Apple removing official OpenGL support from MacOS 10.14 onwards

WyndStryke · June 2018

In the news ...

* https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3033545/game-developers-fume-as-apple-deprecates-opengl
* http://massivelyop.com/2018/06/05/apples-opengl-deprecation-could-spell-trouble-for-some-mmos-on-mac/
* https://www.anandtech.com/show/12894/apple-deprecates-opengl-across-all-oses

ESO uses OpenGL 4.1 for it's Mac client. So rewrites onto Apple's Metal 2 API are presumably now in ZOS's to-do list ...

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/8ot67o/mac_apple_will_no_longer_officially_support/

Elsonso · June 2018

[snip]

More on topic... I don't play ESO on a Mac, but I have a MacBook. I guess I need to find out what the difference is between OpenGL and Metal 2. I'd prefer they not drop OpenGL, but I probably should keep an open mind.

[edit - sniped reply to removed post]

Natala · June 2018

I remember people asking about Metal for Elder Scrolls before and there being no plans for it at the time. This could be bad news for the future of ESO on Mac. On the other hand if they turn out to still have enough Mac developers to do it... a well built Metal based client would be a breath of fresh air.

Arkadius · June 2018

Natala wrote: »

I remember people asking about Metal for Elder Scrolls before and there being no plans for it at the time. This could be bad news for the future of ESO on Mac. On the other hand if they turn out to still have enough Mac developers to do it... a well built Metal based client would be a breath of fresh air.

Another solution could be to implement a Vulkan renderer atop of MoltenVK (Valves open source Vulkan to Metal translator). Wndows (and even Linux) users would benefit from that too.

Ostacia · June 2018

I read over the links posted and it doesn't sound gloomy, unless I'm missing something. There's no indication that ESO will drop Mac support that I saw. Someone even mentioned that users will have a "better graphics experience."

kenjitamura · June 2018

WyndStryke wrote: »

In the news ...

* https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3033545/game-developers-fume-as-apple-deprecates-opengl
* http://massivelyop.com/2018/06/05/apples-opengl-deprecation-could-spell-trouble-for-some-mmos-on-mac/
* https://www.anandtech.com/show/12894/apple-deprecates-opengl-across-all-oses

ESO uses OpenGL 4.1 for it's Mac client. So rewrites onto Apple's Metal 2 API are presumably now in ZOS's to-do list ...

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/8ot67o/mac_apple_will_no_longer_officially_support/

I think Mac is still planning on leaving OpenGL in place for the foreseeable future and are just finally commenting publicly on their lack of future investment in the standard. They haven't updated their OpenGL drivers in several years so the announcement just kind of affirms the status quo.

This means that likely ESO can just leave their OpenGL renderer in place and Mac users can expect to never see any performance improvements come down the Apple pipeline. Honestly, Mac users can't reasonably expect anything better than that.

It shouldn't be up to the ESO devs to keep chasing Mac's graphics moving target; they built the game targeting Mac's OpenGL renderer and can't be asked to create a whole new rendering back end just because Apple wants to play politics in a way that negatively affects their userbase.

Sorry Mac users, you have been placed into a position that Linux users have always been in. The Mac user base is probably not large enough to justify the ESO dev team to throw out all their previous effort and take the monumental challenge of training/hiring new devs to target a niche graphics standard. Not when the OpenGL renderer will still work albeit very crappy.

ZOS_Ragnar · June 2018

We have removed some posts that were detracting from the intended topic of this thread.

Carmina · June 2018

Ryan, it would have been way smarter if you had posted something like "We are going to port ESO to Metal 2 to enable our huge Mac community to keep playing"....

Sorry, just saying.

C.

target0026 · July 2018

There are a surprising amount of Mac gamers out there, the perception of too few Mac gamers is just erroneous. WoW already supports metal, what's to stop eso Mac players from jumping ship just because eso foolishly decided to drop Mac support? Keep in mind that Mac users typically have buying power, so they represent good paying customers. I don't think eso or any company would want to lose that customer base. In any event, can't OpenGL be installed manually? I saw that it's possible for Mac, but again these users represent customer buying power. I can't imagine any business wanting to lose them.

Jurand80 · August 2018

Boot camp or get a pc. Get over it. Summerset killed my game anyway. Non stop micro stuttering. 10.14 will kill it for the rest.

I got a gaming pc laptop now. Use osx for work only.

idk · August 2018

Jurand80 wrote: »

Boot camp or get a pc. Get over it. .

OP is correct in bringing this up and it is a worthy request for comment. It would be good for those that are on Macs to know if Zos plans to support the Max client through this change.

Delpi · August 2018

My game just went crappy on osx since summerset... I'm very sad, but sorry, I won't upgrade my whole bookmac or get a pc gaming for just one game. Are you mad???

demerdecanswrath · August 2018

My MacBook (12") is not a performer, but it's all I can have with me. No switching computers, no boot camp. I'm a heavy macOS user. I have an old PC for playing ESO and I can't keep going on with it forever. It is frustrating to know there is such a big community with so many events going on day in day out and I can't participate even in the lowest settings in the perfect operating environment. Mind you, I've paid twice for this game.

I'm not saying Metal 2 will fix all of this for me, but I have way too recent of a hardware & software configuration to still play along with OpenGL. Even from the Launcher things feel and are in actual fact, unplayable.

Some facts that highlight the ESO Launcher on the Mac:

choppy and blurry UI
MacOS handles storage readings in different ways, on most Macs the launcher never finds enough space to install when there clearly is.
Higher than usual CPU usage, there are temperature warnings after 10mins of leaving the Launcher to download the game ffs

I really, really hope the struggles we're having with the Mac client exist simply because the development team is focused heavily on an upcoming Metal 2 overhaul. In that case, I'm more than happy to wait.

Vapirko · August 2018

I just switched from a $3000 15 inch 2017 MacBook Pro with 16gb of ram and the best graphics card you could get (Radeon Pro 560 I think) to a $1300 Asus ROG Strix which has a GTX 1070 with same ram and about the same CPU speeds and the overall game performance is undoubtably better. Obviously the 1070 is way better than the 560 but I just find the whole game to be a lot smoother and more well functioning including addons in Windows. As a lifelong Mac user I just want to say: stop gaming on a Mac they’re horribly optimized for it and you always have to end up making some sort of compromise.

Elsonso · August 2018

.

Vapirko wrote: »

I just switched from a $3000 15 inch 2017 MacBook Pro with 16gb of ram and the best graphics card you could get (Radeon Pro 560 I think) to a $1300 Asus ROG Astrid which has a GTX 1070 with same ram and about the same CPU speeds and the overall game performance is undoubtably better. Obviously the 1070 is way better than the 560 but I just find the whole game to be a lot smoother and more well functioning including addons in Windows. As a lifelong Mac user I just want to say: stop gaming on a Mac they’re horribly optimized for it and you always have to end up making some sort of compromise.

That's too bad because I expect that Microsoft is heading towards Operating System as a Service.

Delpi · August 2018

It's not because of the mac, it's because this game is not optimized for it. I can play on my mac with AAA games with high settings without a problem, but when I open ESO it runs like a potato with even low settings.

moonio · August 2018

ESO seems to run very well on my Mac (iMac with 32gs of RAM) so I may consider moving over from console at some stage.

demerdecanswrath · August 2018

There is no debate whether there will be support or not, even indirectly through the Vulkan API (which basically sits on top of Metal). It's a matter of efficiency and modernising support for the game on already active platforms.

I find it disappointing that there hasn't been a single announcement, not even a slight hint.

Disappointing especially because it's not about Metal itself. It's the attitude towards the platform. I mainly work on macOS for and I hate even considering mixing up platforms and wasting money JUST to enjoy my favourite video game. Money that would otherwise be spent on the Crown Store anyways.

Please @ZOS_RyanM we need answers.

Kelces · August 2018

Outsourcing to China... and their firewall.

aldriq · August 2018

Maybe they can't talk yet about their plans to move ESO to unity or unreal ... We can always hope

WyndStryke · September 2018

OK so there's an update to this on the Murkmire PTS. Note the change to the minimum spec.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5453022/#Comment_5453022 (right at the end)

Mac Min Spec

We have switched the Mac renderer from OpenGL to MoltenVK (Metal) to support the upcoming release of the upcoming MacOS Mojave. Upon first launching the game, you will notice longer load times and frequent hitching as the shaders are rebuilt for MoltenVK, with some notable unstableness in this first PTS patch. We plan to make iterations throughout PTS to improve performance. To support these changes, we will be updating the minimum spec for all Mac players in Update 20.

These will be as follows:

Operating System: macOS High Sierra v 10.13
Model: Late-2013 27-inch iMac and Newer
Hard Disk Space: 85 GB free HDD space
Internet: Internet Broadband Connection

WyndStryke · September 2018

Arkadius wrote: »

...
Another solution could be to implement a Vulkan renderer atop of MoltenVK (Valves open source Vulkan to Metal translator). Wndows (and even Linux) users would benefit from that too.

Looks like you were exactly on the money. 'Gratz for forecasting this.

rluke · September 2018

"We have switched the Mac renderer from OpenGL to MoltenVK (Metal)"

Big THX Zeni !