3.1 Mac Client Adjustments

I'm probably unnecessarily excited for this last bullet in the patch notes considering how hopeless we became upon realizing the Mac "client" was a poorly executed Cider port. Does anyone with some technical experience see how they can drastically improve the Mac client regarding the changes they listed? Is it possible for them to flip a switch and have this port run seamlessly on newer macs now that the Metal API has been released?

The changes with 3.1 won't make much of a difference most likely. There's also no switch flipping to increase performance. Cider ports will always have noticeably lower performance because of the emulation going on. To use the Metal API, they'll have to code a native client from scratch. Better option would be to go for a native OpenGL client (considering the PS3 uses a customised version of OpenGL, they should be able to use code from that client), but Square claims a native OpenGL client doesn't perform better than a Cider port.

In the end, there are just not enough Mac users (who don't run Bootcamp) to warrant doing a native Mac client.

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Originally Posted by Millerna

Better option would be to go for a native OpenGL client (considering the PS3 uses a customised version of OpenGL, they should be able to use code from that client), but Square claims a native OpenGL client doesn't perform better than a Cider port.

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They would still have to write a new renderer for Mac if they used OpenGL. They don't have an OpenGL renderer. The game uses PS3's GCM api for graphics.

OP, they would have have to write a Metal client for performance to be acceptable, but considering this, http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/10...t-often-mixed/, I don't know how much mileage they would get out of Metal. Anything, OpenGL or otherwise would be preferable to using Cider.