SE,we Mac users do not deserve this third class treatment!

[AmbOcclusion]

The post from the lead programmer is such a non-response that it leans toward offensive. He's basically saying that it's not worth their time because (he perceives) that the Mac version will never even come close to PC performance. If they had built it from the ground up in-house (or outsourced it to a company that would do that) instead of using a WINE wrapper, this problem wouldn't exist.

He states that it uses OpenGL for rendering, then contradicts himself by stating they use a DirectX translation system. I don't think they should be focusing resources on bringing DirectX 11 features to a platform that can't run the normal game yet, and should instead focus on rewriting the game. If they continue with a non-native build of the game, there will never be a Mac machine ever that will run this game at a reasonable framerate. WINE wrappers don't scale.

[Delily]

The post from the lead programmer is such a non-response that it leans toward offensive. He's basically saying that it's not worth their time because (he perceives) that the Mac version will never even come close to PC performance. If they had built it from the ground up in-house (or outsourced it to a company that would do that) instead of using a WINE wrapper, this problem wouldn't exist.

He states that it uses OpenGL for rendering, then contradicts himself by stating they use a DirectX translation system. I don't think they should be focusing resources on bringing DirectX 11 features to a platform that can't run the normal game yet, and should instead focus on rewriting the game. If they continue with a non-native build of the game, there will never be a Mac machine ever that will run this game at a reasonable framerate. WINE wrappers don't scale.

Let me clarify his response about that first section: the graphics API on OS X is Vulkan, and it's the spiritual successor to OpenGL. On Windows, DirectX (or more specifically Direct3D) is significantly faster than OpenGL for many reasons, chief among them is that nVidia has a LOT of extensions optimized for Direct3D. Even if they did built a client that used OpenGL (on Windows) there would be performance degradation. So, what's saying is that an OpenGL would not be as fast as a DirectX client, which is true.

His comments about thread scheduling are the most puzzling to me. I'm not very familiar with OS X's multithreading library, but if I had to guess, Cider doesn't handle that well.

His last few comments are most telling. The most significant change to OS X in El Capitan is the inclusion of the Metal API, which is what iOS uses. I interpret his comments to mean that they'll be working with Apple to figure how to switch over to Metal from Vulkan, if not outright built a client.

[Brianmj]

Let me clarify his response about that first section: the graphics API on OS X is Vulkan, and it's the spiritual successor to OpenGL. On Windows, DirectX (or more specifically Direct3D) is significantly faster than OpenGL for many reasons, chief among them is that nVidia has a LOT of extensions optimized for Direct3D. Even if they did built a client that used OpenGL (on Windows) there would be performance degradation. So, what's saying is that an OpenGL would not be as fast as a DirectX client, whic.

The graphics API for OS X is OpenGL, Vulkan hasn't been released yet. Apple hasn't said anything about supporting Vulkan.

[Mara-Eve]

The graphics API for OS X is OpenGL, Vulkan hasn't been released yet. Apple hasn't said anything about supporting Vulkan.

The (new!) graphics API for OS X is Metal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_(Apple_API)

[Brianmj]

The (new!) graphics API for OS X is Metal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_(Apple_API)

Yup, coming with El Capitan. It wont completely replace OpenGL as GL is built into OS X, but Apple can use Metal to accelerate a few apps, and libraries like Core Animation and Core Graphics. Those libraries will sit atop Metal. But your desktop, all those pixels will still be rendered by OpenGL. That 14 years of work Apple just can't throw away so easily.