Mac support for M Series

LaxWoW18 · February 4

With this year being a change in how they are updating the game, do you think there might be a chance that the new Apple laptop will be supported?

My M4 max is able was able to play the game at max settings pretty dang well for a couple days. Then one morning, I tried to login and got a “corrupted file” message that I could never get past. Even uninstalled the game and reinstalled and still got the “corrupted files” message.

ZOS_Phoenix · February 4

@LaxWoW18

We would recommend trying the applicable steps in this article to see if they help with this issue.

denisclairetneb18_ESO · February 5

What's funny is that the article only give steps for... windows. LaxWoW18 is asking for help for.. MacOS.

Really ZOS, you're funny.

LaxWoW18 · February 5

While I agree with Denis that the instructions are for windows, I am going to give it a try.

ZOS_Phoenix wrote: »

@LaxWoW18

We would recommend trying the applicable steps in this article to see if they help with this issue.

Taucheranzug · July 15

Hey everybody,

picking up this old thread, just to point you guys toward the fact that Apple has just announced to drop Rosetta 2 in 2027's macOS (meaning in two years). Rosetta 2 is the built-in translation layer of macOS that enables Intel-coded apps (e.g. ESO for Mac) to run on Apple Silicon hardware (Apple M1, M2, M3, M4 and so on).

This means that unless Zenimax decides to develop a native Apple Silicon version of ESO for Mac after all until then (which unfortunately seems highly unlikely), we won't be able to play ESO on Apple Silicon machines at all after Fall of 2027, with the exception of using 3rd party Windows emulator helper software like Parallels or CrossOver or whatever - sadly, all of those are working jerky at best.

Food for thought. Clock's ticking.

Best

keto3000 · September 11

Taucheranzug wrote: »

Hey everybody,

picking up this old thread, just to point you guys toward the fact that Apple has just announced to drop Rosetta 2 in 2027's macOS (meaning in two years). Rosetta 2 is the built-in translation layer of macOS that enables Intel-coded apps (e.g. ESO for Mac) to run on Apple Silicon hardware (Apple M1, M2, M3, M4 and so on).

This means that unless Zenimax decides to develop a native Apple Silicon version of ESO for Mac after all until then (which unfortunately seems highly unlikely), we won't be able to play ESO on Apple Silicon machines at all after Fall of 2027, with the exception of using 3rd party Windows emulator helper software like Parallels or CrossOver or whatever - sadly, all of those are working jerky at best.

Food for thought. Clock's ticking.

Best

Did anyone ask about Mac support in the recent AMA?

Voiddreams · October 5

M4 Mac Pro Max
Running OS 26 (Tahoe)
I can run the game natively, (no steam or porting software)
It is misery because the ZOS will not support M processors, even though they changed the Mac requirements to say 2013 or newer, without the intel caveat.

It can be done, and Minion 3.0 can be used.

The Java client from oracle dropped the Java FX so it is harder.

Taucheranzug · October 17

Hey everybody,

obviously, there's a new option appearing on the horizon for us Apple Silicon players. It's called Mythic and it seems to be still in Alpha status, but the web page already looks quite professional :

https://getmythic.app

It's an open source launcher for all Windows games on the Epic Store (Steam support in development) using a custom implementation of Apple's Game Porting Toolkit. You can even import your own Windows titles aside the Epic Store.

Has someone maybe already tried that or is someone planning to...? Can't wait to hear about some experiences with Mythic...

Have a nice weekend everyone!

P.S.: ESO base game is currently only 4.99 EUR on the Epic Store (until October 24).

EDIT:
Just tried it all myself, didn't work. The Windows ESO setup.exe was downloaded, but that was as far as I could get. Wasn't able to launch it, some error message about "Gecko" popped up, and that was it. Always got a "Time Out" error message. Maybe too early as the app is only in Alpha stage yet. Perhaps someone else is luckier than me, I'd love to read about your findings here!

CAB_Life · October 25

Why can’t they just make a version that uses the porting toolkit? Users can do it on their own, surely a multi-billion dollar company would have the resources to do it, too?

keto3000 · October 25

CAB_Life wrote: »

Why can’t they just make a version that uses the porting toolkit? Users can do it on their own, surely a multi-billion dollar company would have the resources to do it, too?

If Blizzard can do it, ZOS can too.

Taucheranzug · October 27

The problem here seems to be Internet Explorer 11 or Edge.

AFAIK, all Windows wrappers (CrossOver, Mythic, Game Porting Toolkit etc.) are currently WINE-based. The ESO launcher (that installs and patches ESO) first checks the installed Windows version (which is not a problem at all because you can set the Win version using WINECFG or directly from within the wrapper), then it checks if IE 11 or EDGE (Win 11) is installed because it needs them to display stuff within the launcher. And here, the problem start as neither IE 11 nor Edge are included in the WINE containers of said wrappers. The result is an error message box saying something like "Host_IEVersion fail".

And while it's possible to install e.g. IE8 using WINETRICKS, there's obviously no way to install IE11 or Win 11's Edge into a WINE Windows container (or "bottle") as both are implemented way too deep within Windows 10 or 11 respectively. I myself at least wasn't able to find a way around that.

So to me it seems that currently the only way to go is to use a full virtualizer like Parallels Desktop/VMware or to use the Steam version of ESO together with CrossOver (which didn't work too well for me when I tried). I easily managed to get the Windows version of ESO running within VMware and especially within Parallels Desktop though, but the playing experience was still a bit too jerky with my MacStudio M1 Max, even on low graphics settings. I believe that if you own a M3 or M4, then that should not be a problem though. Will try next year as soon as the M5 will make its way to the MacStudio ;-)

Best

keto3000 · 12:12AM

Taucheranzug wrote: »

The problem here seems to be Internet Explorer 11 or Edge.

AFAIK, all Windows wrappers (CrossOver, Mythic, Game Porting Toolkit etc.) are currently WINE-based. The ESO launcher (that installs and patches ESO) first checks the installed Windows version (which is not a problem at all because you can set the Win version using WINECFG or directly from within the wrapper), then it checks if IE 11 or EDGE (Win 11) is installed because it needs them to display stuff within the launcher. And here, the problem start as neither IE 11 nor Edge are included in the WINE containers of said wrappers. The result is an error message box saying something like "Host_IEVersion fail".

And while it's possible to install e.g. IE8 using WINETRICKS, there's obviously no way to install IE11 or Win 11's Edge into a WINE Windows container (or "bottle") as both are implemented way too deep within Windows 10 or 11 respectively. I myself at least wasn't able to find a way around that.

So to me it seems that currently the only way to go is to use a full virtualizer like Parallels Desktop/VMware or to use the Steam version of ESO together with CrossOver (which didn't work too well for me when I tried). I easily managed to get the Windows version of ESO running within VMware and especially within Parallels Desktop though, but the playing experience was still a bit too jerky with my MacStudio M1 Max, even on low graphics settings. I believe that if you own a M3 or M4, then that should not be a problem though. Will try next year as soon as the M5 will make its way to the MacStudio ;-)

Best

I feel we should revisist and bring this discussion once again directly to the new dev team as a main thread and ask maybe ZOS Kevin if there has been any more recent consideration of re qffirming Mac support for the M architechture.