Issue refunds for the MacOS client.

The "port" of this game to MacOS is nothing short of a scam.

I realize it may have been "playable" at a max of 20 fps on the latest and greatest imacs while HW was relevant. But we are in SB now and and some of the highest and imacs and macbooks cannot keep up with this shoddy port.

If the god awful performance was not enough.. it is known for causing kernel panics and halting the ENTIRE computer and SE has taken 0 steps in trying to solve this. A game should not be causing crashes of this level.

Furthermore, the cost. the cost for something that is a shoddy wine wrapper is just ridiculous.. we have to pay again for what is basically the same thing as the windows client, but gimped? You realize one could take 10 minutes to set up wine-csmt and get double the performance of this client, and it would be free.

This port is nothing short of a big fat ripoff and it is completely unacceptable. If you have no intention to port this to the opengl or metal API then start issueing refunds.

EDIT: FUNNY STORY. I just set this game up on wine myself on sierra, and it runs even faster and without any kernel panics. It took 10 minutes minus patching!
How ridiculous is this??

Why not install Windows 10 on Boot-Camp? FFXIV was developed with DirectX in mind. MacOS has Metal now, which is Apple's graphics API. If anything, Square-Enix should update the game's API to be compatible with Metal.

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

Why not install Windows 10 on Boot-Camp? FFXIV was developed with DirectX in mind. MacOS has Metal now, which is Apple's graphics API. If anything, Square-Enix should update the game's API to be compatible with Metal.

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It's not a port, it's a Cedega wrapper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedega_(software)

And to that end, it's identical to the PC version.

I realize this is an option but when the mac port is borderline unusable like this it is not okay to sell it for that platform.
I would expect that if I paid $60 to have the game available on my apple hardware, that it would at least run okay. The same would be expected for people who bought it for ps3, ps4 etc..

There are wrappers that do something like converting dx11 to vulkan and it's really fast. And then there are wrappers that convert vulkan to metal which, is also pretty fast. There are many many options for them here..

But dude come on. They used free software like wine to make this shoddy port and they SELL it to you at full price for each expansion? When it barely even runs and frequently crashes systems??? Absolutely ridiculous. I use forum search here to see other peoples accounts of poor performance and kernel panics and it's just the same canned response from the support here over and over again.

That is correct. The files are nearly identical to that of a windows install with very minor modifications for.. I think some form of safari integration, input of special chars and also the opening cutscenes are tampered with for some reason.
I am actually going to copy these files over to windows to see if they run I am curious.

Just extracted the ffxiv files to a windows vm and the game ran on the vm. Some port this is.

This port came about at the same time as SE’s highly immoral (and very dubious legally) UK CE pricing saga.

Whomever was calling the financial shots at this stage didn’t care about who they trod on in the process, nor did they particularly care about the quality of the product that they put out either it seems.

I absolutely agree with the OP. FFXI didn’t charge a license fee per platform, neither does WoW. It’s also painful to note that whilst being entirely free, WoW’s Mac client is on a whole different level to the rubbish SE commisioned.

It either needs to be free, or it needs to be a native app running on Metal. Yoshida had the right idea when he first had it pulled and refunded. As is, we’re paying for a cakethat’s never materialised.

The company that did the wrapper for this game left the gaming business so I'm not even sure who did they hire to take over. Either way it being a wrapper and not a native client it's never gonna run well.

SE offered refunds for a few months. https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...641512f05a9e14

Glad PC master rase who games on a MAC anyways.

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Originally Posted by CrystalRainbow

Glad PC master rase who games on a MAC anyways.

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Not many mac gamers by comparison but still, S-E offered a mac version and people bought it expecting a certain level of quality. By all accounts this version does not meet an acceptable standard, but it continues to be sold. I assume it's not viable for them to do a real port in-house due to expected low sales, but then they should remove the mac version from sale or place a bold warning on it that says users may experience performance issues, crashes and kernel panics and that no update for improving the performance on mac systems is planned.

I have a old gaming pal that only has access to a mac to play at the moment. If you offer it and someone is paying the same price (if not more, mac seems to go on sale less often) the same quality is to be expected. Have they at least added the ability to do the free trial on a mac? I know I asked a couple years ago and it appeared from the responses I got that no trial was available.

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Originally Posted by alimdia

The company that did the wrapper for this game left the gaming business so I'm not even sure who did they hire to take over. Either way it being a wrapper and not a native client it's never gonna run well.

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Transgaming was acquired by NVIDIA, they still work on the macOS wrapper.

Question I've had for years that I feel I can get an answer to here since its relevant to the topic.

Why buy a mac to begin with when most people emulate windows on the thing because almost nothing is compatable with a mac?

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

Why buy a mac to begin with when most people emulate windows on the thing because almost nothing is compatable with a mac?

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For some people, the mac was never purchased with the intent of gaming, but they also don't have the space/funds/desire for a second machine just for gaming.

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Originally Posted by Dustytome

For some people, the mac was never purchased with the intent of gaming, but they also don't have the space/funds/desire for a second machine just for gaming.

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Reasonable answer. Not everyone wants or can afford 2 computers. Though my question was more along the lines of: Why buy a mac in the first place? I honestly don't know.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

Question I've had for years that I feel I can get an answer to here since its relevant to the topic.

Why buy a mac to begin with when most people emulate windows on the thing because almost nothing is compatable with a mac?

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I think because there's still some really good exclusive software especially those made by Apple which people may use at work especially in creative industries, but also the operating system is really nice and preferred by many, and the cost isn't so bad when factoring in things like the build quality, included software and the level of support provided by Apple.

Having said that, Windows 10 is a great OS too. It's not like 15 years ago when Mac OS X seemed way more advanced than Windows XP. The gap mostly closed and Apple kinda ran out of major innovations, it's next OS update just bringing basic stuff like night mode and a redesigned app store.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

I think because there's still some really good exclusive software especially those made by Apple which people may use at work especially in creative industries, but also the operating system is really nice and preferred by many, and the cost isn't so bad when factoring in things like the build quality, included software and the level of support provided by Apple.

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This goes with what I've heard in the past. You get a mac for one purpose and it may be great for it, better than a PC. When you try to do other things though, it doesn't work well at all due to compatability issues.

Thank you for the explanation. :)

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

This goes with what I've heard in the past. You get a mac for one purpose and it may be great for it, better than a PC. When you try to do other things though, it doesn't work well at all due to compatability issues.

Thank you for the explanation. :)

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Aye, the Mac is more of a creative machine than a gaming machine. Though Microsoft's Surface line is definitely helping close that gap too. To the point that even I'm interested in the Surface Go as it's affordable, but does good inking, etc. Now if only there was a way to get the Surface Dial to work on-screen on the Go!

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

Aye, the Mac is more of a creative machine than a gaming machine. Though Microsoft's Surface line is definitely helping close that gap too. To the point that even I'm interested in the Surface Go as it's affordable, but does good inking, etc. Now if only there was a way to get the Surface Dial to work on-screen on the Go!

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I have a Surface Book 2 with the Nvidia 1060 and I've been able to run Ridorana Lighthouse on that thing without lag. Cost me a pretty penny, but that thing runs like silk as long as the ambient temperature isn't too hot. (We live in Georgia. I don't get to game on it outdoors.)

It runs fine for me so far.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

I have a Surface Book 2 with the Nvidia 1060 and I've been able to run Ridorana Lighthouse on that thing without lag. Cost me a pretty penny, but that thing runs like silk as long as the ambient temperature isn't too hot. (We live in Georgia. I don't get to game on it outdoors.)

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Aha, I use a 1080 in my desktop. Need more than a 1060 I'd reckon for a new gaming laptop, probably a 1070. I'd be doing VR as well as FFXIV. So I'd need the extra oomph.

Though for me, gaming outside, I can't do it either, the thing would get frazzled by water. I live in rainy UK (this heatwave is not normal weather). I'd need to be in a covered area (very well covered, with how frantic our rain is)

If it's any consolation, it used to be a lot worse, like dropping to 5 FPS - basically unplayable; character models with missing polygons, or just invisible. In fact they did offer refunds and stopped selling it for a while while they worked on improving the terrible performance and fixing some of the bugs! I held on to my copy in the hope that they would eventually fix the performance and make it at least semi-playable.

Now it is marginal but I find it to be playable (if you have a discrete GPU at least) and it's nice to not have to reboot into Windows. It's not great but I've made it through 24p raids and hunts. Haven't tried Eureka though - that might be a disaster!

But if you want double the FPS, yeah, use Boot Camp to run the Windows version. Works great. :p

p.s. I wish SE would optimize FFXIV on macOS the way they have optimized their iOS games. Clearly they have access to programmers who can use Apple's Metal API effectively, but as people have noted the FFXIV client is just the Windows version running on top of a middleware layer that seems to translate DirectX into deprecated, low-performance OpenGL. It's possible that this library will be upgraded to use Metal though, so it might get slightly better at some point.

p.p.s. Given the lousy performance and the fact that it's just the Windows client running on middleware, it's too bad that you have to buy another copy not just of the game but of all the expansions, only to find out that it doesn't work great on macOS so you have to buy the Windows client and expansions too! I think there's a good argument for Win-mac cross-buy at the very least.

Metal isn't really gonna help the mac client. At least not unless wine can make use of it, in which case, it'll help users who still aren't using the official mac client. SE could probably get much better performance on macs if they were willing to recode the client in full using mac/linux-friendly APIs instead of relying on wine or proprietary versions of wine (usually outdated) to handle all the windows-only bits, especially directx code.

But that would be a pretty monumental task for something they probably wouldn't profit on. Even assuming they could reuse as much as possible given that the ps4 runs on a BSD offshoot as well. But even then, supporting a variety of hardware isn't really pretty. Maybe if they'd used OpenGL instead of directx?

Patch 4.3 rendered the game unplayable on my Mac, without explanation until SE CS said "upgrade to High Sierra" and yet when I bootcamp into Windows the Windows client plays FLAWLESSLY so this just feels like laziness on the Mac wrapper team. What's the point of continuing a Mac client if you're going to ignore it half the time?

Why would you game on a Mac? Media has always been what mac is good at, not games... like ever? SO why in the world would you think that has changed? lol

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Originally Posted by SinisterJoints

Why would you game on a Mac? Media has always been what mac is good at, not games... like ever? SO why in the world would you think that has changed? lol

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Why in the world would you post this seemingly without the first clue about what the issue is here?

If FFXIV’s Apple client was a native mac app using the Metal API (like WoW for example) then this wouldn’t be a discussion.

If FFXIV’s Apple client was free, I suspect the majority would shrug and accept it for what it is.

It’s horrible performance isn’t a Mac problem, it’s a lazy outsourced job problem. It needs to either be considerably better, or it needs to be free for existing subscribers.

Setting up wine myself and playing ffxiv with wine-csmt I get more fps than the port.
Ridiculous.

Right? I just get canned responses, myself. I actually cannot play without constant kernel panics unless i am on 10.12.4 but they do still occur.

I think there are really fast apis for translating direct x11 to vulkan/metal

A business practice like this should be illegal.

Quote:

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Dear Customer,

Regarding your request for technical support. Please find your answer below.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. Following patch 4.35, a version upgrade was implemented for OpenSSL along with the update, in preparation for TLS1.2 support. The MacOS sierra 10.12.4 and up was set as the minimum requirements for the game to function since Stormblood. We hope this has cleared up any confusion.

Thank you for contacting the SQUARE ENIX Support Center.

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http://i43.tinypic.com/r8b511.gif

I guess that explanation is fair enough, if the people having the worst problems were not using the latest OS update and S-E released information stating that this is a requirement. Somebody on reddit said they were getting high FPS even in alliance raids with the Mac client so it turns out that it does work well enough for some people.

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Originally Posted by CrystalRainbow

Glad PC master rase who games on a MAC anyways.

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These kind of posts are not helpful.

SE should not be trying to sell this kind of unusable garbage. They need to own up to it and either rehaul it or offer refunds again, it's barely playable on even high end machines.