Any Update on FFXIV Compatibility for ARM (M1) Macs?

Jokes aside about FFXIV performance on Macs, we're one generation away from being unable to play this game in Bootcamp, which actually works quite well for this game.

Blizzard announced today that they have native support for the M1 (ARM) SoC in WoW, but FFXIV is still using the (assuming Wine) wrapper, and I'm unsure if this game will even work under Rosetta2 emulation.

Can you please update the product page with compatibility for the new M1 (ARM) SoCs, or, in the event these machines can't run FFXIV at all, issue a warning to consumers that the client is no longer supported for Mac?

If anyone here gets an M1 Mac, I'd love to hear how FFXIV runs. Even if it's just Rosetta2 for now.

I suppose it would be a big deal to port, since a wrapper may no longer be an option. Still, the Mac version is sold separately so it's not ridiculous to ask for continued support.

The "native" Mac client is terrible today - it's literally unplayable for content outside of crafting, gold saucer, selling things on the MB, etc., due to the dramatic microstuttering. I've just assumed the client had been abandoned outside of a Catalina update to literally just get it to start. I'm blindly assuming the M1 is the official end to the Mac project, where like Logitech, they may simply state that it's only available for play/purchase on Intel machines with Big Sur being the last Intel supported OS.

I think I'll always be sad that a true native client could not be created for this game.

What a waste of dev resources tbh

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Originally Posted by MPK

What a waste of dev resources tbh

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You have to keep perspective This isn't adding a /doze emote or new pvp content. This is a paid license. It needs to be supported or pulled.

ESO will not be moving to new Macs. Not worth the money. Probably same happens here

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Originally Posted by Greydor

The "native" Mac client is terrible today - it's literally unplayable for content outside of crafting, gold saucer, selling things on the MB, etc., due to the dramatic microstuttering.

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Out of morbid curiosity, I did fine-tune it to be playable on a MacBook Pro, but it requires a reasonably hefty Thunderbolt 3 eGPU to really benefit. So, it can be playable... but it costs. And while it plays acceptably, I certainly wouldn't swap to Mac as my primary platform for the game.

That said, I strongly suspect WINE—and more specifically Crossover, the WINE variant that FFXIV is wrapped in—is going to be making a serious effort to tune WINE to work properly and efficiently with Rosetta 2 in the short term. And I suspect CodeWeavers will probably try to turn Crossover into an emulator atop the M1 (as opposed to an API translation layer); Crossover is a paid-for product and if they don't have it working on the M1 chips long-term then CodeWeavers has a Problem with a capital p.

Though I don't have a lot of faith that'll work out well for gaming, to be fair. ARM is a lovely modern, efficient architecture that, when you make high-end silicon, can blow x86 out of the water... but it is a different architecture. Layering an API translation layer (like WINE) atop an emulator (like Rosetta 2) is just adding even more overhead to every single thing you do. The same way the DirectX -> DXVK -> Vulkan 1.1 -> MoltenVK -> Metal rendering pipeline for the Mac version of the game imposes a performance hit due to that many layers of translation and abstraction.

However, I also suspect that if they were ever going to do a native port for Mac, the time to do it would actually be right now, when it's already been suggested they're probably doing a PS5-native client (rather than relying on the—admittedly very effective—PS4 backwards compatibility). Because if they're already going to rework the client for PS5 anyway, it's the perfect time to make the client more cross-platform portable in the process.

I don't have faith that they're going to do that, mind you, but if they were, the timing's actually about as advantageous as you could get for something as unfortunate for the Mac subscribers as this.

Now I research, not sure they can in any speedy manner.

But this post on the Crossover forums https://www.codeweavers.com/support/...;msg=228011#c8 suggests they expect it will work under Rosetta 2

And this blog post https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/jwh...eresting-times from last week says they think it works from versio 20.0.1 - although that isn't the version of crossover used for Shadowbringers.

fwiw, there are some accounts of people getting the current Mac client to run on M1 Macs.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...eb2x&context=3

https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../blog/4599523/ (use your browser's translate)

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE64Cy3AYTA

Sorry if this is an old thread but i just finished installling ffxiv on my M1 macbook pro and it runs very smoothly!! Far better than expected with the Rosetta2 x86 emulation. I can play FFxiv on the go tethered to my phone. The worst part was patching on the client is woeful and required a vpn (which i didnt need before on my pc client). Although I only played capped at 30 fps with the macbook only feeling slightly warm after about a couple hours of play. Still for an on board chip thats pretty crazy with my lowww expectations.

Makes me wonder what it would be like optimised for M1...although im fairly sure SE may not bother for a while.

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Originally Posted by Greydor

The "native" Mac client is terrible today - it's literally unplayable for content outside of crafting, gold saucer, selling things on the MB, etc., due to the dramatic microstuttering. I've just assumed the client had been abandoned outside of a Catalina update to literally just get it to start. I'm blindly assuming the M1 is the official end to the Mac project, where like Logitech, they may simply state that it's only available for play/purchase on Intel machines with Big Sur being the last Intel supported OS.

I think I'll always be sad that a true native client could not be created for this game.

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I don't know what you are playing on but I get about 50 fps on my 5 year old Macbook. Not ideal, but more than playable. I agree it would be nice if they made a true native version though.

I got the MacBook air M1 and I get around 45FPS on 900p on High. I tried Middle and standard settings but it did not really changed the FPS that much so I'll stick with high. I think it would be disappointing if SE do not update the client to run natively on M1 MacBook. Even blizzard released WOW : Shadowland with an official support for the M1..

Can it run for long on the macbook air with no fan?

Im intrigued that it can perform so well on the macbook air M1.

Ive got the m1 MacBook Pro. 16 GB of ram. It runs pretty great. ive got it set on high and I get around 48-50 FPS. After about a half hour, the fan will turn on, but not loud at all.

Running on an M1 Mac Mini and it runs great. I see no graphical lag/dropped frame rates and the visual quality is set to high by default if I recall correctly. Does not get hot and the fan never spins with hours of playtime. That's pretty amazing considering FFO runs on Wine on Macs and on an M1 it is running under Rosetta 2 as well. Seriously if the rumors are true regarding the upcoming M1x chips you can look forward to a wave of new games/products to Mac.

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Originally Posted by somejustin

Running on an M1 Mac Mini and it runs great. I see no graphical lag/dropped frame rates and the visual quality is set to high by default if I recall correctly. Does not get hot and the fan never spins with hours of playtime. That's pretty amazing considering FFO runs on Wine on Macs and on an M1 it is running under Rosetta 2 as well. Seriously if the rumors are true regarding the upcoming M1x chips you can look forward to a wave of new games/products to Mac.

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First you need users for that. If there were more customers who played games on Mac then the games would be already released on Mac. Only big big titles hit Mac or Linux.
Even GW2 dropped Mac support and offered refunds for people

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Originally Posted by Jin-

First you need users for that. If there were more customers who played games on Mac then the games would be already released on Mac. Only big big titles hit Mac or Linux.
Even GW2 dropped Mac support and offered refunds for people

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Yeah, Mac is used for a lot of things, but gaming isn't the big market for it. I'm not going to get into the Mac-PC thing. They're tools, and people have choices to pay for and use what they want. The market just doesn't necessarily make software for everything they might want.

And yes, PC gaming isn't as big as it used to be, they tell me. Well, I don't own a console, and while I llke to read books on my phone or tablet, I just can't get into bigger games on those platforms. That's just me.

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Originally Posted by Jin-

First you need users for that. If there were more customers who played games on Mac then the games would be already released on Mac. Only big big titles hit Mac or Linux.
Even GW2 dropped Mac support and offered refunds for people

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The game is released on Mac OS; it requires license purchase separate from PC/PS4 versions. It’s just currently not supported on the new Apple M1 CPU.

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Originally Posted by Jin-

First you need users for that. If there were more customers who played games on Mac then the games would be already released on Mac. Only big big titles hit Mac or Linux.
Even GW2 dropped Mac support and offered refunds for people

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Something not mentioned is the fact that iOS applications and games can run, natively without any changes, on the new M1 Macs. So a developer can create one application/game to run on Macs, iPads, and iPhones reaching a significant user base that commonly spends more money on software and services on average. It may not appeal to developers with long development cycles making the A/B/C titles, but believe me it appeals to a multitude of developers already developing for mobile and a lot of the big boys who have been eye balling the cash cow that is the mobile market. More game titles are coming to Mac, period.

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Originally Posted by Seleni

It’s just currently not supported on the new Apple M1 CPU.

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It's supported and running on the M1, under Rosetta 2. It runs surprisingly well for a laptop that sips power.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

It's supported and running on the M1, under Rosetta 2. It runs surprisingly well for a laptop that sips power.

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I know it runs on Mac M1 machines; I have tried running it on my M1 mini soon after I got the machine (I have Mac starter license). I just thought it has not yet been officially supported even after the announcement of Big Sur support.

Now that I looked at the Mac requirements page and I’ve found out where my confusion came from. On the English version it merely stated “ iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) or higher”, but on the Japanese version there’s an added footnote “ ※「Apple Silicon」搭載モデルには対応しておりません。”, which roughly translates to “Models equipped with Apple Silicon are not supported”.

So which is it, Square-Enix? =_=

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Originally Posted by Seleni

※「Apple Silicon」搭載モデルには対応しておりません。”,

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Oh Yes! I hadn't though of looking at https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/system_requirements, but I see what you mean.

Hello, I found that in the Square Enix Store there is a call out regarding M1 under the System Requirements for the Mac version: https://store.na.square-enix-games.c...n-mac-download
"* Models utilizing the Apple Silicon chipset (such as M1) are not supported."

I recently purchased a Macbook Air (M1), and I was curious to see if FFXIV would run on it. I did not purchase the Mac download, as based on the footnote, I was concerned it would not run at all.

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Originally Posted by Keirokora

I recently purchased a Macbook Air (M1), and I was curious to see if FFXIV would run on it. I did not purchase the Mac download, as based on the footnote, I was concerned it would not run at all.

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It certainly runs. I think it's a case of old web pages, or more likely slow certification by the support team. It took them ages to certify Big Sur.

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Originally Posted by Keirokora

Hello, I found that in the Square Enix Store there is a call out regarding M1 under the System Requirements for the Mac version: https://store.na.square-enix-games.c...n-mac-download
"* Models utilizing the Apple Silicon chipset (such as M1) are not supported."

I recently purchased a Macbook Air (M1), and I was curious to see if FFXIV would run on it. I did not purchase the Mac download, as based on the footnote, I was concerned it would not run at all.

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In Rosetta2 mode it work. Not natively.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

It certainly runs. I think it's a case of old web pages, or more likely slow certification by the support team. It took them ages to certify Big Sur.

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I suspect it's more that at this point, the Mac version is really the Windows version, running atop an API translation layer (Codeweavers Crossover), which itself is running through Apple's Rosetta 2 (which allows Intel code to run on M1 Silicon). And the graphics are written in DirectX, which Crossover translates into Vulkan 1.1 using DXVK, which is then translated into Apple's underlying Metal graphics API using MoltenVK. So while it works, that's a lot of moving pieces—many of which are outside of Square-Enix's control. It's not too surprising to me that they'd be hesitant to claim official support, since if they do and something breaks, it may be out of their hands to fix (without writing a full native version of the application).

For instance, there was an issue early on where downloading a patch would cause the game to stop executing on M1 Macs entirely; it would just instantly crash when you ran the game, with no explanation. And there was basically nothing that Square-Enix could've done to fix that, because it had to do with how Rosetta 2 handles things.

As brief explanation, Rosetta 2 is not an emulator; it's actually an AOT compiler—AOT meaning "Ahead Of Time", where you compile a program targeting a specific architecture just once, and store the resulting native executable. (As opposed to Just In Time compilers, where you have a program stored in a more universal generic bytecode, and then compiled into native code when you run the program.) The first time you run an Intel program through Rosetta 2, it literally breaks down the program, analyzes it, and creates an entire ARM-native version of it, which is then cached. This means you don't take the emulation hit, since you're not running an emulator that has to pretend to be something else; you're literally running a native ARM executable compiled for the M1.

And since ARM is actually a more efficient architecture than the somewhat-aged-and-creaking x86 architecture, you can sometimes see some pretty substantial performance this way. As people have seen with the FFXIV client; the Rosetta-derived ARM version performs better on M1 silicon than the Intel version does on actual Intel Mac hardware. Which is frankly breathtakingly impressive.

However, Rosetta 2 needs to be able to tell that a program has changed to know to recompile it; as best I can tell, the way the x86 client was stuffed inside of Crossover's WINE-derived containers meant that when the game data changed in a patch but the Crossover portion did not, Rosetta 2 seemingly didn't know it needed to re-do the compile... which meant it tried executing an outdated ARM translation of things after a patch, causing an instant crash. You could work around this by fiddling around inside of Crossover so that Rosetta 2 knew to generate a new ARM version of it, but that's mucking about with things at a level that Square-Enix almost certainly would not want to try to provide support for; breaking open the .app bundle and fiddling around with the innards is a bit beyond the scope of what your average customer support person is prepared to talk folks through.

It is thus far easier for them to just say "this is not supported" and let people take the plunge themselves.

One hopes that while taking this approach, they're also trying to figure out what their official support strategy for M1 silicon will be in the long run—though I won't be exactly surprised if that strategy is "end-of-life the Mac client".

(Rosetta 2 has since added provisions to recognize scenarios like the Crossover one, mind you. So that particular problem went away back in like... late December or early January or something.)

Necro post, sorry!

The System Requirements seems to vary between pages. The page below states:

"Please note that the game is not compatible with Apple Silicon models yet." Which seems to imply future support?

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...1ccaba6bd227c9

It would be nice to have an update in anycase, but I realise MacOS player numbers are marginal, and the M1 players base is a fraction of marginal!

it runs but the fps sucks on my machine
also i had a resolution bug on monterey beta that made everything look worse too
but I fixed it with wine settings
so this mac ver is just a wrapper for wine? did I waste money?

It is a wrapper indeed, just like the Steam version is a 'wrapper' and you pay for that as well. I have an OLD pc from 2014 I use for FF, it's just an i5 4960k and a GTX 980...but it sits at 60fps all day long on 1920x1200, apart from maybe Limsa. My MacPro with RX 580 sits at around 35-45fps...20fps in Limsa. The wrapper just has so much overhead as activity monitors shows 100% usage of the GPU and only about 30% on the CPU.

Thanks. Makes sense it runs like a turd. If anyone else has an M1 Mac I'd like to know what settings you play on.
For me even 720p seems borderline.

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Originally Posted by _Pigzig

Thanks. Makes sense it runs like a turd. If anyone else has an M1 Mac I'd like to know what settings you play on.
For me even 720p seems borderline.

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I am running it on an M1 MacBook Air, with 8 GPU cores... PS4 controller via bluetooth, of course. ;) Depending on settings and where I am in the game, it runs anywhere from 6 FPS* to 60-ish FPS.

Generally, I run it full screen at ??x800 (whatever the next step up from 720p is), with the Quality set to "High" (the middle setting). What also helps is reducing the number of objects down from Maximum, in the ellipsis section of the system settings. I tend to keep screwing with the settings, hoping to get an extra bump. :)

It doesn't run like a turd, but you definitely need to lower your expectations with regards to shadows, bump mapping, and other graphics prettiness.

As a side note, FFXIV for MacOS is little more than the Windows x64 version in a WINE wrapper. It was ported by TransGaming using their Cider fork of WINE. Once TG died, the project was taken over by Codeweavers, using their CrossOver package. (See https://www.codeweavers.com/about/news/press/20190628 )

I do not expect Squeenix to abandon the Mac client, nor do I expect them to embrace the M1. Although Windows 10 and 11 have ARM variants, that hardware tends to be tablets and ultrabooks. Not exactly a target market for gaming. ...and that would be the greater business need for an ARM-native version.

* Six FPS? Yes. I used AirPlay to connect it to my AppleTV to run on a native 4K television. I do not recommend. ;)

I'd like to actually see an M1 Native version at some stage simply because there's no guarantee on how long the Rosetta 2 compatibility layer will last for. When Apple moved from PowerPC to x86 back in the day, the compatibility layer was only supported in the Mac OS X releases of the time for a few years and I don't expect it to be any different this time around. By the time Endwalker is complete and we're moving onto 7.0, I can see there being no more x86 compatibility or new x86 Macs on the market. Sooner or later, preferably sooner, SE will have to provide an ARM native macOS client or at least take the time to move onto a compatibility wrapper that's much more performant.

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Originally Posted by Johners

I'd like to actually see an M1 Native version at some stage simply because there's no guarantee on how long the Rosetta 2 compatibility layer will last for. When Apple moved from PowerPC to x86 back in the day, the compatibility layer was only supported in the Mac OS X releases of the time for a few years and I don't expect it to be any different this time around. By the time Endwalker is complete and we're moving onto 7.0, I can see there being no more x86 compatibility or new x86 Macs on the market. Sooner or later, preferably sooner, SE will have to provide an ARM native macOS client or at least take the time to move onto a compatibility wrapper that's much more performant.

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It's much more likely that what will happen will be exactly what happened when Apple moved to PowerPC. Apple will not be the platform to play games on, because the install base is small enough that it's not worth the development time or money to write the game to run on them.

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Originally Posted by Johners

I'd like to actually see an M1 Native version at some stage simply because there's no guarantee on how long the Rosetta 2 compatibility layer will last for. When Apple moved from PowerPC to x86 back in the day, the compatibility layer was only supported in the Mac OS X releases of the time for a few years and I don't expect it to be any different this time around. By the time Endwalker is complete and we're moving onto 7.0, I can see there being no more x86 compatibility or new x86 Macs on the market. Sooner or later, preferably sooner, SE will have to provide an ARM native macOS client or at least take the time to move onto a compatibility wrapper that's much more performant.

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It will be supported for a long time... PowerPC wasn't nearly as popular as x86 is.... and it is still currently in use today and for the forseeable future.

Thats not to say it we wouldn't benefit from native M1 support but x86 compatibility will be around for a long time and I'm pretty sure because of this Square will be happy to let the game sit as is given most people don't play it on macs. I also have an M1 Air.

M1's and multiple monitors...*panics in kernel* kupo <3 lol

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Originally Posted by Ath192

It will be supported for a long time... PowerPC wasn't nearly as popular as x86 is.... and it is still currently in use today and for the forseeable future.

Thats not to say it we wouldn't benefit from native M1 support but x86 compatibility will be around for a long time and I'm pretty sure because of this Square will be happy to let the game sit as is given most people don't play it on macs. I also have an M1 Air.

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Also that person does not seem to know that Apple Silicon is ARM-based, even the Surface Pro X is ARM, and Windows can run on ARM. Considering Apple didn't stop selling their last x86 Mac until 2020, the policy is at-least 7 years before vintage status and stop getting latest support. 2014 Macs can run Monterey.

More importantly M1 Mac is even superior to console versions because it can support GShade, and ACT among other things at 60+ fps in macOS Monterey.

Patch 6.4:

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

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Originally Posted by CAMac1988

Patch 6.4:

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

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Nice, from tuesday I can stop to use facebook or watch movies while working.

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Originally Posted by Greydor

Jokes aside about FFXIV performance on Macs, we're one generation away from being unable to play this game in Bootcamp, which actually works quite well for this game.

Blizzard announced today that they have native support for the M1 (ARM) SoC in WoW, but FFXIV is still using the (assuming Wine) wrapper, and I'm unsure if this game will even work under Rosetta2 emulation.

Can you please update the product page with compatibility for the new M1 (ARM) SoCs, or, in the event these machines can't run FFXIV at all, issue a warning to consumers that the client is no longer supported for Mac?

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don't buy a mac for gaming

this is a self own lmao

even linux is better