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Mac, MoltenVK, problem report and hope for the future

trimsic_ESO
trimsic_ESO
✭✭✭✭✭
My understanding of the Vulkan API is to leverage "a cross-platform industry standard enabling developers to target a wide range of devices with the same graphics API."

IMHO this is a rationale approach for a game developper willing to address multiple platforms such as Windows, Mac, and others. The drawback being to depend on the desire and capacity of the maintainers of this library to address problems in a reasonable delay.

The Vulkan SDK for Mac OS includes MoltenVK, which is a library runtime for the metal API. As you can see on the official Web Sites here and here, the Vulkan SDK and the MoltenVK runtime are both actively maintained by the community. Many bugs are regularly fixed and improvements are implemented.

So this looks very good for the future of the game on the Mac platform, provided that the latest version of the runtime is integrated to the game of course.

I have an iMac 2020 5K with the following specs:
- Intel Core i9, 10 cores, 3.6 GHz
- 32 Gb DDR4, 2667 Mhz
- AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 Gb

That's quite a beast !

On this fantastic machine, I can play ESO at 4K, all graphics settings at max, and still have very good performances: 30-50 frames per second. The game is absolutely beautiful, and I would like to congratulate ZOS for their fantastic work on the graphics, lights, textures, and lore.

However, I face the following problems:
- In order to play the game at 4k, I need to first setup my desktop screen resolution at 5k (option click on the monitor 'resolution at scale' option) because the game won't propose resolutions above those of my desktop.
- The game sometimes freezes for 5 to 10 seconds - I would say 2 or 3 times per hour - thus preventing me from playing a tank in dungeons, which is a role I like to play a lot.
- The game crashes in the Molten VK runtime about once a day.
- The text is blurry at resolutions less than 4K (plate names, chat, labels, ...); at half the native screen resolution (2560 x 1440), the textures get blurry as well, so there seems to be a problem with the down sampling algorithm.
- Some keyboard or mouse inputs (MS4 and MS5 buttons for instance) are not taken into account in some dialogs (craft, ...).

I don't know if some of these problems have already been addressed by the Vulkan community to be honest. But if this is not the case yet, I believe they will in the future.

As a Mac player, I can only hope ZOS is willing to continue the support of their game on Mac by regularly integrating the latest version of the MoltenVK runtime. Please, don't forget us, the Mac users, as we're also part of your community ;)
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