90 Days since Murkmire release. Will there ever be a working Mac client again?

protofeckless · January 2019

October 22, 2018:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/441713/pc-mac-patch-notes-v4-2-5

Mac Min Spec
We have switched the Mac renderer from OpenGL to MoltenVK (Metal) to support the upcoming release of the upcoming MacOS Mojave. 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

For 90 days there hasn't been a single Mac client able to play the game anywhere, on any spec, for any content (read "all meaningful content") that requires a sustained connection.

During which there has been no informative communication from ZOS that there is any plan, or hope, to address this. Commit please ZOS. Are you done with the Mac playerbase or not? What is the intention for this game?

90 days folks. This is not an unreasonable question.

Lady_Scorp72 · January 2019

Lots of people have had issues since Murkmire, but I am able to play ESO on my older iMac. The only serious issue I have is that I need to use the launcher to launch the game, or I get the infinite spinning glitch.

That said, it's definitely got more lag than I had before the Murkmire update (and much worse than my new gaming Windows laptop), but I can play it. I can't PVP though because of the huge framerate drops in Cyrodiil, and I need to turn off most add-ons and reduce my settings to Low/Med to get a decent framerate in other zones. How much of that is just my machine being older vs. issues with the update, I can't be sure. I'm guessing a combination of both factors.

iMac 21.5" Late 2013 i5 2.7 GHz
16 GB Ram
1TB Fusion drive
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M graphics processor with 1GB of GDDR5 memory
Mojave 10.14.2

FierceSam · January 2019

Not looking promising atm.

Minor increase in time between crashes since Murkmire

Zero comment, contact or reassurance from ZOS

Fixing the client didn't even make their priority list for 2019

btw their listed min Mac specs are

MAC MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Operating System: Mac® High Sierra v 10.13
Model: Late-2013 27-inch iMac and Newer
Storage: 85 GB free HDD space
Internet Broadband Connection

So anyone who has better than that should expect an exemplary, well built client the provides good game performance and doesn't crash every 90 minutes or so.

agegarton · February 2019

In answer to the OP...... No, probably not.

But in all honesty I’m wondering whether these guys really care. I can only assume, based on the complete failure of communication, that they feel the job is done to an adequate level.

When I raised tickets I was essentially given incorrect information by people who can’t read my system files and, when I queried that, I just got a stock copy/paste response telling me to turn down my graphics settings. These were already set to Medium, and I have the most powerful iMac in the market (far above the required spec).

So I’m plodding on with impaired FPS, regular unexpected crashes, freezes, and long loading screens. It just means that I’m playing less, and less, and less, and less...... it won’t be long before I end my subs, and I’d guess not long after that I just won’t bother any more.

susmitds · February 2019

It is not on the hands of ZOS. It was Apple who decided to drop OpenGL support

Deeprave · February 2019

susmitds wrote: »

It is not on the hands of ZOS. It was Apple who decided to drop OpenGL support

"support" being the operative word. In fact, OpenGL works just fine, it just won't get updated in future, and in fact, hasn't been updated in some years. But it is still there even in the latest Mojave.

Why we don't have an option to switch to using it since it is clearly less troublesome than Metal code is a question I'd like to ask. Abstracting a video api isn't exactly rocket science, and is almost certainly something they currently do to support multiple platforms.

alterfenixeb17_ESO · February 2019

protofeckless wrote: »

October 22, 2018:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/441713/pc-mac-patch-notes-v4-2-5

Mac Min Spec
We have switched the Mac renderer from OpenGL to MoltenVK (Metal) to support the upcoming release of the upcoming MacOS Mojave. 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

For 90 days there hasn't been a single Mac client able to play the game anywhere, on any spec, for any content (read "all meaningful content") that requires a sustained connection.

During which there has been no informative communication from ZOS that there is any plan, or hope, to address this. Commit please ZOS. Are you done with the Mac playerbase or not? What is the intention for this game?

90 days folks. This is not an unreasonable question.

As much as client indeed is in far worse state than it used to be before 4.2 I think that claiming that ever since not a single Mac user using Mac client is able to play the game is too much said really.

susmitds wrote: »

It is not on the hands of ZOS. It was Apple who decided to drop OpenGL support

Apple's decision was to drop support for OpenGL without adding native support of Vulkan, true. However it was decision by ZOS how to perform that change for TESO and that is something Apple has really little to do with.

IzzyStardust · February 2019

Today's Patch Notes:
The Elder Scrolls Online v4.2.13 includes several fixes specifically for the Mac game client, including one for a crash that would occur during long gameplay sessions, and improved performance across the game. The size of this patch is approximately 53MB.

protofeckless · February 2019

Well here's hoping. Since hope appears to be ZOS's strategy.

I'm not gonna apologize or gush on ZOS today but maybe after 112 days this nightmare will see some improvement.
- Rushed untested broken code to the Mac platform. All Macs. Every Mac player affected*
*If provably not true, never once provided evidence to the contrary or a workaround for Mac players (i.e. no testing, no comms)
- First official communication after weeks blaming customers for not enough bug reports (intern could have harvested hundreds per week just for playing)
- Released 4.2.11 after 2 months, alleging 3-4 fixed for Mac issues. All issues still happen.
- Released 4.2.12 after 3 months, alleging "Fixed a number of crashes found on the Mac game client." It didn't. Or: How many are there? Cause no change to user experience.
- Second official communication after ~100 days blaming Apple (though OpenGL still available / deprecation comms from Apple to market very fair / plenty of time to migrate successfully)
- Never mobilized user base to test and solve for problem(s)
- Never communicated any confidence in identifying the issue(s)
- Never communicated any progress in solving for them

It's all still pretty disgusting. But here's hoping.

reoskit · February 2019

protofeckless wrote: »

For 90 days there hasn't been a single Mac client able to play the game anywhere, on any spec, for any content (read "all meaningful content") that requires a sustained connection.

Out of curiosity, what constitutes "sustained"?

I mainly play on PC, but I occasionally do writs on a bunch of characters on my MBP. That's a lot of log in/log out. I'm not sure if sustained means the account session or the character session.

I've got a new MBP coming. I'm concerned the forced move from High Sierra (no issues) to Mojave will mean I see the issues you guys are having.

Thoughts?

otab · February 2019

reoskit wrote: »

Out of curiosity, what constitutes "sustained"?

I mainly play on PC, but I occasionally do writs on a bunch of characters on my MBP. That's a lot of log in/log out. I'm not sure if sustained means the account session or the character session.

I've got a new MBP coming. I'm concerned the forced move from High Sierra (no issues) to Mojave will mean I see the issues you guys are having.

Thoughts?

I play on my 2018 MBP, and I usually do not much more on a daily basis than crafting writs with several characters, and I have no issues these days.

I don't go much further out into the world since murkmire hit, because the larger scope of the game has become a minefield. I'm essentially treading water, waiting on ZOS to fix their debacle. I'm pretty confident that eventually they'll get there.

reoskit · February 2019

otab wrote: »

reoskit wrote: »

Out of curiosity, what constitutes "sustained"?

I mainly play on PC, but I occasionally do writs on a bunch of characters on my MBP. That's a lot of log in/log out. I'm not sure if sustained means the account session or the character session.

I've got a new MBP coming. I'm concerned the forced move from High Sierra (no issues) to Mojave will mean I see the issues you guys are having.

Thoughts?

I play on my 2018 MBP, and I usually do not much more on a daily basis than crafting writs with several characters, and I have no issues these days.

I don't go much further out into the world since murkmire hit, because the larger scope of the game has become a minefield. I'm essentially treading water, waiting on ZOS to fix their debacle. I'm pretty confident that eventually they'll get there.

Alright. Thanks for the reply. I'll stick to the simple stuff.

It sucks that you guys are in limbo. </3

protofeckless · February 2019

reoskit wrote: »

otab wrote: »

reoskit wrote: »

Out of curiosity, what constitutes "sustained"?

I mainly play on PC, but I occasionally do writs on a bunch of characters on my MBP. That's a lot of log in/log out. I'm not sure if sustained means the account session or the character session.

I've got a new MBP coming. I'm concerned the forced move from High Sierra (no issues) to Mojave will mean I see the issues you guys are having.

Thoughts?

I play on my 2018 MBP, and I usually do not much more on a daily basis than crafting writs with several characters, and I have no issues these days.

I don't go much further out into the world since murkmire hit, because the larger scope of the game has become a minefield. I'm essentially treading water, waiting on ZOS to fix their debacle. I'm pretty confident that eventually they'll get there.

Alright. Thanks for the reply. I'll stick to the simple stuff.

It sucks that you guys are in limbo. </3

Reo - hey guildie. Prior to last week's update, Mac users could count on crashing hourly give or take. One could do lightweight stuff, but playing where a connection was essential to complete - dungeons, trials, pvp, battlegrounds - forget it.

After last week's update, my personal experience is crashing is down to every 3-4 hours or so. I can get through 15 toons on writs. I can run a dungeon if I've logged in recently. I can farm up skill points running quests on a baby toon for a couple hours. I havent had the courage to run trials or BGs, but would probably get through them.

There's material improvement, but core issues remain. You'll be able to play on your Mac now.