Mac client needs to be reborn..? :(

[Avenger]

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.

[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.

[Brianmj]

Is no one perturbed that the media hasn't said anything about this? I know... Mac gaming, but still, not one media outlet covered it. Not even Macworld. Everyone is up in arms about the Batman controvery, but FF14, not a peep.

[Hideyuki_Kasuga]

Greetings,

I'm Hideyuki Kasuga, the lead programmer of FFXIV.

Thank you so much for all the feedback on the Mac version of FFXIV.

I’d like to take this time to address the comments about the performance of the Mac version in comparison to the Windows version by explaining the specifics and how we will address them moving forward. This is going to be another one of my long posts since it deals with technical elements, so please bear with me.

To start off, I’d like to explain the reason why the performance of the Mac version on the same machine with the same settings is lower than that of the Windows version.

There are three main factors for this difference in performance.

The first factor is the graphics API set.

For the Windows version of the game, DirectX is used as the graphics API, while OpenGL is used for the Mac version. Though Windows has OpenGL as well, when it comes to the drawing systems for games such as FFXIV, the performance of OpenGL is inferior to that of DirectX. Due to this difference in the graphics API, when using a Mac with the same standards as Windows, it will not be possible to reach the same performance as the Windows version. To put it simply, Windows is equipped with a large amount of elements for creating games while Mac does not have as many, and due to this, differences in fundamental performance arises.

The second factor is system-related.

There are aspects of the thread process scheduling for program parallelization that can be tuned by the Windows version that cannot be tuned by the Mac version. Due to this, situations arise where performance will not be elicited for portions of the game’s parallelization processing and the processing time for frames will be unstable. When comparing this aspect between Windows and Mac, no matter how you look at it there will be areas where performance differences arise.

Finally, the third factor is the system used to create the Mac version.

The Mac version of FFXIV uses the same executable files as the Windows version, and it was created using middleware that allows for functions of Windows to be converted into functions that can be executed on a Mac. This middleware is constantly running for the Mac version, which is an overhead not found in the Windows version. However, this is not a Windows emulator; it is middleware that transposes various types of functions so that they can be properly ran on a Mac. One example where this system is used is for converting the functions of DirectX into OpenGL.

When putting the above three factors together and comparing the Mac version to the Windows version, the Mac version will not reach the same level of performance as the Windows version with the same equipment and settings.

Furthermore, with the graphics and system balance found in Macs, the more characters that are drawn on the game screen then the more severe the drop in performance will be. After checking the recommended specs for the Mac version once more, you can make adjustments to the performance based on your system environment by going to “System Configuration,” clicking on “Other Settings” and then changing the “Character and Object Quantity.” If performance is severely dropping when a large amount of characters are displayed, I recommend trying to adjust this setting and improvements in performance can be expected.

Due to the aforementioned factors, the current Mac version’s performance is not on par with the Windows version. Since there are aspects that are dependent on the Mac OS system, we are unable to make improvements on the FFXIV application side for these. However, the development team will be working to improve the aspects that they can address, and we’ll be continuing to fine tune the Mac version with patches as needed.

Additionally, as one method for improving the capabilities of the Mac version, we think there are aspects that can be improved by using the DirectX 11 version for the Mac version, so we would like to look into releasing a DirectX 11 version that can run on Mac.

One thing I would like to add with is that Apple has announced their next Mac OS, El Capitan, will have features that may largely improve the performance for running various games. We’ll be talking to Apple about this and continue to make performance improvements so that the gaming experience on Macs are even better.

[Recife]

My post was too long, so i will have to break it in 3 parts:
It's good to have an official reply on the subject. I don't play on Mac myself, but my wife has one, and we both have been anxiously expecting the Mac version to play together. As i'm more familiar than her with optimization stuff, i'm the one that has been camping the forums (and reddit).

First of all, again, let me say that i appreciate having an official response on the subject. It is very clear that there will be differences between the Mac and Windows version.

[Recife]

The problem, however, is that similar hardware builds have been showing largely different performances. One just needs to take the time to search the various threads available here and in the reddit subforum. While the "good performance" reports seen to be lower in number, it could be just that those people are not bothering as much in looking for "troubleshooting" threads.

By good performance i mean the range of 30-60 fps, which leaves you with a comfortable performance to play. On the other hand, what the people with "bad performance" are experiencing (my wife included) is a -stable- 10-20 FPS performance. I mean that the performance won't chance regardless of the settings! From what we've experienced, with the graphic setting on either extremely low or extremely high, the performance will just stay around 20 fps. Apparently, it also doesn't matter if there are too many or only a couple of characters and models being displayed.

[Recife]

Furthermore, we've been trying to play the game on a 2013 15" MacBook Pro Retina (top of the line, if i recall correctly). There are reports of people that have been successfuly (45+ FPS) playing the game on a 2011 MBP (no settings specified). It is expected that the newer configuration would have a superior performance.

From all of this, the most simple conclusion that can be taken is that this poor performance is not related to a "Windows vs Mac" problem, the minimum requirements, and much less to an optimization of the settings. It is probably a bug?

I'm glad that SE acknowledges that there is a problem, but it is infuriating to see comments that tend to push the blame to the user (such as "not fulfilling the minimum requirements") when we can CLEARLY see that it's not the case. I guess the above post is more directed at the claims of "bad emulator" and such, but the ACTUAL problem should be discussed more openly, as has been Yoshida's policy since he came around.

[Nemna]

I really do appreciate the reply, but as I mentioned earlier (possibly in another thread) I am actually able to achieve superior results running the DirectX 9 version under Parallels, which suffers from all the same factors PLUS the additional overhead of running a full OS PLUS the additional overhead of being a fully-virtualized environment rather than just a translation layer.

This says to me that there is something very wrong with the Mac client beyond the graphics API, system specs, or transposition of system calls.

[cybereal]

Since you're the lead programmer, maybe you would like this crash log that seems joystick related, and is causing the game to fail immediately at launch for me (and some others http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ac版】ゲーム開始できません and http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ash-on-startup ) that I have here: http://cl.ly/bmHE

Greetings,

I'm Hideyuki Kasuga, the lead programmer of FFXIV.

[Brianmj]

One thing I would like to add with is that Apple has announced their next Mac OS, El Capitan, will have features that may largely improve the performance for running various games. We’ll be talking to Apple about this and continue to make performance improvements so that the gaming experience on Macs are even better.

OpenGL 4.1, is not inferior to Direct3D9. It's pretty much on par with Direct3D11. My 2013 Macbook Pro is more than capable of handling a DX9 game. While I have nothing to say about thread scheduling, the Transgaming Cider middleware you're using is definitely something you could factor out if you did a native port. I know a native port is out of the question, OS X users aren't worth the effort, this would just be a quick easy way to bring FFXIV to Mac users, but really, I would have to preferred to wait A LOT longer for something that was done right than quick and easy. I know I'm beating against a wall with this, but please, consider a native client.