Current State Mac (June/2020)

[justinhuang]

Hello everyone,

I am writing this post to give feedback and share some of my experience regarding Mac client. For anyone who used Mac as well, please feel free to write your feedback, constructively, down below too. I am interested to read your experience when using Mac client as well.

I am using 2016 MacBook Pro (2.0 GHz dual core i5+ egpu AMD Vega 56+ 8GB rams). For the most part, I would say my experience with Mac client has been adequate. I can hover around 30-45 fps for 8-men raids. However that alone is not enough. Time to time, frame rates would drop to 15, sometime even 10, in busy cities like limsa or during hunts. If I look at the water at a distance, in limsa, it can hover around 45 fps-55 fps (if I'm lucky), but drop back to 15 fps- 35 fps just from turning the camera back to the city building with other players. The fluctuation of frame rates can be jarring. Giving these situation, I am far from satisfied with the performances but I am still grateful that I can play during raids.

I researched posts and discussions regarding Mac clients but to be only disappointed with lack of information and updates. So far, I only see new update that Mac client moved to 64 bits, from 32 bits, but no more information provided. What happen to Mac ffxiv using metals? what are they working on to improve Mac clients performance?

The lack of updates concerns me as a Mac client user and ffxiv fan. Circumstances from occupation or school may force us to used Mac. For the most part, I did what I could to force the game performs better--I purposely purchased Vega 56 eGPU to play ffxiv. However, it still feel unoptimized. Giving the poor performance, it may discourage players to continue using Mac client and would results in no future update or extremely slow. I hope we get more updates about Mac to improve our experience.

[Wyakin]

Just gonna straight up say a PS4 pro runs better.

[GeminiReed]

It it highly anticipated that Apple is going to announce that it will be shifting its CPU's to an in-house ARM based design. Obviously this will not affect current hardware but it's pretty much the kiss of death for mainstream gaming on the Mac within 3-5 years. In other words, there's not going to be much incentive to spend a lot of money on direct compatibility.

[EaMett]

2017 15inch with the graphic card option. Works fine with Bootcamp. I had to move away from the mac client though.

[Saccharin]

The Mac client uses a commercial wine-like wrapper so it's basically the PC client so it'll never be optimised.

There's just too few Mac users to justify a native Mac client.

[Venoshock-]

Mac's aren't gaming machines and aren't trying to be, they've shifted their market from games decades ago. I'm sorry but I'd strongly suggest playing on a ps4 or building/buying a gaming PC for games in general.

[justinhuang]

The Mac client uses a commercial wine-like wrapper so it's basically the PC client so it'll never be optimised.

There's just too few Mac users to justify a native Mac client.

You spot on my points about lack of supports which would results in discourages players from continue to using Mac client. I would be sad but I would incline to stop subscribe to ffxiv too if they do minimal support on Mac client.

[justinhuang]

Mac's aren't gaming machines and aren't trying to be, they've shifted their market from games decades ago. I'm sorry but I'd strongly suggest playing on a ps4 or building/buying a gaming PC for games in general.

No apologies needed. It’s not your fault. Much advice and recommendations from other players told me just like you too. Although I understand the circumstances, I just don’t want to give up without sharing feedbacks and experiences for other. If I have to migrate back to either ps4 or move completely to pc, I might as well just stop playing. Much of it are a big investment and I find hard to continue support products that doesn’t work well on my current system too. Not that I don’t like ffxiv, but I feel disappointed if they continue to do minimal polish on Mac

[justinhuang]

Just gonna straight up say a PS4 pro runs better.

I migrate from ps4 pro too. I can concur to your statement about better performance on ps4 pro.

[justinhuang]

2017 15inch with the graphic card option. Works fine with Bootcamp. I had to move away from the mac client though.

Unfortunately egpu does not support natively on boot camp. I promise you, I tried before I settle with Mac client