SE,we Mac users do not deserve this third class treatment!

Same issues on my brand new iMac with maxed out specs! Time to give us an official notice!

The OP's character looks like justin bieber o_O

I can lolmac with the best of them (because lolmac gaming). But SE promised the client and have failed to deliver a product functionally equivalent to other available software.

These poor souls misguided as they are at least deserve a stable product.

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Originally Posted by LeonWhitehart

My MBP has GT650M, it runs ok under Windows OS.

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3 generations behind and the lower side, a GT 650M, and merely GT, no X at the end.

Nvidia "recommends" a GTX 660 or greater for ffxiv, heres a link to a apples to apples comparison: http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-...eForce-GT-650M.

The only way Square-enix can help you with your decision to buy a mac and attempt to play a AAA MMORPG title on it, is to buy you, your very own PC-Windows/ps4 system. Which is a lot to ask for. Mac's serve a purpose and its not playing AAA titles.

Very typical though, Mac user flaunting their ignorance, because some company convinced them their products are 2nd to none (in rounded edges and over usage of the white tones).

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Originally Posted by KaedrianLiang

3 generations behind and the lower side, a GT 650M, and merely GT, no X at the end.

Nvidia "recommends" a GTX 660 or greater for ffxiv, heres a link to a apples to apples comparison:

The only way Square-enix can help you with your decision to buy a mac and attempt to play a AAA MMORPG title on it, is to buy you, your very own PC-Windows/ps4 system. Which is a lot to ask for. Mac's serve a purpose and its not playing AAA titles.

Very typical though, Mac user flaunting their ignorance, because some company convinced them their products are 2nd to none (in rounded edges and over usage of the white tones).

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I am ignorant and typical? I can only reply with a smile. :) btw if you have never owned a MBP, I must tell you that it is much more powerful than the specs stated on paper. This is why so many of us have kept our MBP for years without worrying too much about its performance.

Ok.. so I am running an iMac 27inch late 2012 model with the following specs...

Processor: 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7
Gfx: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB
RAM: 24 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

This machine worked so well with GuildWars2 & WoW running on full graphics...

I wonder if that won't matter... If it doesn't, then SE really need to work on this and make the Mac client better.

For the record, I have not purchased the Mac client yet.

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Originally Posted by LeonWhitehart

Surely, PC and PS users are your main player bases. But please don't forget that we Mac users were, some of us are, PC or PS players of FFXIV as well. We do deserve the same level of treatment as everyone else regarding to the quality of game and support.

)

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If your going to game, and be serious about it, you need a serious gaming machine. Macs weren't set up to game on, build yourself a really nice machine put windows 7 on it and game to your hearts content. Use your mac what its meant for office and pictures

Wow, so many responses of the "lolmac get a pc or ps4" variety, ignoring the fact that yes, the Windows FFXIV client works fine on the Mac (which is a PC) running Windows 8 via Boot Camp. Those responses should be more like "loltransgaming sry SE blew it; bootcamp or native is the only way to go."

The problem is that SE is selling a Mac OS X client that is functionally broken and also drastically slower than the Windows version running on the same Mac hardware . As noted, a native OpenGL/OS X app makes all the difference, and SE has experience developing for OpenGL and OS X, but unfortunately they passed it off to Transgaming which delivered a lousy WINE-based wrapper for the Windows client.

Does your mac meet the minimum system requirements for the game? If it does not, blame your hardware, not the game.

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Originally Posted by Avenger

Wow, so many responses of the "lolmac get a pc or ps4" variety, ignoring the fact that yes, the Windows FFXIV client works fine on the Mac (which is a PC) running Windows 8 via Boot Camp. Those responses should be more like "loltransgaming sry SE blew it; bootcamp or native is the only way to go."

The problem is that SE is selling a Mac OS X client that is functionally broken and also drastically slower than the Windows version running on the same Mac hardware . As noted, a native OpenGL/OS X app makes all the difference, and SE has experience developing for OpenGL and OS X, but unfortunately they passed it off to Transgaming which delivered a lousy WINE-based wrapper for the Windows client.

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Because they are not us. If the same situation happens to PC platform, there will riots for sure.

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Originally Posted by LeonWhitehart

Because they are not us. If the same situation happens to PC platform, there will riots for sure.

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Case in point, look at the PC Batman Arkham Knight situation. They get a shoddy port of a console game, the news is all over it. Macs get a shoddy port of a PC game, we get Windows trolls.

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Originally Posted by Sartori

If your going to game, and be serious about it, you need a serious gaming machine. Macs weren't set up to game on, build yourself a really nice machine put windows 7 on it and game to your hearts content. Use your mac what its meant for office and pictures

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Thanks for the response. A few nitpicks, while Macs are primarily for office and pictures, they're also good for software development, creating and editing various forms of media (music, movies, digital animations), running complex calculations for science and mathematics (aka data science or big data), and high end design work in packages like CAD. Also, I'm not so sure I'd recommend Windows 7, considering Windows 8.1 and the upcoming Windows 10 have had no issues with running games.

Furthermore, your response isn't even relevant to the conversation. Regardless of "what Macs are primarily for", SE advertises FFXIV as being playable on OSX and sells a client in the store. I think it's not unreasonable to expect that said offering delivers a satisfactory experience.

I was going to buy a Mac version but after reading the responses in here I'm not inclined to do so now.

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Originally Posted by Brianmj

Case in point, look at the PC Batman Arkham Knight situation. They get a shoddy port of a console game, the news is all over it. Macs get a shoddy port of a PC game, we get Windows trolls.

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I don't think SE will do the same. Japanese firms are less responsive compared with Western developers. Well, first thing first, we should get them to acknowledge the problem. :) Even this seems to be a very challenging task since we have not heard anything from them so far.

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Originally Posted by LeonWhitehart

I don't think SE will do the same. Japanese firms are less responsive compared with Western developers. Well, first thing first, we should get them to acknowledge the problem. :) Even this seems to be a very challenging task since we have not heard anything from them so far.

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Here is a response from Square. It's not what you want. Important Information for Mac version Players.

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The following includes information on preparing to play the Mac version of FINAL FANTASY XIV, and important notices regarding certain game-related features.

■Before Using the Mac Version
Please look over the Mac Play Guide on the following page for information on important topics such as installing the game, controls, and navigation of the user interface:

http://sqex.to/Rf3

■Mac Version System Requirements
Please ensure that your computer meets the minimum system requirements shown on the following page:

http://sqex.to/SZu

■Warning for Users Who Started Up FFXIV Before Service Began
We have confirmed an issue wherein unintended files were created if you started up the Mac version of FINAL FANTASY XIV before Jun. 23, 2015 12:00 a.m. (PDT).
To resolve this issue, please delete the files located in ~/Library/Application Support/FINAL FANTASY XIV/

■IME (input method editor) Support
The Mac version of FINAL FANTASY XIV supports the OS’s default IME to input special text characters.
Please note that any other IMEs may cause text input to not function properly.

We are currently focusing on finding ways to display IME mode changes while in fullscreen mode. Further information on this will be provided as it becomes available.

■Transferring Configuration Settings from Windows to Mac
Users can back up their game settings from the Windows version and transfer them to the Mac version.
Please look over the “Backing Up Game Settings” section in the Mac Play Guide:

http://sqex.to/Rf3

Please note however that the backup file cannot be used while it is still on a USB device.

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Originally Posted by Brianmj

Here is a response from Square. It's not what you want. Important Information for Mac version Players.

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Well, in other words, 'deal with it' is what they are saying here. :) I have no more words to say. Thank you SE.

one question, why don't play on Windows? I'm pretty sure all of you can install Windows on your Mac hardware.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

one question, why don't play on Windows? I'm pretty sure all of you can install Windows on your Mac hardware.

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Yes, and most of us played the game through either Boot Camp or Parallels. However, that's completely irrelevant; Square markets the game as being available on OSX, they sell a client through their store. The experience is that of a beta, numerous graphics glitches and extreme performance degradation. This is a matter of company providing proper support for a product that was just released.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

one question, why don't play on Windows? I'm pretty sure all of you can install Windows on your Mac hardware.

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I did play on Windows through bootcamp. My $60 was so I could stay in OS X and not interrupt my work by booting into another OS. There are things I prefer to do in OS X, and when Yoshida announced a Mac client was coming, I was ecstatic. My $60 was so I could play the game in OS X.

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OS
OS X Yosemite 10.10.2

Hardware
21.5-inch iMac (Mid 2014) with Intel Iris Pro Graphics or higher
MacBook Pro 15 inch with Retina display or higher

Available space on hard disk/SSD
30GB

Internet
Persistent broadband internet connection required

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MacBook Pro 15 inch with Retina display FULLY spec'd out (best cpu, max ram, best graphics, ssd).. Runs game on lowest resolution and settings = 7-9fps

Imac 5K Retina, FULLY spec'd out.. Runs game on lowest resolution and settings = 15-18fps


Yeaahhhh.. disappointed.

I'm not a Mac owner, nor am I fan of Apple's price gouging, however I don't understand why so many people are giving mac users such a hard time when the issues lie in the fact that the 3rd party company that was outsourced to develop/port the game to run on Macs did a crappy job. This is something that needs to be addressed ASAP. Please stop claiming PC Master Race, or run the game in bootcamp. These paying customer's simply want the product they were promised. A fully functional version of FFXIV for Mac OSX.

Jesus you guys are worse than people that buy AMD gpus lmfao

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Originally Posted by MugenMugetsu

I'm not a Mac owner, nor am I fan of Apple's price gouging, however I don't understand why so many people are giving mac users such a hard time when the issues lie in the fact that the 3rd party company that was outsourced to develop/port the game to run on Macs did a crappy job. This is something that needs to be addressed ASAP. Please stop claiming PC Master Race, or run the game in bootcamp. These paying customer's simply want the product they were promised. A fully functional version of FFXIV for Mac OSX.

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Thankful for the people that understand what is the real issue of this situation. We all have different - valid - reasons to play on the platforms we prefer, but no one should be okay with how SE has handled this product.

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Originally Posted by MugenMugetsu

I'm not a Mac owner....

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Neither am I, but I am a paying customer and I'm also shocked at the lack of respect some have for other paying customers. What does anyone care which platform the other plays on? The only relevant fact is that SE said they would do something and it didn't end up being as functional as it should have been for the money people paid. That's a big customer service problem and I just don't understand this new generation of customer that is more than happy to let companies get away with selling bad product over and over again, and then comes to the forums to bash other customers for expecting that their money bought them something functional.

This is something that should be addressed regardless of anyone's personal feelings about gaming on macs.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

Neither am I, but I am a paying customer and I'm also shocked at the lack of respect some have for other paying customers. What does anyone care which platform the other plays on? The only relevant fact is that SE said they would do something and it didn't end up being as functional as it should have been for the money people paid.

This is something that should be addressed regardless of anyone's personal feelings about gaming on macs.

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It's because people buy Macs and then expect to game on them, yeah that's never going to happen. I do agree though that a product should work , and I'm sure SE will do something about it.

But for future reference: don't buy a Mac if you game at all, going to save you a lot of hassle. Nothing a Mac can do that a PC can't do. There's no valid reason for buying a Mac other than personal preference (how that even came to be is beyond me, but yeah).

The discussion isn't whether someone bought a Mac for a specific purpose or not. The discussion is about the fact that players bought a specific port of a game and had an expectation that it would work. Personally, I'm in your camp in very *general* terms; I game on PC and have been a PC fangirl since DOS. For gaming, it's the best platform.

That does not in any way invalidate the facts of the case. These folks bought a license for the game with an expectation that it would work on the system it was advertised for, and that is the scope of the discussion. Period.

Let's just play it out here simple.

No, we don't care about Mac vs PC vs Consoles. Get out of here.

The problem lies in the fact that they did a piss poor job at the Mac client(from what I've seen is just a PC client with an emulation layer on it) which runs like complete arse and Mac owners are rightfully pissed that the game they paid for runs like crap when the PC version on near identical hardware(or bootcamped into the exact same existing machine) runs perfectly.

*THAT* is the problem.

If there's a Mac client available, the PC version bootcamped onto my Mac shouldn't run better at all. Period.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

Let's just play it out here simple.

No, we don't care about Mac vs PC vs Consoles. Get out of here.

The problem lies in the fact that they did a piss poor job at the Mac client(from what I've seen is just a PC client with an emulation layer on it) which runs like complete arse and Mac owners are rightfully pissed that the game they paid for runs like crap when the PC version on near identical hardware(or bootcamped into the exact same existing machine) runs perfectly.

*THAT* is the problem.

If there's a Mac client available, the PC version bootcamped onto my Mac shouldn't run better at all. Period.

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With the official post published today, they are basically blaming us and asking us to deal with it. :)

They cant "blame us" because the specs they provided TODAAY werent anywhere to be found dureing the preorder time, so they have to refund when asked to.

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Originally Posted by KrelianJudah

They can "blame us" because the specs they provided TODAAY werent anywhere to be found dureing the preorder time, so they have to refund when asked to.

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If you can get them to respond to your ticket...

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Originally Posted by Nemna

If you can get them to respond to your ticket...

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You have to go to the store and ask for refund, not ffxiv support (they wont answer) the link to the store tickets is: https://store.na.square-enix.com/docs/email_support

I got my refund as many of us did for the same reason, just put "An order or pre order" and then "return" (refund).

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Originally Posted by LeonWhitehart

This is why so many of us have kept our MBP for years without worrying too much about its performance.

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proving my point. "for years without worrying too much about its performance." can be said for windows platform PC's and laptops. MBP's aren't special, they are made in the same factories where HP, Dell and Acer products are made.

I've had my thinkpad for 5 years. it can play the game, although not very well 20-30fps at lowest settings. The thinkpad i use for basic user needs. I have a MSI laptop for my personal use. Locks HW at 60 FPS on maximum + more driver level tweaking to make it even more detailed. Can't do that with a MBP, the best part, $1000 USD cheaper than the highest spec MBP.

Ignorance is bliss.

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Originally Posted by LeonWhitehart

With the official post published today, they are basically blaming us and asking us to deal with it. :)

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What?

Haven't seen this.

Here is another response

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Originally Posted by Hideyuki_Kasuga

Greetings,

I'm Hideyuki Kasuga, the lead programmer of FFXIV.

Thank you so much for all the feedback on the Mac version of FFXIV.

I’d like to take this time to address the comments about the performance of the Mac version in comparison to the Windows version by explaining the specifics and how we will address them moving forward. This is going to be another one of my long posts since it deals with technical elements, so please bear with me.

To start off, I’d like to explain the reason why the performance of the Mac version on the same machine with the same settings is lower than that of the Windows version.

There are three main factors for this difference in performance.

The first factor is the graphics API set.

For the Windows version of the game, DirectX is used as the graphics API, while OpenGL is used for the Mac version. Though Windows has OpenGL as well, when it comes to the drawing systems for games such as FFXIV, the performance of OpenGL is inferior to that of DirectX. Due to this difference in the graphics API, when using a Mac with the same standards as Windows, it will not be possible to reach the same performance as the Windows version. To put it simply, Windows is equipped with a large amount of elements for creating games while Mac does not have as many, and due to this, differences in fundamental performance arises.

The second factor is system-related.

There are aspects of the thread process scheduling for program parallelization that can be tuned by the Windows version that cannot be tuned by the Mac version. Due to this, situations arise where performance will not be elicited for portions of the game’s parallelization processing and the processing time for frames will be unstable. When comparing this aspect between Windows and Mac, no matter how you look at it there will be areas where performance differences arise.

Finally, the third factor is the system used to create the Mac version.

The Mac version of FFXIV uses the same executable files as the Windows version, and it was created using middleware that allows for functions of Windows to be converted into functions that can be executed on a Mac. This middleware is constantly running for the Mac version, which is an overhead not found in the Windows version. However, this is not a Windows emulator; it is middleware that transposes various types of functions so that they can be properly ran on a Mac. One example where this system is used is for converting the functions of DirectX into OpenGL.

When putting the above three factors together and comparing the Mac version to the Windows version, the Mac version will not reach the same level of performance as the Windows version with the same equipment and settings.

Furthermore, with the graphics and system balance found in Macs, the more characters that are drawn on the game screen then the more severe the drop in performance will be. After checking the recommended specs for the Mac version once more, you can make adjustments to the performance based on your system environment by going to “System Configuration,” clicking on “Other Settings” and then changing the “Character and Object Quantity.” If performance is severely dropping when a large amount of characters are displayed, I recommend trying to adjust this setting and improvements in performance can be expected.

Due to the aforementioned factors, the current Mac version’s performance is not on par with the Windows version. Since there are aspects that are dependent on the Mac OS system, we are unable to make improvements on the FFXIV application side for these. However, the development team will be working to improve the aspects that they can address, and we’ll be continuing to fine tune the Mac version with patches as needed.

Additionally, as one method for improving the capabilities of the Mac version, we think there are aspects that can be improved by using the DirectX 11 version for the Mac version, so we would like to look into releasing a DirectX 11 version that can run on Mac.

One thing I would like to add with is that Apple has announced their next Mac OS, El Capitan, will have features that may largely improve the performance for running various games. We’ll be talking to Apple about this and continue to make performance improvements so that the gaming experience on Macs are even better.

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Originally Posted by Brianmj

Here is another response

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Thank you for sharing it here. I have seen this reply in an earlier post. Well, finally some responses from them. In essence, they are saying that a native Mac version will not happen and we will have to live with this for the foreseeable future.

The post from the lead programmer is such a non-response that it leans toward offensive. He's basically saying that it's not worth their time because (he perceives) that the Mac version will never even come close to PC performance. If they had built it from the ground up in-house (or outsourced it to a company that would do that) instead of using a WINE wrapper, this problem wouldn't exist.

He states that it uses OpenGL for rendering, then contradicts himself by stating they use a DirectX translation system. I don't think they should be focusing resources on bringing DirectX 11 features to a platform that can't run the normal game yet, and should instead focus on rewriting the game. If they continue with a non-native build of the game, there will never be a Mac machine ever that will run this game at a reasonable framerate. WINE wrappers don't scale.

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Originally Posted by KrelianJudah

You have to go to the store and ask for refund, not ffxiv support (they wont answer) the link to the store tickets is: https://store.na.square-enix.com/docs/email_support

I got my refund as many of us did for the same reason, just put "An order or pre order" and then "return" (refund).

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This worked for me this morning! They told me my order was canceled and a refund would follow within 7 days. I never thought I'd be so pleased to be heading back to Boot Camp. :)

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Originally Posted by AmbOcclusion

The post from the lead programmer is such a non-response that it leans toward offensive. He's basically saying that it's not worth their time because (he perceives) that the Mac version will never even come close to PC performance. If they had built it from the ground up in-house (or outsourced it to a company that would do that) instead of using a WINE wrapper, this problem wouldn't exist.

He states that it uses OpenGL for rendering, then contradicts himself by stating they use a DirectX translation system. I don't think they should be focusing resources on bringing DirectX 11 features to a platform that can't run the normal game yet, and should instead focus on rewriting the game. If they continue with a non-native build of the game, there will never be a Mac machine ever that will run this game at a reasonable framerate. WINE wrappers don't scale.

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Let me clarify his response about that first section: the graphics API on OS X is Vulkan, and it's the spiritual successor to OpenGL. On Windows, DirectX (or more specifically Direct3D) is significantly faster than OpenGL for many reasons, chief among them is that nVidia has a LOT of extensions optimized for Direct3D. Even if they did built a client that used OpenGL (on Windows) there would be performance degradation. So, what's saying is that an OpenGL would not be as fast as a DirectX client, which is true.

His comments about thread scheduling are the most puzzling to me. I'm not very familiar with OS X's multithreading library, but if I had to guess, Cider doesn't handle that well.

His last few comments are most telling. The most significant change to OS X in El Capitan is the inclusion of the Metal API, which is what iOS uses. I interpret his comments to mean that they'll be working with Apple to figure how to switch over to Metal from Vulkan, if not outright built a client.

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Originally Posted by Delily

Let me clarify his response about that first section: the graphics API on OS X is Vulkan, and it's the spiritual successor to OpenGL. On Windows, DirectX (or more specifically Direct3D) is significantly faster than OpenGL for many reasons, chief among them is that nVidia has a LOT of extensions optimized for Direct3D. Even if they did built a client that used OpenGL (on Windows) there would be performance degradation. So, what's saying is that an OpenGL would not be as fast as a DirectX client, whic.

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The graphics API for OS X is OpenGL, Vulkan hasn't been released yet. Apple hasn't said anything about supporting Vulkan.

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Originally Posted by Brianmj

The graphics API for OS X is OpenGL, Vulkan hasn't been released yet. Apple hasn't said anything about supporting Vulkan.

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Correct you are! I'm still learning this stuff so it's good when people point out my mistakes.