Cannot launch game on macOS High Sierra

[ne0dym]

Hi there. I started playing FFXIV in 2017 (before Stormblood) on an iMac, the same computer I still use today. I played on and off on Mac for the next couple years until I got back into the game last year, and I now play on PS4. The reason I changed platforms is because the game no longer runs on my computer, despite having worked in the past (prior to 5.0?).

The client itself installs normally, but there are some graphical glitches in the system windows, and when I launch the game, I get an error: "A fatal DirectX error has occurred.(10000000)". I am disinclined to believe it may have to do with it being a 64-bit client, as this OS should run 64-bit fine.

My computer specs are as follows:

iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011)
Version 10.13.6 (17G14019)
2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
12 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB

Everything except for the RAM, which is increased, is the same as when I used to play the Mac version in 2017-2018.

Below are some screenshots of the issues described:





I have tried fiddling with the FFXIV.cfg and FFXIV_BOOT.cfg files, but nothing worked.

Is there anything I can do to solve this DirectX error? I understand my computer is below the required settings for Shadowbringers, but it used to run this game in HW and SB and from my extensive internet digging I have seen some people have had success in playing the game on High Sierra. I'd appreciate genuine suggestions and not just 'get a Windows computer' (I am also unable to install Bootcamp in this machine). Thank you in advance.

[ne0dym]

Update: Since the Mac client didn't work, I decided to simply try and install the Windows client using Wine instead. It took a lot of trial and error to figure out how to solve some DirectX errors I was getting but eventually I managed to get the game to launch perfectly. It runs as well as the native Mac client did, maybe even a little better, which means it's not completely smooth but should be playable. It's funny that the official client wouldn't work but my own Wine wrapped version does lmao. When the game goes on sale again I will definitely buy the Windows license. If anyone has the same issue and would like to try what I did, I'll be happy to (attempt to) explain my solution.

[Packetdancer]

It's funny that the official client wouldn't work but my own Wine wrapped version does lmao.

Eh, not really that odd. Crossover is a tweaked, optimized version of Wine, and moreover probably one derived from a version of Wine later than installing wine-stable from Homebrew on High Sierra will get you. In particular, Crossover (and Wine in general) needed a bunch of changes to support running 32-bit Windows executables on a 64-bit-only operating system (i.e. Catalina), so they did all kinds of stuff to make the graphics pipeline theoretically more powerful while in there. Unfortunately, all those upgrades also bumped the base version of MacOS required, presumably because (as witnessed above) some of those changes didn't work right on older systems.

Wrapping it in the base version of Wine that you did is basically like taking the current client and stuffing it into an older build of Crossover; on an old system, wholly viable. On a 64-bit-only system like Catalina or Big Sur, though, running the old version would simply fail. And I'm guessing they came down on the side of Catalina and Big Sur support being higher priority to them than continuing to support anything prior to Mojave.

[Rhaervis]

Good morning and thank you for posting on the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

Thank you for keeping us updated. We will be moving this thread to "Closed Concerns".

Good luck with your adventures through Eorzea!