Mac client needs to be reborn..? :(

[Wildsprite]

please forgive me if this sounds condescending but the standard laptop settings is not the lowest you can go and some of the settings are just unnecessary shinies
just to be sure you should try the below settings and see if it improves anything

make sure disable rendering of objects when not visible is on
use low details on distant objects is off
make sure FXAA is off
Grass Quality is off
Map Resolution Low(this only matters if you plan to keep the map on the screen all the time)
shadows set to hide on all options
shadow resolution low
cascading off
softening weak
texture detail to bi-linear or tri-linear.
movement physics all off
turn off Naturally darken the edges of the screen and blur the graphics around an object in motion
glare off

It really is disappointing that FFXIV doesn't work even as well as it works in Parallels.

I don't play WoW, but I love how Diablo 3 works great out of the box on both Mac and Windows!!

I wonder whether Transgaming pulled a fast one on Square Enix and then nobody at the mothership ever heard of WINE or actually tested it out to discover how embarrassingly awful the "product" actually is.

p.s. Windows trolls and idiots: nothing to see here, move along. We get that it works in Windows, and that it also works fine on a Mac when you run Windows using Boot Camp. We might even own Windows PCs as well. We still like OS X and hardware like the MacBook Pro, and we would like a real version of FFXIV that actually works well, kind of like what Blizzard delivers for their games. Unfortunately the current FFXIV client is nowhere near SE's usual standards of quality or performance.

while I don't use the mac I am still of the firm belief they should have made a fully native client for it. transgaming uses their own custom tweaked build of WINE which while it is supposed to be better and in some cases it is, it is still WINE.
I'm with the people who call out SE to make a fully native client to replace this.