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

I have the most recent MacBook Pro. The most expensive one you can buy. $60 later I expect a functioning product. I've played many games on my Mac so far without issue and this is the worst I've ever seen. Performance issues aside; the graphics are all glitched. Absolutely unplayable. And nobody seems willing to help troubleshoot.

Extremely disappointing, SE. Malarkey!

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

Look, I support giving you guys a working client, but when I can upgrade each individual piece of my computer by myself, cheap as dirt and not have to send it somewhere special or risk voiding my warranty, there's definitely a difference there. A definitive one.

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Then a mac clearly isn't for you and you're entirely missing the point them. Get over it.

wow... comments on that Kotaku article.

http://i.imgur.com/dCsLf88.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TcRghJu.jpg

Reading the comments on gaming sites is about as much use as it is reading them from the Daily Mail or YouTube. Unless of course you're trying to come up with an argument to quadruple funding for education on a national level; at which point such things are basically a case study in just how stupid a lot of people being churned out by the current systems can be.

I'm guessing we've still had no comment from SE on this at all? (Aside from the dev one last week that didn't really say anything)

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Originally Posted by Evangela

wow... comments on that Kotaku article.

[a large image of people going 'LUL MAC *strokes pc tower* dunt worry babah yu ta best']

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ok looking at otaku is like the youtube comment section of PewdiePie, or on a political video nothing but people screaming and calling everyone idiots

lately the newer macs have been made with gaming in mind, since quite a few 3D building software is on mac, with the fact that most companies are starting to use macs for building games due to the user friendly nature, as well as the fact most companies can buy multiple macs cheeper then multiple PCs (macs were made for companies and bulk buying them is actually cheep).

with OS X el capitaitan i do hope the mac version gets edited up, my mac is a old 2013 macbook pro so i know i won't be playing this on my mac, i have the steam PC and i am trying to build my own tower. but for those who only have a Mac i would hope they can play this game with no issues.

i dont understand why it is a hard issue with the transgaming when there are some unoffical ports to run the steam version on a mac, and that can get up to 60 FPS according to a few different sites, or the multiple software platforms that allow Window's versions of software to play within a mac.

Game's built on DirectX while Macs use OpenGl. Probably a shoddy wrapper ontop of the DX9/10 code.

Game's wasn't built for macs, and suffers trying to shoehorn it onto a different platform.

It really bothers me that PSN4 players got an apology and free vial of Phantasia, whereas OS X customers got a "check your system, it's not our fault" excuse. They released a shoddy product with no information, and are simply passing the buck.

its so surreal... you get in and the mac client is kind of working. then you go to a vendor and are looking at stuff, and the text starts to garble weirdly, then every text element on screen begins to flash, you move away and things settle down a bit, then you go into an inn, and everyone's name is HUGE.

It seems like the wrapper or middleware bit is having a really hard time with the rendering. Some cutscenes are beautiful, others stutter along. I keep stripping down effects, but these weird artifacts continue.

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Originally Posted by Alef

Why would El Capitan help ? I know Appel introduce Metal in it, but the FFXIV client is a just a wrapper and does not use Metal ? I guess to benefit from Metal, that would mean SE develops a new client isn't it ?

Best
Alef

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El Capitan itself wouldn't help unless, like others noted, it meant the client was rewritten to utilize Metal. Since we know that isn't the case, I was asking from a graphic driver perspective. The newer OS Beta could have a newer display driver not found on Yosemite. This could potentially cause a difference in performance between the two versions. However, judging from other observations, it seems like the client is doing a terrible job utilizing any 3d hardware technology so graphic driver version is essentially a moot point.

They need to fix it. Simple enough it can't be ignored.

If ArenaNet can make a proper Mac client for their game I don't see why Square Enix can't.

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Originally Posted by Reih

This would be a solution if it weren't for some of the Macbook Pro Retina 15" having a base SSD of 256GB. Just on a windows install you lose 30GB-ish. Add FFXIV, around 20GB, and you are giving 50GB hard disk space for free. I'm not quite sure of earlier models have only 128GB instead.

Sadly, not even the most current line of Macbook notebooks can run this game properly. You'd think SE would learn from FF14 1.0. If this situation continues maybe top of the line MacBooks released by the end of 2017 will work properly.

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correction you should be running it properly on emulated windows, or windows as a separate partition. So macs can run it (if you can't run it on windows, then it is your hardware), it's just that the client is a bit broken.

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Originally Posted by Cyrin

El Capitan itself wouldn't help unless, like others noted, it meant the client was rewritten to utilize Metal. Since we know that isn't the case, I was asking from a graphic driver perspective. The newer OS Beta could have a newer display driver not found on Yosemite. This could potentially cause a difference in performance between the two versions. However, judging from other observations, it seems like the client is doing a terrible job utilizing any 3d hardware technology so graphic driver version is essentially a moot point.

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Sadly, I doubt Square is going to invest the time and money into building a native Metal client. More than likely, nVidia will need to update Cider to target Metal and not OpenGL. The other factor, as mentioned is that SE believes it can get better performance by using the DirectX 11 client and not the Direct9 client.

Bumping this thread; has anyone noticed performance improvements since last night's patch?

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Originally Posted by Delily

Sadly, I doubt Square is going to invest the time and money into building a native Metal client. More than likely, nVidia will need to update Cider to target Metal and not OpenGL. The other factor, as mentioned is that SE believes it can get better performance by using the DirectX 11 client and not the Direct9 client.

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I think you mean nVidia will have to update the Gameworks libraries to recognize it's running on Cider. nVidia has nothing to do with Cider.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

I think you mean nVidia will have to update the Gameworks libraries to recognize it's running on Cider. nVidia has nothing to do with Cider.

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https://www.transgaming.com/news/nvi...ity-technology

nVidia bought the Cider division.

I imagine nVidia has absolutely no incentive to make Cider support Metal. They bought Transgaming to develop games for their Shield console. Really, about the closest alternative for SE is to use CrossOver.

Up this post.

It would be nice if Square announced a bit if they plan to upgrade the Mac client.

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Originally Posted by Alef

Up this post.

It would be nice if Square announced a bit if they plan to upgrade the Mac client.

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Read the other thread about the same topic, the lead programmer replied.

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Originally Posted by Delily

https://www.transgaming.com/news/nvi...ity-technology

nVidia bought the Cider division.

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But that does explain why all the Cider data is not accessible from their front page, only through a search engine. The Transgaming and FFXIV announcement was March 8th (edit: had to go check the date Transgaming sale closed, which was the 16th of June)

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Originally Posted by JijaYanin

I imagine nVidia has absolutely no incentive to make Cider support Metal. They bought Transgaming to develop games for their Shield console. Really, about the closest alternative for SE is to use CrossOver.

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Any improvement made to WINE by this acquisition is a plus, but nVidia's track record for Linux is worse than AMD's and Intel's combined. AMD at least gives the Open Source community the data they need to develop Linux-native drivers. nVidia is binary-blob-hell... if you don't have the exact Linux kernel to go with the blob, the driver doesn't work.

But as for what this means for the Mac platform... likely nothing. Consider that CUDA is available on the Mac Platform, if nVidia were to "fix" cider, so to speak, it may make Apple prefer nVidia parts in future Mac's, but that's wishful thinking IMO.

I dropped another mail to SE support the other day, basically asking if the issue was being, or could be addressed. Saying I was happy to wait for a fix if one was coming, but would naturally want a refund if it wasn't. They got back to me this morning to say that their Dev team are working on the issue, but don't currently have a date for when it might be fixed.

Not really a surprise that they've not got / aren't willing to give a date, I sure as hell wouldn't want to do that either until I was pretty much done with the work, but it's good to know that it is being actively worked on.

FWIW I wouldn't read anything into the lack of date. I've spent too long working in tech to worry about that, and the support team are basically just going to be managing expectations more than anything else.

I left FFXIV for it's lack of Mac support, and been waiting for months for this to came out. And to my surprise, I felt like a second class. Why did I pay for a full game (including the original game which I paid for on Windows) and got a ½ ass virtual port?

I have a Mac running on i7 3770, 32GB RAM, GTx 980. Although I didn't expect the game ran as smooth as on Windows side, but it really disguised me to found out that I could only run on 1080 resolution with desktop normal setting, let's forget about high settings on any resolution. With my configs, I was expecting max out on a 4K monitor and still get 20 fps-ish.

This is simply appalling! Square might as well tell Mac users to keep their money and keep playing WoW.

What's conspicuously absent from Mr. Kasuga's post is that even though he talks about the possibility of a Metal renderer, there was no mention of doing a native client. The Mac client is just the Windows client with a wrapper. This where a lot of the performance problems lies. It's a strain to the think the performance gains you get by switching from OpenGL to Metal could possibly mitigate the overhead caused by the cider wrapper.

THE question is:

Is Square Enix intentioned to resolve OSX client performance?

I had faith...I was convinced maybe the complaints were coming from players with old MBPs....I downloaded the client this morning for my late 2012 iMac (Nvidia Gefore GTX 680M) and I'm getting an average of 20 FPS, full screen performance is abysmal, Shadows flash on and off the screen, simply panning the camera can result in a 10-15 FPS drop, Sound is tinny, textures are terrible (I feel like I'm playing on PS3).

I usually play in bootcamp and I average 60 FPS on the same machine with 0 problems.

I had high hopes because I recently moved Elite: Dangerous from bootcamp to OS X client and it runs beautifully. This wrapper is god awful.

I'm a huge fan of the game, but for SE to release this and charge $60 for it when its almost an industry-standard practice to release a true OS X client for free download to players with a PC client...it truly is a joke.

Refunds are in order.

Its so heartbreaking... i want to cry sometimes... you get these moments of beauty, where the client is full screen and looks so good, you actually begin to think that you are running a good port of the game. And then like a dog being slapped for going after a crumb of food off the table, the client goes wonky, fps drops to 9, the screen flashes oddly, people pop up, people pop out. i want this to work well on the Mac side, because in many ways its so close. The launcher works for me, the opening screen is just like the Windows side... logging in is pretty standard. What i am trying to say is it feels so close until you start to play it, and then your hopes are dashed. Please fix this!

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Originally Posted by Heghmoh

I had faith...I was convinced maybe the complaints were coming from players with old MBPs....
Refunds are in order.

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I get very inconsistent fps from 45-60 to as low as 9 fps. It's just all over the place and completely unacceptable. My mac is a 5k iMac with 32 GB of RAM, i7 4790k, and 4GB Radeon M295x. I'm still waiting for SE to give me something to justify the money I threw away on this client.

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Originally Posted by HapefullKorset

THE question is:

Is Square Enix intentioned to resolve OSX client performance?

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Yes, they're vested in the OS X client. It was a part of the announcement for Heavenwards, it's on the store, and on media for the game, Mac is is advertised. Will they rebuild the client in Metal? Probably not, they're probably committed to "throwing good money after bad" by fixing the Cider client.

They said that they were interested in adding directx 11 support since it might give better performance. They also seem to imply that they want to keep using a wrapper. I find it a little odd that they want to use a wrapper and give directx 11 support since I heard wrappers generally do not support it.

I am a little bothered that they don't support ps3 drivers for controllers since most mac games that have been ported do, and they got it wrapped from an outside company that wraps games for a living. My last comment is that it would be a great improvement if we could switch between full screen's by dragging with 4 fingers for the game. It would be a substantial benefit for the mac version for people who don't dual screens, since it makes it so easy to browse online while playing.

The PS3 controller works just fine on the Mac client for me. Straight plug n' play.

It is a shame that it doesn't support proper full screen. You can't activate Mission Control or swipe between full screen space with the game in full screen. You can only Command+Tab out.

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Originally Posted by JijaYanin

The PS3 controller works just fine on the Mac client for me. Straight plug n' play.

It is a shame that it doesn't support proper full screen. You can't activate Mission Control or swipe between full screen space with the game in full screen. You can only Command+Tab out.

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That's relatively normal for Mac games, i think it comes down to a battle between the Game and the OS as to which has the right of way when it comes to shared commands. I know in WoW you can choose in the config if you want to use the function keys as 'normal' keys, or for the Apple feature set keys. It is annoying though, especially when you're used to doing a quick gesture to jump between things.

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Originally Posted by JijaYanin

The PS3 controller works just fine on the Mac client for me. Straight plug n' play.

It is a shame that it doesn't support proper full screen. You can't activate Mission Control or swipe between full screen space with the game in full screen. You can only Command+Tab out.

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That is weird, it doesn't work for me.

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Originally Posted by Undrum

Good news for me, at least. I have been offered a refund (which I accepted). I'll give it a few months and see how reports of the Mac client are going and then decide whether I want to re-purchase it.

That's the way to do it - SE may have lost that purchase, but they've saved the subscription, which is worth far more.

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Hmmm, perhaps I've spoken to soon. Despite accepting the offer of a refund, nothing has actually happened a week later (not even an acknowledgement). The support pages say they've been having problems with their mail server (overload?), so I'll try again.

Update: 3rd July 2015: On the second time of asking, I got an acknowledgement and then a refund. I guess the mail server had eaten my previous message.

Yoshi-P: why am i not getting any mail? Oh i know the launch of the Mac client on Heavensward is going so well all the Mac users are writing emails of thanks and praise... So i can go out for my favorite sushi burrito..

Mail Server Admin: There is so much sadness, anger and hate in these emails, i must resign immediately for i cannot work for a company that disrespects people so horridly. </leaves>

#2 Server Admin: Does anyone know the admin password for the mail server?

I find it annoying that SE is willing to compensate all the PS4 players that had disc problems, but aren't even giving a crap about how shitty the mac client is. I understand that Naoki Yoshida, producer of Final FantasyXIV did admit that the client was screwed up, but I really wish that they focus more time on the issue. The best solution for me at this time would be to just get a refund for this vegetable of a game.

Have they pulled the Mac client from the Square Enix store? I can't seem to find a link for the product, nor a download link for the Mac client anywhere...

A few days ago, the item was still up for sale, at least. That's strange.

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Originally Posted by Nanaki1923

Have they pulled the Mac client from the Square Enix store? I can't seem to find a link for the product, nor a download link for the Mac client anywhere...

A few days ago, the item was still up for sale, at least. That's strange.

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Seems like they have indeed pulled the Mac version off the SE Store.

Well I came to a disappointment after trying to play the mac version macbook pro retina 15 mid 2015 with the highest specs. I just had gotten this new macbook after the specs were relased to be able to play it with no success. The game on that machine was unplayable. Not only that. My home Mac Pro (OSX Yosemite 10.10.4, 8-Core 3.0Ghz CPU, 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM, Dual AMD FirePro D700 with 6GB VRAM each) was also a disappointment. I was able to run the game at 1280x720 @26 fps with drops to 15fps on crowded areas.

What did the Transgaming people do at all? Not even top of the line macs work. What the f-@?+! is going on SE?

Yoshi P addresses Mac client issues:

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...641512f05a9e14

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Originally Posted by JijaYanin

Yoshi P addresses Mac client issues:

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...641512f05a9e14

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This boggles the mind:

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

"Taking into account FFXIV's high-end graphics...we determined that it would be near impossible to provide the same frame rate in native OpenGL that could be achieved in DirectX...

We came to the conclusion that...making the use of middleware would be the best road to take in realizing a Mac version of FFXIV..."

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On what planet is adding an extra layer of middleware going to INCREASE performance?:confused: