Great news for mac/ ESO :NVIDIA, AMD, Intel Explain How OpenGL Can Unlock 15x Performance Gains

henrycupcakerwb17_ESO

take a look of it if you interested , the mac gaming may even have a brighter future , i think apple needs to do something about it ....push it harder ... http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/03/20/opengl-gdc2014/

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viktorcodeneb18_ESO

I hope the plan is flexible enough to include OpenGL 3.2 as the main venue for shaders etc. AND have performance optimizations for 4.1. This year Apple will release 10.10 which will be free again (so bigger numbers will upgrade), but may not have newer OpenGL revision. Still, if new client will come out next year, the proportion of 4.1-supporting players will be much bigger.

Monsoon

Can you imagine...crashing in Cyrodill 15X faster, awesome.

ldwulfub17_ESO

Frankly...... 10.7.

I'm sorry for the folks on older Macs, but we need to move forward on the gaming front.

Mac OS X Lion (10.7) was released in 2011, so three years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Lion

The only alternative I can see is for ESO to have a client that auto-detects the version and then acts accordingly (or two different clients). But that presents some support/development cost issues.

It would be interesting to know how many users out there are both Mac and still on 10.6 Snow Leopard...

Moonraker

ldwulfub17_ESO wrote: »

Frankly...... 10.7.

I'm sorry for the folks on older Macs, but we need to move forward on the gaming front.

Mac OS X Lion (10.7) was released in 2011, so three years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Lion

The only alternative I can see is for ESO to have a client that auto-detects the version and then acts accordingly (or two different clients). But that presents some support/development cost issues.

It would be interesting to know how many users out there are both Mac and still on 10.6 Snow Leopard...

Jonny Evans wrote an interesting article recently on why quite a few still run Snow Leopard, which is at least partly due to the fact that it is the last OS X version to run on some early Intel Macs.

Gaming wise, according to the Steam Hardware & Software survey which is a decent indicator of general stats;

MacOS 10.6.8 64 bit 6.92%

So around 7% of Mac gamers are still using it.

Generally the free update from 10.6.x > 10.9 has encouraged many to make the move and that also applies to previous 10.7.x users also. The uptake for the latest OS version is much higher on Macs when compared to Windows. Consider that Microsoft have only just officially EOL for XP!

Windows 8 64 bit 9.61%

compare that to;

MacOS 10.9.2 64 bit44.73%+42.08%
MacOS 10.9.1 64 bit 20.59%
MacOS 10.9.0 64 bit 3.43%

close to 60% of PC gamers still use Windows 7 released in 2009, two years before 10.7

But I do agree with you and actually Apple pretty aggressive stance on EOL to older OS X version and free upgrades now really does help push this.

In an MMO though, it is a commercial decision principally driven by covering as much of the potential market as possible and why they made the decision when they did to go for 32-bit and older API support.

Still, I imagine that ESO is going to be one of the last big AAA titles to use 32-bit now. And they plan to move to 64-bit at some point and support newer OGL.

The great news if Apple can be persuaded to take on board the lower end API changes is that it basically gives boosts to lower end cards also and doesn't require rewriting existing games or apps (I believe) for them to take advantage of the reduction in driver overhead.

It is all for the future but it will still require Apple to get it implemented and the drivers updated for it. Nvidia are already I think including this in their latest beta drivers PC side.

revvek

For now, I'm on a old MacPro1,1 and it's stuck on 10.7... I'm actually very impressed with how well this game runs on it. (it does have a newer video card, a 5770) If they want to move to OpenGL 3 however and require 10.9 I say go for it! I can get a new Mac, it's time anyway...

Moonraker

revvek wrote: »

For now, I'm on a old MacPro1,1 and it's stuck on 10.7... I'm actually very impressed with how well this game runs on it. (it does have a newer video card, a 5770) If they want to move to OpenGL 3 however and require 10.9 I say go for it! I can get a new Mac, it's time anyway...

Good to hear @revvek. it's the point of developing to cover such Macs. Moving to 3-4 is not suddenly going to be a magic bullet after all In time it would be nice and 64-bit for memory certainly but it works pretty fine for questing for me. Work continues towards the memory issue so it will get sorted in time.

Windshadow_ESO

revvek wrote: »

For now, I'm on a old MacPro1,1 and it's stuck on 10.7... I'm actually very impressed with how well this game runs on it. (it does have a newer video card, a 5770) If they want to move to OpenGL 3 however and require 10.9 I say go for it! I can get a new Mac, it's time anyway...

I am in the same boat with my 1.1 version mac pro( 4870video a 1 tera SSD and 20 gig ram) and the cost of refurbished 2012 vintage refurbed mac pro computers from Apple's refurb outlet has been dropping and as long as one picks a single processor mac it should be a painless switch

And as old version mac pro computers are replaced as the big users of mac pro computers in video production replace them now that the new mac pro is in full high volume production. ebay prices are dropping too

it is a shame that the new mac pro is not a better gaming computer though but given that i have so much firewire 800 stuff the last version of the cheese grater pro is a smarter and cheaper choice so agree cutting off at 10.7.5 would be a good move but requiring 10.9.x would have zenmax loose a lot of potential users

Moonraker

Windshadow_ESO wrote: »

it is a shame that the new mac pro is not a better gaming computer though but given that i have so much firewire 800 stuff the last version of the cheese grater pro is a smarter and cheaper choice so agree cutting off at 10.7.5 would be a good move but requiring 10.9.x would have zenmax loose a lot of potential users

If/ when they enable SLI type utilisation of both GPU in OS X it will be kick ass gaming machine, in fact I think probably the best GPU wise available

Check out the Crossfire enabled Mac Pro via Bootcamp Windows to see what it could do on this Barefeats testing.

Until they do the latest iMac 27 inch (late 2013) with Nvidia 780M is close to or actually beats out the new Mac Pro with dual AMD Firepro D700 (it's only using one GPU currently and apps need to be designed to use both specifically)

Windshadow_ESO

is the 5870 the best Video card that will work in a 1.1 mac pro if not what is?
Apple said the 4870 would not work in my 1.1 but it seems quite happy to be there for the last few years.
Looking to get extended use out of the old war horse and I was wondering what sort of improvement I could get from a newer card than the 4870 I run now…

in TESO of course

revvek

Windshadow_ESO wrote: »

is the 5870 the best Video card that will work in a 1.1 mac pro if not what is?
Apple said the 4870 would not work in my 1.1 but it seems quite happy to be there for the last few years.
Looking to get extended use out of the old war horse and I was wondering what sort of improvement I could get from a newer card than the 4870 I run now…

in TESO of course

In my experience the 5770 I have, can't go as fast as it could in theory because of motherboard limitations. But I'm not a pro at testing such things so can't say for sure...

New Mac is on my list of things to do...

henrycupcakerwb17_ESO

Moonraker wrote: »

show previous quotes

ldwulfub17_ESO wrote: »

Frankly...... 10.7.

I'm sorry for the folks on older Macs, but we need to move forward on the gaming front.

Mac OS X Lion (10.7) was released in 2011, so three years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Lion

The only alternative I can see is for ESO to have a client that auto-detects the version and then acts accordingly (or two different clients). But that presents some support/development cost issues.

It would be interesting to know how many users out there are both Mac and still on 10.6 Snow Leopard...

Jonny Evans wrote an interesting article recently on why quite a few still run Snow Leopard, which is at least partly due to the fact that it is the last OS X version to run on some early Intel Macs.

Gaming wise, according to the Steam Hardware & Software survey which is a decent indicator of general stats;

show previous quotes

MacOS 10.6.8 64 bit 6.92%

So around 7% of Mac gamers are still using it.

Generally the free update from 10.6.x > 10.9 has encouraged many to make the move and that also applies to previous 10.7.x users also. The uptake for the latest OS version is much higher on Macs when compared to Windows. Consider that Microsoft have only just officially EOL for XP!

show previous quotes

Windows 8 64 bit 9.61%

compare that to;

show previous quotes

MacOS 10.9.2 64 bit44.73%+42.08%
MacOS 10.9.1 64 bit 20.59%
MacOS 10.9.0 64 bit 3.43%

close to 60% of PC gamers still use Windows 7 released in 2009, two years before 10.7

But I do agree with you and actually Apple pretty aggressive stance on EOL to older OS X version and free upgrades now really does help push this.

In an MMO though, it is a commercial decision principally driven by covering as much of the potential market as possible and why they made the decision when they did to go for 32-bit and older API support.

Still, I imagine that ESO is going to be one of the last big AAA titles to use 32-bit now. And they plan to move to 64-bit at some point and support newer OGL.

The great news if Apple can be persuaded to take on board the lower end API changes is that it basically gives boosts to lower end cards also and doesn't require rewriting existing games or apps (I believe) for them to take advantage of the reduction in driver overhead.

It is all for the future but it will still require Apple to get it implemented and the drivers updated for it. Nvidia are already I think including this in their latest beta drivers PC side.

edited

LavaDrop

According to the presentations I've watched and forums posts on phoronix.com I've read, it requires a very current OpenGL version which unfortunately, is not the case for the Mac ESO client. An here comes another very hard realization: If your Mac can't support more than 4 Gb RAM, Mavericks is going to be horrible for you. Since Mavericks launched, for the kernel to use 1.3 Gb RAM has become normal. That leaves 2.73 Gb for the rest of the system including ESO, which when started, consumes about 1.2 Gb RAM.
Exciting things are happening on the OpenGL side, but I don't see them impacting ESO in the next year or so.

What I do find puzzling is why Zenimax made the client OpenGL 2.1 when the minimum supported hardware for the Mac ESO client according to the FAQ is compatible with OpenGL 3.3 and 4.1. The oldest Mac officially supported is from 2010 and that Mac is the mid 2010 MacBookPro, with a max of 8 Gb RAM and of course, officially supported by Mavericks.

revvek

I don't know of any Mav compatible Mac that is stuck with only 4GB of RAM?
many older Lion Macs maybe... I have a 7+ year old Core2Duo Macbook limited to 3GB... (it has 4 to get interleaving but only access 3 of it)

Honestly I'm good with cutting people off at a point with older hardware, because it's kind of funny to expect a Modern Game to run on ancient hardware...

that being said I'm glad it runs on my old Mac Pro, that si what is on my desk, but I have a first gen Macbook retina and it runs ok on there as well. I haven't tried it on external display to see it it gets better though... it's not better than my Mac Pro however...

LavaDrop

The first Aluminum iMac from 2007, all MacBookAirs up until 2012, the late 2007 MacBookPro; all are limited to 4 Gb RAM but still supported by Mavericks.

Moonraker

LavaDrop wrote: »

What I do find puzzling is why Zenimax made the client OpenGL 2.1 when the minimum supported hardware for the Mac ESO client according to the FAQ is compatible with OpenGL 3.3 and 4.1. The oldest Mac officially supported is from 2010 and that Mac is the mid 2010 MacBookPro, with a max of 8 Gb RAM and of course, officially supported by Mavericks.

You can read why in this post on MacRumors made by the ESO OS X Lead Engineer.

Moonraker

revvek wrote: »

I don't know of any Mav compatible Mac that is stuck with only 4GB of RAM?
many older Lion Macs maybe... I have a 7+ year old Core2Duo Macbook limited to 3GB... (it has 4 to get interleaving but only access 3 of it)

Honestly I'm good with cutting people off at a point with older hardware, because it's kind of funny to expect a Modern Game to run on ancient hardware...

that being said I'm glad it runs on my old Mac Pro, that si what is on my desk, but I have a first gen Macbook retina and it runs ok on there as well. I haven't tried it on external display to see it it gets better though... it's not better than my Mac Pro however...

If you go out and buy a brand new MacBook Air of any model they all come standard with 4GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3 memory (configurable up to 8GB)

It's one of the reasons of the Memory Compression in Mavericks that will allow the OS to work fine even with smaller amounts of RAM.

Generally I would recommend 8GB as the minimum even with a 32-bit process. It can work with less but it will generally run better with more than 4GB and less concern of other apps running etc.

LavaDrop

Thank you Moonraker! I had lost the article! I was looking for it at the insidemacgames forums.

KhajitFurTrader

LavaDrop wrote: »

The first Aluminum iMac from 2007, all MacBookAirs up until 2012, the late 2007 MacBookPro; all are limited to 4 Gb RAM but still supported by Mavericks.

According to some sources, the 2007 alumin(i)um iMacs unofficially support 6 GB of RAM (2 + 4). I still have one around in the house (with Lion and 4 GB installed), so i suppose I could put that theory to test. I definitely will install Mavericks on it one of these days, when I find the time.

Only problem is finding affordable 4 GB SO-DIMMs of PC2-5300 DDR2-667 memory. They're not exactly a bargain these days, and no longer sold on every corner.

revvek

MacBook Air is a compromise, if you buy one, you know it's not a gaming or workstation class system, and limited in many ways.

Moonraker

revvek wrote: »

MacBook Air is a compromise, if you buy one, you know it's not a gaming or workstation class system, and limited in many ways.

That's also true of most Macs given that they are built around energy and cooling efficiency over performance (mobile graphics cards etc.) More so granted in the MB Air, though it's quite possible to play ESO on it with appropriate settings. For an integrated GPU the Intel HD Graphics 5000 does a decent job.

revvek

Yeah, I have access to Mac mini we didn't realize was limited to 256 video memory when we ordered the special version with ATI chip vs intel... 256 in 2012?

Yes, Intel 5000 series is actually starting to get there.

LavaDrop

I have a Mac Mini 2012 for office use. If you max out the memory (16 Gb RAM, crucial Vengeance), the motherboard will assign 1 Gb exclusively for video.

revvek

Mac mini with discrete video card not intel does not do that.... Better card locked at 256! Go figure... Oh well, I'm eager to see the next Mac mini it's about due, and since it was the only missed Mac update last year going to haswell, I suspect it will be a new design. (I hope)
Here is an interesting thought.
The foot print could be the same as Apple TV and newer airports. They all now share the same shape footprint, just height, color and ports are different.

LavaDrop

Look at this:

revvek

Mine does not do that...

LavaDrop

Sorry, my bad

rjus1

I have been having issues with my skills becoming unresponsive during fights at times. I use a Razer Tartarus min key pad and Naga gaming mouse. At first I cursed my key pad and expensive gaming mouse, but my keyboard was also unresponsive; so it's not that stuff. As I am Frustrated by getting pounded by mobs i type /reloadui and boom it works again! So it's got to be a game issue.

Moonraker

rjus1 wrote: »

I have been having issues with my skills becoming unresponsive during fights at times. I use a Razer Tartarus min key pad and Naga gaming mouse. At first I cursed my key pad and expensive gaming mouse, but my keyboard was also unresponsive; so it's not that stuff. As I am Frustrated by getting pounded by mobs i type /reloadui and boom it works again! So it's got to be a game issue.

This is most likely server-side lag. Seems it's bad again right now on NA server from other forum posts.