State of ESO on the Mac 2020

demerdecanswrath

So, here we are. Almost 1.5 years after Update 20, which brought about more harm than (intended) good to our beloved ESO.

The Good

• The Mac codebase supports Metal.
• ZoS finally spoke with contracts, blog posts and more than pinky promises for those messy performance issues.
• 64 bit Launcher.
• We got two truly epic chapters.

The Bad

• The Mac codebase actually supports MoltenVK (a Vulkan library for Metal), which IMO is a clear pick for short term profits over long term customer sat and code robustness, but I'll let you be the judge of that.
• ESO support probably had 0 training on the Mac. I've been suggested the same 2 unhelpful cue cards for 6 entirely different issues, and the conversation never developed further.
• No integration with other clients like Discord (specifically bothers me but I could also not care that much).

The Ugly

• The eso.app is left for dead at this point. It only loads the game .dat files. Not a single tiny piece of integration with macOS.*
• Unless an issue is seriously firing up this part of the forums, there is not a tiny shred of communication (except maybe cue cards).

I've gone through the entire cycle of anger, frustration, acceptance thrice over with this horrendously maintained codebase and now I'm just doing a reality check with you all to see how you view this issue as well.

* no true full screen/close options, macOS character menu popping up randomly, no dark mode, disappearing cursors, no Retina option support, no auto-keyboard switching to English (when a non latin character keyboard is enabled, leading also to white boxes for keyboard hints), poor PS4 & Xbox controller support (their drivers are now built into macOS Catalina) and doesn't really belong here but the Launcher needs some of these features mentioned here.

P.S.: I just hope you describe in the replies below some of your experiences as well, to provide a holistic view of what it means to play ESO on a Mac and maybe, just maybe, a director gets to see this and we get something more than an acknowledgement .. and something less than an eye roll.

demerdecanswrath

**edited

randallkn

I'm surprised anyone is stilling playing, but I'm glad you find something worthwhile in the experience. One of the things that drew me to ESO in the first place was Mac support, but if I were going to play an MMO on a Wintendo or Boot Camp, I might as well see what else the landscape has to offer.

Coorbin

I gave up on it a while ago, before the Catalina launcher came out. This was one of the major reasons (among others) that I decided to sell my 2018 MacBook Pro, and get a real gaming laptop. I got a MSI GS65 Stealth and, after faffing about with Windows for a while, went all-in on Ubuntu.

Amusingly, ESO runs better on Ubuntu than it does on MacOS by far, and Ubuntu is running it through Wine! (Well, it's Steam's Proton software, but it uses Wine and DXVK at its core.) Wine translates Windows machine code and API calls to their Linux equivalents, whereas on MacOS, you guys get a "native" port -- as far as I'm aware there's no Windows emulation going on on Mac.

The main reason it runs so great, is because on Wine/Proton there's the fantastic DirectX to Vulkan translation layer developed by the open source community (and Valve, Google and others) and it can be upgraded independently of the game itself. Also on Linux, both Nvidia and AMD have very, very good (highly optimized and full-featured) Vulkan drivers for modern cards.

Cap it off with the fact that in recent releases of Vulkan, they've actually gone out of their way to reduce the performance problems with emulating DirectX on top of Vulkan (specifically, in versions 1.1 and 1.2) and this is basically the best way to run ESO (and other DirectX games) without running Windows. The DXVK layer is so reliable and fast that it feels like I'm running it natively -- and it doesn't have the graphical glitches of MoltenVK, either!

Oh yeah, and the RTX 2080 Max-Q in my laptop has about 3-5x the performance of your typical Macbook Pro AMD graphics card. That helps a lot, too.

All in all, I would say those who hate Windows and need an alternative should move to Linux rather than Mac. If you can get off of Apple's platform, do so. They are not providing game developers like ZOS with the proper support they need, like a native Vulkan API, first-class Nvidia driver support, and higher-end GPUs in MacBooks. Obviously they don't care whether gaming is part of their platform or not, unless it's silly casual games on the App Store.

demerdecanswrath

Coorbin wrote: »

All in all, I would say those who hate Windows and need an alternative should move to Linux rather than Mac. If you can get off of Apple's platform, do so.

I don't think anybody genuinely hates Windows in here. It's just that macOS is our desired/forced operating system and thank god we have an opportunity to experience Tamriel without getting additional hardware/software and making a hassle of things.

As a programmer, I get your enthusiasm on making a custom software mended solution to play ESO however you like, but this is not officially supported. I really wish I had your free time.

Also, keep in mind that hardware isn't often an issue with TES games. They're built to be accessible through the lowest settings if one is really out of luck with their machine. If you have a spare $650+ and can purchase an RTX 2080 for ESO of all games, you're free to do so.

zarnon_akoni

I've been playing on MAC for nearly 3 years. Ups and downs and all but mostly steady decline. Lots of complaining here. I got a new iMac this fall and it made a world of difference. I am not yet on Catalina.

Most notably I have had a great time with the PVP event. Cyrodiil was always horrendously bad - load screen and lag-death hell. But this weekend was awesome. I probably wasn't performing as well as other players' machines but I could play and had no load screens and barely any lag. There is no way it was just a new Mac.

Yes, you can't have an old computer. But yes, things have gotten.

fiender66

My IRL job is consultant for data analysis (soft computing oriented), so I have at my disposal an i7 iMac, an i7 Mac Book Pro with eGPU and a bit older MSI (win 10, nVidia 1060). Now I do not write much new software, but have been a full time programmer using mainly vanilla C (K&R type, yep, I'm that old). That said, I do not experience so many problems with ESO on Mac. Yes, the performance is marginally better on the PC, but IMO this is largely overcome by the integration with Mac OS (better windowed/full mode, for me, etc).
I have enough numbers crunching in RL, so I'm not a big fan of testing, measuring, etc when playing. A reasonable smooth experience is enough for me. BTW, i still use Mojave, and am not allured by the cosmetic improvements of Catalina, and its security/privacy paranoia

demerdecanswrath

"PRE-PURCHASE GREYMOOR NOW! "

rluke

are there any fix in the current pts version ?

AyeshaBelladonna

**Edited because at this point, due to Mojave making me look like I'm playing ESO on a potato when an hour ago i was flying along on high graphics, I cannot express my frustration and disappointment with ZOS' inability to properly support us without being ban-worthy rude.

demerdecanswrath

So, Update 25 did make things a little smoother! I'm actually looking forward for Phase 2.

Load times aren't reduced as much as advertised, but then again that might be just me. Can anyone confirm?

Absolutely nothing on macOS integration, still.

kylewwefan

The controller mode is working much better now. I can use it to see the map now and mount horse and I figured out the key binding thing to switch crouch and weapon swap.

I’m playing on about as old an iMac the game will allow with Catalina so I don’t expect the best of graphics but it’s doing alright.

I have switched to windowed mode, because I do still have to force quit the game and it’s somewhat annoying when the cursor disappears and can’t do anything.

Why does that white box stay on the mouse pointer? I couldn’t play with kbm, but that would be super annoying if you did.

Holycat

kylewwefan wrote: »

Why does that white box stay on the mouse pointer? I couldn’t play with kbm, but that would be super annoying if you did.

You can remove the white box by changing your mouse pointer size ever so slightly.

System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Display -> Cursor size

Hope it helps!

nathan_bri

As much as I hate to admit this, I think we have reached a point where the original promise of being able to effectively run the game on both Windows and Macintosh—the way Blizzard does superbly with WoW, Diablo 3 and Starcraft—is just not something the size of the team of developers at ZoS can manage at this point. There are now just too many moving parts, a third party launcher, and the two big changes Apple has made: retiring OpenGL for Metal and increased security to the point of almost paranoia.

These have forced developers like ZoS to make tough choices about how to handle the loss of OpenGL support and all this extra security. It’s a somewhat untenable position to be in as a smaller developer. ZoS is small compared to Blizzard.

As a result of this revelation, I deleted ESO from Mac OS X, freed up some room in my Bootcamp partition via utility tools, then re-installed ESO there. From now on, I am treating ESO as a Windows-only game as that seems to be their primary development focus from now on with only remedial efforts at Mac support.

demerdecanswrath

nathan_bri wrote: »

.. not something the size of the team of developers at ZoS can manage at this point.

Well, they are always hiring. If you look at the listings, ZoS has never openly looked for anyone with experience on Apple technologies.

nathan_bri wrote: »

.. how to handle the loss of OpenGL support and all this extra security ..

I'll agree with ZoS that even "hastily" transitioning the game to MoltenVK was a good long-term move, since OpenGL is already far behind us. But if their business processes are FIFO (aka slowwww), which is what they've been demonstrating all these years from a maintenance perspective, we'll either have news on the Mac in 2023 (at the earliest) or support gets dropped entirely for the platform.

This is mere speculation, since @ZOS_GinaBruno hasn't addressed the elephant in this room for so long that it died of old age.

henrycupcakerwb17_ESO

demerdecanswrath wrote: »

So, here we are. Almost 1.5 years after Update 20, which brought about more harm than (intended) good to our beloved ESO.

The Good

• The Mac codebase supports Metal.
• ZoS finally spoke with contracts, blog posts and more than pinky promises for those messy performance issues.
• 64 bit Launcher.
• We got two truly epic chapters.

The Bad

• The Mac codebase actually supports MoltenVK (a Vulkan library for Metal), which IMO is a clear pick for short term profits over long term customer sat and code robustness, but I'll let you be the judge of that.
• ESO support probably had 0 training on the Mac. I've been suggested the same 2 unhelpful cue cards for 6 entirely different issues, and the conversation never developed further.
• No integration with other clients like Discord (specifically bothers me but I could also not care that much).

The Ugly

• The eso.app is left for dead at this point. It only loads the game .dat files. Not a single tiny piece of integration with macOS.*
• Unless an issue is seriously firing up this part of the forums, there is not a tiny shred of communication (except maybe cue cards).

I've gone through the entire cycle of anger, frustration, acceptance thrice over with this horrendously maintained codebase and now I'm just doing a reality check with you all to see how you view this issue as well.

* no true full screen/close options, macOS character menu popping up randomly, no dark mode, disappearing cursors, no Retina option support, no auto-keyboard switching to English (when a non latin character keyboard is enabled, leading also to white boxes for keyboard hints), poor PS4 & Xbox controller support (their drivers are now built into macOS Catalina) and doesn't really belong here but the Launcher needs some of these features mentioned here.

P.S.: I just hope you describe in the replies below some of your experiences as well, to provide a holistic view of what it means to play ESO on a Mac and maybe, just maybe, a director gets to see this and we get something more than an acknowledgement .. and something less than an eye roll.

I don't get it.. so is the game currently running on apple metal api or not?

demerdecanswrath

henrycupcakerwb17_ESO wrote: »

I don't get it.. so is the game currently running on apple metal api or not?

Yes, through the MoltenVK library. This means ZoS writes Vulkan code, but MoltenVK "translates" it to Metal.

nathan_bri

demerdecanswrath wrote: »

Well, they are always hiring. If you look at the listings, ZoS has never openly looked for anyone with experience on Apple technologies.

They apparently have never looked for anyone who is competent enough to keep them up-to-date on the Mac OS side, thus ever-increasing list of issues we continue to see. I recommend folks switch to the Windows client via Bootcamp. A spot that was giving me 20–40 fps with medium-ish settings in the Mac Client is giving me 50–60 fps in Windows at high-ish settings. That tells me everything I need to know about the state of their Mac support.

The nice thing is you can download Windows 10 from Microsoft for free (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO). You can run it as a “demo” version literally forever, provided you don’t mind not being able to customize the background and so forth after the first trial month. You can also buy a Windows 10 OEM license from eBay for super cheap (search for “windows 10 pro key”), like less than $7 sometimes. I bought one a couple weeks ago and it worked fine.

demerdecanswrath

nathan_bri wrote: »

I recommend folks switch to the Windows client via Bootcamp.

Can we unanimously agree that boot camp is a non-solution? Of course we could also stack up a linux distro with Wine like @Coorbin suggests, but switching from macOS is so far beyond the point of this entire forum section.

We need clarity on the future of the sub-sub-sub-sub-optimal macOS client.

The conspiracy theorist in me says that there are some thick NDAs around the Mac situation.

Trincasidra

demerdecanswrath wrote: »

Can we unanimously agree that boot camp is a non-solution?

Yes please. If we wanted to run Windows, we wouldn't have bought a Mac.

Some feedback from my experience:

• Gamepad doesn't work. Check here.
• When closing the game, it takes really long. Sometimes it even gets stuck and I have to power off my computer the hard way. If I do so, the game is stuck behaving like it's its first time launching, always. I suspect this has to do with shader/pipeline caches being saved in the Documents folder. Deleting those files fixes the ever-first-launch problem. Possibly the game ends up getting stuck due to a memory leak.
• Cursor texture glitch and system cursor not disappearing as in demerdecanswraths' post. For me it only happens when playing in 4k. It works well when I let MacOS do its retina thing so resolution is 1080p. Although of course game looks significantly worse.
• Related to above point, fullscreen can't be set on 4k if desktop size is not 4k. Other games are able to go 4k in fullscreen independently of MacOS UI scale/resolution.
• Constant screen tearing.
• Screen freezes for a bit regularly. Some zones like Heaven's Star are a nightmare at like 5fps.
• Not sure what's the performance on Windows, but I get 60fps on 1080p and 50fps on 4k, which seems underwhelming.

Last but not least, my system:
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018)
CPU: 2,6 GHz Intel Core i7 6-core
RAM: 16 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
eGPU: Radeon RX Vega 64 8 GB

Just sharing for the sake of ruling out system power out of the equation. I know there's some loss on the eGPU, but it's much better than running some intel iris.

demerdecanswrath

Trincasidra wrote: »

...Some feedback from my experience...

Thanks for the feedback, did you also submit a ticket listing the exact issues?

demerdecanswrath

After updating to today's patch (5.3.7) I noticed the game hijacking the main thread even more. The whole system freezes up for an entire minute when entering a load screen.

Evilspock

demerdecanswrath wrote: »

So, Update 25 did make things a little smoother! I'm actually looking forward for Phase 2.

Load times aren't reduced as much as advertised, but then again that might be just me. Can anyone confirm?

Absolutely nothing on macOS integration, still.

I timed pre-patch load times so I could check the difference. I was looking forward to reduced character login times, but for me it isn't reduced AT ALL.

Another issue that seems will never be fixed, is when you login to get to character select. If you do not keep the game window in the foreground, it will take a really long time or just not load. So you have to sit there and just watch a dumb load screen instead of being able to do other things on your computer while you wait.

TheBunny

Evilspock wrote: »

demerdecanswrath wrote: »

So, Update 25 did make things a little smoother! I'm actually looking forward for Phase 2.

Load times aren't reduced as much as advertised, but then again that might be just me. Can anyone confirm?

Absolutely nothing on macOS integration, still.

I timed pre-patch load times so I could check the difference. I was looking forward to reduced character login times, but for me it isn't reduced AT ALL.

Another issue that seems will never be fixed, is when you login to get to character select. If you do not keep the game window in the foreground, it will take a really long time or just not load. So you have to sit there and just watch a dumb load screen instead of being able to do other things on your computer while you wait.

Thats was meant as a feature...
Game is FPS / Main loop is throttled down when in the back ground so users can use other apps out side of ESO like chat clients etc. Without that ESO used to hog all the cores.

demerdecanswrath

Thats was meant as a feature...
Game is FPS / Main loop is throttled down when in the back ground so users can use other apps out side of ESO like chat clients etc. Without that ESO used to hog all the cores.

Mostly false. There are many core intensive applications (FCPX, LPX) which continue their work seamlessly in the background and play remarkably well with macOS's GCD. I don't know if these performance improvements will lead up to better performance on macOS, so far the stuttering in this client has been insane.

What I do know is that ZoS has a sad excuse of a Mac executable, in every possible way.

Especially now due to COVID19.

kylewwefan

Why does the PTS play better on my tired old Mac than Live? I want pts type performance. Lol

Do you guys have to force quit eso too or am I the only one?

TheBunny

demerdecanswrath wrote: »

Thats was meant as a feature...
Game is FPS / Main loop is throttled down when in the back ground so users can use other apps out side of ESO like chat clients etc. Without that ESO used to hog all the cores.

Mostly false. There are many core intensive applications (FCPX, LPX) which continue their work seamlessly in the background and play remarkably well with macOS's GCD. I don't know if these performance improvements will lead up to better performance on macOS, so far the stuttering in this client has been insane.

What I do know is that ZoS has a sad excuse of a Mac executable, in every possible way.

Especially now due to COVID19.

I wrote the original game client... just trying to be useful... sorry to offend you...

demerdecanswrath

TheBunny wrote: »

I wrote the original game client... just trying to be useful... sorry to offend you...

We've spoken before and it really doesn't matter if you wrote the original client or not as of now. Let's keep this thread on topic.

thedavidventer

Hi guys,

New macOS ESO player here. Some backstory: I'm a long-time WoW addict (been playing since WoTLK) but I've gotten bored of the cartoony graphics and the tab target combat. One of the reasons I've been playing WoW for so long is the amazing macOS integration and compatibility. Blizzard is always on-point with the latest Apple technologies and integrates their games flawlessly. That said; I've always wanted to find a WoW replacement, preferably one with better graphics, a better combat system and Controller integration.

I've heard about Skyrim a while back but kinda ignored it. Then the other day, I opened steam and The Elder Scrolls Online happened to pop up as the news feature. I watched the trailer, saw that it was free to try and that it runs on macOS with controller support. Yes! Great! So, I download it. After about 10 minutes in-game I found the following bugs which are extremely frustrating to deal with and also quite a disappointment as I was expecting full macOS integration..

Bug 1: Incorrect/Broken Fullscreen and game resolution implementation on macOS Catalina:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/520106/incorrect-broken-fullscreen-and-game-resolution-implementation-on-macos-catalina#latest

Bug 2: Controller support is broken on macOS Catalina:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/520104/controller-support-is-broken-on-macos-catalina#latest

Despite these seriously annoying and infuriating bugs, I immediately fell in love with the game and bought it (at a great discount because of the current sale that's on - Thank you Zenimax and Steam!) I love this game!

Would I have made an effort to find a way to play it if it only ran in Bootcamp/Windows? No, absolutely not! The fact that it does run on macOS is what lured me in. Actually playing it and seeing how awesome it is made me purchase it. However, seeing months-old threads on this forum related to the same bugs mentioned above made me worried. Is the macOS player base being ignored? I hope not! I'd love to continue playing this game on macOS, and I'd also gladly subscribe to a Plus membership, provided that macOS support will continue and will also be properly implemented. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.

If this becomes another Windows-only title, or 'lazy' macOS port thereof, I'll be very sad and it won't make me run Bootcamp; I'll just drop the game as quickly as I jumped into playing it. That said, this is an absolutely beautiful game, it's fun to play, and I can very well see this becoming my new addiction (if it Isn't already). I just hope that the macOS-related bugs in ESO get fixed. Please Zenimax developers, if you're reading this, please do not neglect the macOS player base! Please fix these issues! And when you do, consider me your next ESO Plus subscriber because this game is EPIC!

I implore all other macOS gamers on this forum to chime in on the bug report posts I've made. Hopefully we'll get noticed and then these issues can get fixed.

Thanks for reading.

kylewwefan

@thedavidventer they are actively working on the controller support. Just from last patch to this one, it got better. At least on Mac. The game did not originally have any controller support at all.

I have still had small issues here and there, just changing it from automatic to on did seem to help.

I won’t play in the full screen because it has some big issues. Like if the game decides to stop responding and I need to force quit; and it’s stuck in full screen and I can’t access the force quit, and then have to shut the Mac off manually; and then it still doesn’t want to work right when it comes back on.

Yeah, there’s some big issues with that.

The game will not turn off and close out right for me. Every time it must be force quit.

demerdecanswrath

thedavidventer wrote: »

New macOS ESO player here..

First of all, welcome! Glad to have such nice people in the community. Thank you for shedding even more light on those bug reports.

ESO used to be the exact opposite before the September 2018 Update - terrible performance, but overall great macOS integration.

Now performance is, and is getting, better. Absolutely no news on macOS integration since ZoS announced its not a priority 13 months ago.

Here we are today, the most dedicated members shrieking about it here and submitting bug reports of well-known as well as brand new issues emerging.

You're most likely not going to get any communication from ZoS about any of this.

Have no expectations is my point, if your Mac runs ESO as commercials intended it to, then you're lucky.