Apple, Mac, Silicon, M1, macOS - Native Support for the next 10 years

FFXIV is very CPU bound once you turn off features like MXAO. This is particularly noticeable in busy areas and hubs where I believe the character composition thread will quickly max out a core on even the fastest CPUs around today. It’s that reason coupled with inevitable efficiency gains that would make a native version more desirable vs Tomb Raider which does guzzle CPU resources but tends to spread the load far more evenly than a typical MMO.

You could see this in retail vs classic WoW where whilst classic ran decently, Retail was more noticeably consistent with Classic’s performance being hampered in certain situations.

Edit, efficiency would be the bigger deal though. If a native version could be made that was easy going enough to give decent performance on an m1 iPad. That’s a quick route to a huge and somewhat unique market.

Patch 6.4 finally:

https://i.gyazo.com/thumb/1200/8eb2d...4589c7-png.jpg

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Originally Posted by CAMac1988

Patch 6.4 finally:

https://i.gyazo.com/thumb/1200/8eb2d...4589c7-png.jpg

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Can someone confirm that its native and not just "rosetta compatible"?

I took the time to play the game on an M1Pro (10 CPU cores/16 GPU cores).

Basically it runs quite well. But the x64 on Arm emulation is clearly noticeable.

On the one hand, as already expected, in places with many players. Here, a PC also needs a corresponding CPU performance for the game to run smoothly. I noticed this years ago when I did a major graphics card update on my PC and wondered why there was hardly any improvement. Only after upgrading the CPU was there a very noticeable improvement. From many years of experience with many emulators, I also know that native code runs on average 5-10 times faster than emulated code.

In addition, the dynamic compilation is very noticeable. Directly after logging in, the movements are very often stalled at first. Later it becomes less, but it still happens from time to time. Especially after area changes. These hangs are a typical sign that code just needs to be compiled before continuing with the execution. This is the case with all emulations with dynamic compilation.

My conclusion: A native Arm64 client would noticeably improve the gaming experience in the two previously mentioned points.

This topic is worth reviving given how good Apple-silicon laptops and desktops still are in comparison to similarly priced systems. Not to mention that there's been a noticeable increase in other major publishers releasing their titles natively for macOS and Apple-silicon since this thread was last active. Major titles such as Death Stranding Director's Cut, Assassin's Creed Shadows and, Baldur's Gate 3 have all released with native clients in recent months. Likewise many of these are distributed via the Mac App Store alongside platforms such as Steam.

I'm reinstalling FFXIV onto my MacBook Pro (M1 Pro) to see if performance has improved since I last played on this laptop back in Endwalker. The launcher is still showing as an Intel application in Activity Monitor so I'm not expecting the experience to be any better than I recall it being. I'd like to see a future where FFXIV runs natively on Apple-silicon much like games such as World of Warcraft and Wuthering Waves (to name a few other major MMO/live service games).

Out of curiosity, what do you have to do extra to be able to play on a Mac? I’ve always used Mac professionally as a graphic designer, but I have a PC for gaming. I have a newish MacBook I bought last year, but I have no clue what kind of gpu it’s running. Can you not just play through Steam the same way as you can on PC?

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

Out of curiosity, what do you have to do extra to be able to play on a Mac? I’ve always used Mac professionally as a graphic designer, but I have a PC for gaming. I have a newish MacBook I bought last year, but I have no clue what kind of gpu it’s running. Can you not just play through Steam the same way as you can on PC?

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Officially the Mac version is a separate game license but in reality it's just the Windows client in a compatibility layer provided/licensed from CrossOver (think WINE/Proton but with a commercial license). The problem is that it runs bad and is still an Intel CPU application so you're reliant on the Rosetta 2 compatibility layer (for x86-to-ARM support) still be within macOS.

In reality you get better real world performance, while also saving some money, by running the existing Windows/Steam client (and game license) in a WINE compatibility layer made by the community. There's a tool for this called XIVonMac. However, if Square Enix put the effort into natively porting the client to macOS like an ever increasing number of other games have been, the performance and overall user experience would be night and day better than anything relying on a compatibility layer.

Wuthering Waves, one of the popular gachas, has recently been ported to macOS and distributed via the Mac App Store. Blizzard's World of Warcraft has always had very good macOS support, even in both eras of PPC-to-x86 and x86-to-ARM transitions. Larian have ported Baldur's Gate 3, CDPR are porting Cyberpunk 2077 and, EA have always supported macOS well for The Sims. There's an audience for certain games on macOS and FFXIV isn't an exception but the existing user experience is dire.

Thanks for the explanation. :) I’ve often thought about just running it on my Mac, but I’d heard there were complications. lol

Another bump and another request for an ARM-native version of Final Fantasy XIV on macOS. This year's release, macOS 26, will be the last for Intel-based Macs. More importantly, Apple are also planning to phase out Rosetta 2 in the next few years.

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Apple is also planning changes to Rosetta 2, the Intel-to-Arm app translation technology created to ease the transition between the Intel and Apple Silicon eras. Rosetta will continue to work as a general-purpose app translation tool in both macOS 26 and macOS 27. But after that, Rosetta will be pared back and will only be available to a limited subset of apps—specifically, older games that rely on Intel-specific libraries but are no longer being actively maintained by their developers. Devs who want their apps to continue running on macOS after that will need to transition to either Apple Silicon-native apps or universal apps that run on either architecture.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...for-rosetta-2/

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There's been an increase in Apple-silicon native games in the last few years, including newly released games such as Wuthering Waves and a port of Cyberpunk 2077 due later this year. A new gaming app, a bit like Steam, is also being added to all of Apple's operating systems with the new versions this year (all numbered 26). While I'm not expecting the Mac version of FFXIV to be moved to the Mac App Store/Apple Games, it would at least be nice if it were truly Apple-silicon native.