The Mac OS X Client's absymal performance is a joke.

[Tatsuo]

There are proper ports from Transgaming. I've ran FFXIV on my Mac with an unofficial wrapper and it did run better than this catastrophe.
This is ashaming for both companies, Transgaming for doing such a poor job and Square for allowing this to be released.
And Hypie is probably just one of those usual trolls. Already have this little boy on my ignore list so I don't have to read the verbal diarrhea of this youngin'.

[KrelianJudah]

What a great answer haha, its pretty cool really, about it, if you ask for a refund, they invalidate your mac account? its just that i want to ask for a refund in order to buy the windows version (bootcamp as i have been doing), if i do so there is a chance that they will fix the mac client, and i will have to buy it all again (i really prefer native versus bootcamp as we all do).

[AosiClericsguard]

What a great answer haha, its pretty cool really, about it, if you ask for a refund, they invalidate your mac account? its just that i want to ask for a refund in order to buy the windows version (bootcamp as i have been doing), if i do so there is a chance that they will fix the mac client, and i will have to buy it all again (i really prefer native versus bootcamp as we all do).

I'm not sure if they do or not, I just included it as a sign that I wouldnt need it any longer (and hopefully expedite the refund process/avoid any disputes on their end). I figure you cant return opened software to a retailer store, so there may be an issue returning a digital download too.

You probably don't have to, but I did just to be sure.

[Blayde]

for those of you reporting mac issues, does turning off the graphics switching (i think in the power saving settings in OS X) help?

[Nemna]

for those of you reporting mac issues, does turning off the graphics switching (i think in the power saving settings in OS X) help?

I doubt it. I have an app that lets me know when I switch between graphics cards, and it says I'm switching to the nvidia when the client starts up.

[Quiksloth]

Hi! like a number of people, I've been waiting for a mac client for quite some time. Bootcamp does get a little long in the tooth sometimes, especially since FFXIV is a game I'd like to keep logged in in the background while doing other things. The lack of communication about the mac port until its final release has been absolutely appalling, considering Guild Wars 2 has had the same form of port, and for the most part, was optimised quite well for what it was. It even had multitouch support for the trackpad.

It would seem that Transgaming was looking at making a quick buck with FFXIV which is troublesome considering how difficult it was for the wine community to make a custom wrapper for the game. It had to do with a lot of windows dependencies outside DirectX.

The other problem is that Transgaming just sold its porting technology to Nvidia, which doesn't bode well for future support of FFXIV or any Cider wrapped games.

It is also a shame considering how well the PS4 port runs, as OSX and the PS4 platform share a lot of similarities, from OpenBSD to OpenGL. I would assume that porting from the PS4 to OSX would have been a smoother transition. It would have been more work initially but far more sustainable.

Going forward, it seems like the only possibility for a Mac Client at this point is handing over the project to yet another third party studio for a complete rewrite. The two major names that come to mind are Aspyr and Feral as their ported games do run quite well. I also believe that a focus on the newly introduced Metal API on OSX 10.11 would probably yield the best performance, especially since the claimed minimum requirements for the Mac client also happen to be the base hardware requirements for Metal in OSX 10.11. If it had been completely rewritten, then the asking price of 60$ would have been arguably warranted, even though most other publishers treat Windows and Mac licenses as one and the same.

I believe the initial volume of sales for the OSX port including customers asking for a refund as well as potential clients like myself that held off until we've seen some feedback about performance should indicate to Square Enix how viable a Mac port would be.

In the meantime however, the game is best played on PC/Bootcamp or PS3/PS4. The Mac promise has been broken for now.

I'll be back to levelling my Paladin after a long break to try to finish the story quests before getting Heavensward.

[Delily]

It is also a shame considering how well the PS4 port runs, as OSX and the PS4 platform share a lot of similarities, from OpenBSD to OpenGL. I would assume that porting from the PS4 to OSX would have been a smoother transition. It would have been more work initially but far more sustainable.

Neither the PS3 or the PS4 use opengl; PS4 provides 2 APIs, GMN and GMNX.

[JamieLee]

Neither the PS3 or the PS4 use opengl; PS4 provides 2 APIs, GMN and GMNX.

Actually your wrong Ps3 uses PSGL which is playstation open gl based on open gl es and nvidia CG

PS4 uses PSSL for rendering which is about the equlivent of dx 11.1 and open gl 4.5
GMN GMNX are just the api and graphical shell used for the os which pretty much mirrors the psp ps3 ps vita menu system.

The native operating system of the PlayStation 4 is Orbis OS, which is a fork of FreeBSD version 9.0.

[Delily]

At this point, I personally would like to hear something from SE regarding the client. I can't imagine anyone involved in the game think the performance of the client is acceptable. I have to wonder, however, what the agreement with Transgaming is.

[JijaYanin]

I dunno if I should be relieved or irritated to read so many people share my problem with the Mac client. Like everybody else, I have encountered outright crashes and horrible frame rates. The game seems to not recognize or use my graphic card's entire 4 GB VRAM, but maxes out the GPU even when inside my unfurnished small player housing. It really does seem like a shoddy, unoptimized port. It runs WORSE than the PC version running in a Windows VM on Parallels!

I agree, look into Aspyr or Feral to do the porting.