoptimized port. It runs WORSE than the PC version running in a Windows VM on Parallels!

I agree, look into Aspyr or Feral to do the porting.

I got my SO the Mac version so she could finally play alongside me while being on her computer for convenience. She got her iMac last year, and the game runs at a stunning... 12-18 FPS in empty areas. And that's on the lowest settings possible.

What I don't get is how SE thought this was worthy of a release. Surely, quality assurance tried this and saw the results? Even people with brand new iMacs and MBPs are having issues.

I really do hope they get around to doing a proper Mac port one day.

For now, I sent in a support ticket via email, hopefully we can get a refund or a license for the PS4 version instead. It'll be inconvenient for her to have to play on the TV, but at least it will run smoothly.

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Originally Posted by Undrum

Same here. Wine wrappers needn't be terrible, but an FPS loss of around 20% is what you should expect, not around 90%. This is just a shoddy job. We'll probably never know how it came to be that way:

• maybe there's something unusual about the way FFXIV is coded (to make it run well on PS3/4) that doesn't map well to Cider;
• maybe Transgaming only received the code they needed late in the day and had to do a rush job;
• maybe they were all too busy preparing for the Nvidia sale to spend much time on FFXIV;
• maybe Transgaming's senior management simply didn't care any more once that part of the business had been sold.

Fundamentally, though, it doesn't matter how it came to be. SE are the ones who sold the product and they are the ones who need to take responsibility for the state it's in. If I were them, I'd have accepted the embarrassment of a delayed Mac release rather than release something sub-standard that will cause long-term harm to their reputation.

Remaining silent on it won't help, either. Hold your hands up, admit you got it wrong and offer people a refund. At least that way you've only lost the money for that transaction, rather than losing a customer forever.

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personally i think they started the port on the 23rd and finished it on the 23rd. explains why a) we never knew a damn thing till after the servers went live and b) why it is unbelievably broken

I want to add that because it seems that the performance seems to hover around 25 FPS or less no matter the hardware, suggests that the game simply does not properly recognize the hardware. This can definitely be fixed. Others mentioned that other Transgaming ports work great, as well as those used by WINE or CrossOver.

While I could ask for a refund, I want a GOOD Mac version even more. Keep my money and fix this! I know SE can do this!

Just as a thought, do you think it's possible to install parallels and use the windows client by somehow getting around the Mac wrapper :-(? This may be a good temporary fix and one I might look at doing until they sort out the Mac client issues...

Doubt you could get past the wrapper and also, why would anybody buy Parallels for another $80 just to run something we spent $60 on already? Would make more sense to get a refunded and buy the PC version and install under Bootcamp.

Also, TransGaming started the wrapping a while back. This isn't really a rush job, as much as they never tested anything to ensure it was optimized for Macs. But it'd be swell if somebody from SE and/or TG actually spoke up.

Guess could be grateful they didn't give it the SOE treatment, make a crappy port and strand the players on a separate server and forget about them.

I'm back in the live chat support queue for the second night in a row hoping to get a refund. So far no response on my email ticket either.

It would be nice to know what SE's stance is on this -- do they think the Mac client is satisfactory?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Caerai

Just as a thought, do you think it's possible to install parallels and use the windows client by somehow getting around the Mac wrapper :-(? This may be a good temporary fix and one I might look at doing until they sort out the Mac client issues...

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This is how I've been playing since I started with ARR and it works great. Beautiful FPS, crisp and smooth on my iMac. If I'd known what a disaster the ACTUAL Mac release would be, I'd just have bought the PC license for the expansion and continued to play that way.

incidentally, I received a response from SE thanking me for bringing the issue to their attention but completely ignored my request for a refund or license transfer to PC. :mad::mad::mad:

Please let us know what chat support says!

I got this reply from SE Customer Support today. Not much of an answer yet, but I got into Tier 3! Whoo! Those must be badass! :D

"Thank you for contacting the Square Enix Support Centre.

We are sorry to hear that you are experiencing issues with Final Fantasy XIV.

We have decided to escalated your issue to our Tier 3 Support Team for further investigation. Thank you for your feedback, and for providing your order information. We will contact you again as soon as we are able to offer you an update on your issue.

If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us again. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Kind regards,
The Square Enix Support Centre team"

Did you ask for a refund, or were you just raising the issues you've experienced?

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Originally Posted by Nemna

Did you ask for a refund, or were you just raising the issues you've experienced?

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Personally, I did both and all I got back was... "We appreciate you bringing this to our attention. Thank you for taking the time to contact us today and we look forward to your opinions of our upcoming titles."

I'm glad others seem to be finding resolutions with support but this felt like a total brush-off.

I asked for support, as it should be done if we go trough protocols and all i got was some kind of joke answer, why joke? because they don't even adress my problem, it seems like an "automatic response to technical problems", it goes like this:

"We understand you may be having some difficulties and we are glad you reached out to us for assistance. We have reviewed the details you have provided and we have determined that you will need to seek technical assistance from our Support Center team to resolve the matter."

After that they tell me to go to the support website (again) and open a ticket or seek for answers in the forum, wich "they always respond to".

This is sick..

Sat through the chat support queue... another two hours, got to #1 and then got this:

Status: Canceled
There are no agents available to chat with you right now. Please try again later.

I can only assume their platform doesn't support Safari or it's as broken as their Mac client. This is such rubbish...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nemna

Did you ask for a refund, or were you just raising the issues you've experienced?

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Yeah both; I explained them my issues mentioned in an earlier post, the horrible performance and that I feel tricked by having to pay twice for files I already own (included a link to this horrible screenshot ;)).
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CINnNqUWIAAc509.png:large

I asked for a refund, but also expressed my continued support, on a different platform, and the hopes of a future native release for OS X.

I'm in the same boat as everyone else here. I held out for the Mac client, payed my $60, and it's basically unplayable on the highest spec MacBook you can buy right now. (2015 15" Retina MacBook w/ Radeon M370X).

Even running at 720P is painful. It's almost the same performance I can get playing ARR under Parallels...

I played Guild Wars 2 on a MacBook w/ 650M graphics, and even that was worlds better than this.

I don't even know what to say. I'm hugely disappointed. I can't play on my PS4 because of the epic mouse/keyboard lag, and I can't play on my Mac because the performance is totally screwed up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JDHiro

I'm in the same boat as everyone else here. I held out for the Mac client, payed my $60, and it's basically unplayable on the highest spec MacBook you can buy right now. (2015 15" Retina MacBook w/ Radeon M370X).

Even running at 720P is painful. It's almost the same performance I can get playing ARR under Parallels...

I played Guild Wars 2 on a MacBook w/ 650M graphics, and even that was worlds better than this.

I don't even know what to say. I'm hugely disappointed. I can't play on my PS4 because of the epic mouse/keyboard lag, and I can't play on my Mac because the performance is totally screwed up.

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I have good experiences with playing it in Windows 8.1 in Bootcamp. On your machine that should perform very well. Maybe that's a temporary solution if you have a PC version? Personally I hoped to finally wipe Windows from my Mac, but alas. Guess I'll keep it for a while longer, combined with some play sessions on PS4. Trying to get used to the controller. :)

I'm starting to get concerned it's my machine... I'm running at 3fps in Limsa and I'm using the 2015 Macbook Pro with the following sepcs:

2.9GHz Processor
512 GB Storage
3.1GHz dual-core Intel Core i7
Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz
8GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 memory
512GB PCIe-based flash storage1
Intel Iris Graphics 6100
Built-in battery (10 hours)2
Force Touch trackpad

While I wouldn't expect it to run smoothly I would at least expect to get about 20 - 30 fps... or am I expecting too much lol?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Caerai

Intel Iris Graphics 6100

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This would probably be an issue even if the client WERE working properly. I believe it's below the minimum required specs (minimum is Intel Iris Pro, I think).

That said, it would be interesting to install Boot Camp and see how the game performs in its Windows incarnation with your setup.

So, for this first time since installing the game, I too am able to post on the forums. If new players who came on board with the release of the Mac client have (like myself) been unable to post until now, we probably haven't really seen the scope of the problem yet.

Adding my experience to this thread:

As a longtime WoW player, I foolishly thought that a respected developer like Square-Enix would be playing somewhere in the same ballpark as Blizzard, which has demonstrated consistently that solid Mac, native Mac ports - with simultaneous releases, dedicated development and support teams, etc. - is good business. As the client was downloading, I was telling my wife about the high regard in which I held Square, having played most of the Final Fantasy titles -- and truthfully, having successfully gone back to the drawing board after the initial failures of this game.

It didn't take long for me to realize that Square really isn't in a position to clean the floors at Blizzard HQ in terms of Mac development.

First: Preordered the game, received the bonus items codes, but no early access, no explanation as to why. It was clear from every storefront, from Amazon to Square's own store, that the Mac client was nothing more than a careless afterthought. No physical version and no CE says a lot more than Square may realize.

Second: OMG the registrations. First at the online store to order, then again for a Square-Enix account. That wasn't enough. I needed to register at the Mog site as well to claim my bonus items. OK. Thought I was done.

Launched the game. So far so good; graphics are lovely; the character creation tool is magnificent. I click enter world: I don't have an approved code to play. I am sent back to the Mog Station, where I can see that I clearly am registered and that my Mac code appears as "Active". I create a new character and try to log in again. This time...success!

I'm excited. The cut scenes are 60FPS and things look beautiful. Then I'm dumped into the game world...heartbreak.

I can stand and turn and look everywhere with high FPS - game looks marvelous. I'm running on a high-end i7 Mac with a ATI 6870 card - not this year's tech, but I have 60-100 FPS on WoW and can play most PC ports (like the recent Tomb Raider reboot) at a rock-solid 60 FPS at 1920x1080. I know from experience that Macs do just fine for gaming - when developers care about the quality of their product.

Then I start to move forward. I am running through molasses. Total slide show. FPS ranges from 7-15. There are no other players on-screen; it's the phased introductory area. I lower the graphics quality dramatically. Frame rates inch up a bit; now dropping as low as 10 and ranging as high as 25. The smoothness of motion waxes and wanes, seemingly without reason. I step into huge outdoor areas and the framerate chokes, but it chokes on the indoor areas, too. There is huge mouse lag.

Okay, so performance is awful. I figure I'll give it a go anyway. Unfortunately, the game has decided that it will respond to some mouse clicks and not others. I often cannot click the "X" to close a help window. Sometimes the System Configuration window will not allow me to click on any of the buttons. (Yes, I specified mouse+keyboard control at the beginning). At one point, trying to ESC out of a window (which would sometimes work when it stopped accepting clicks), I was thrown into controller mode with all the little Playstation controller symbols scattered about the UI. The mouse gets "stuck" on the right hand side of the screen when trying to run/turn, so that I'm constantly accidentally opening quest info windows, which ironically cannot be clicked closed.

I was considering leaving WoW because a) I've been playing on and off for 10 years, and b) I've not agreed with the direction the game has been taking over the past few years. I was so excited to have a chance to try a new MMO, set in one of my favorite fantasy universes. Square missed the opportunity to win me over as a FFXIV player - maybe for the next 10 years, for hundreds and hundreds of dollars over the life of the game.

All I can see now is how well Blizzard does the things that Square has failed at. Simple things, such as a stable game client. Not even getting into player support (a dedicated Mac support forum, for example) and actual development resources aimed at high-quality, native, simultaneous releases. SO disappointed in this company.

I too have requested a PC code in an effort to make something of my $60 purchase (and expecting that refunds will not be given). I see that some people here have received responses; I've had none so far. Spread the word, guys - email the big gaming and tech sites and share our story. They're always looking for content, and I expect they are more likely to get a meaningful response from Square than we are at this point.

I was just about to buy the Mac client version last night, but was a little lazy getting out my own card to pay for it and didn't read this thread then. Two weeks leading up to Heavensward's release, I also found it pretty tedious on the fact that there was barely any information to go off on for the Mac version of Final Fantasy XIV. I really wanted to preorder it, but there was so little to go on and hoped that when HW would be released, there would be no issues. Unfortunately not.

Your guys' efforts to crack down on this major issue is extremely commendable. I've been keeping tabs on this thread the entire day since I found it this morning. I'm pretty disappointed in SE myself in that while currently they're addressing other issues, this thread still has remained untouched by staff. No heads up or anything that this issue has, at least, been "officially" recognized. Please do soon, Square Enix, because I would happily wait a little longer for a much more stable version of the Mac client as I've finally had enough of the PS3's pretty atrocious load times and its own array of glitches.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nemna

This would probably be an issue even if the client WERE working properly. I believe it's below the minimum required specs (minimum is Intel Iris Pro, I think).

That said, it would be interesting to install Boot Camp and see how the game performs in its Windows incarnation with your setup.

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Thanks for that, I wasn't sure because under minimum specs on the website it says "Mac Os X" and that's all.

I had a look and the Iris 6100 should be able to run FFXIV: http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/...06100%20Mobile

This is what I got as reply after being persistent (3 tickets)
Don't let yourself getting brushed off. You don't have to accept this shitty piece of software.

Quote:

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Dear xxx,

Thank you for contacting the Square Enix Support Centre.


We are very sorry to hear that you wish to request a refund.

In order to escalate your issue to our Tier 3 Support, we will need the following information:

- Email address currently registered to the account
- Order Number (SEE-STORE-XXXXX)
- Full name on the account

Once we have this information, we will be able to process your request. Please bear with us and things will hopefully be resolved soon. We thank you for your patience and understanding at this time.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.


Kind regards,

The Square Enix Support Centre team

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nehmi

I have good experiences with playing it in Windows 8.1 in Bootcamp. On your machine that should perform very well. Maybe that's a temporary solution if you have a PC version? Personally I hoped to finally wipe Windows from my Mac, but alas. Guess I'll keep it for a while longer, combined with some play sessions on PS4. Trying to get used to the controller. :)

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I do all my work in OS X, and I don't really want to shut everything else down to play 1 game all the time. I also didn't pay for the expansion on Windows.

Not a bad workaround for most but - SE promised a Mac client, I REALLY want to have a usable Mac client.

I have no doubts that Square Enix could handle a mac release well in-house, but they outsourced this to TransGaming. SE has several iOS games available that work well, and they are pretty good with working across multiple platforms. It seems they should have had more oversight of the port. TG hasn't delivered on this and it's hard to believe they didn't notice how poorly it runs.

If WB can suspend sales of Arkham Knight to fix it, SE should do the same for the Mac client.

Good point that there are Square Enix games that work fine on Apple hardware like iPads, which also use OpenGL and OS X. It is not an impossible task to deliver a game that actually works well on OS X (indeed Blizzard's games work just fine as well.)

Surely it's not too much to ask for a Mac FFXIV client that actually delivers decent performance.

The decision to go with Transgaming/WINE rather than a native OpenGL Mac port seems to have led to abysmal performance, and it's hard to imagine anyone at Square Enix would think was anywhere close to meeting their standards for quality and performance.