Poorly optimised Mac client, Nvidia Drivers or OSX?

Asharin · June 2016

I'm running a late 2013 iMac, with nVidia GT750m gfx card. Playing ESo, when I first switched to using my mac (my PC motherboard died) I was pleasantly surprised how well it ran. Granted I had to have subsampling and textures at medium, low shadows etc, but I had a playable 35fps on average. After the TG update, this dropped to 20 fps at best...but then I installed the nVidia web drivers, and was back getting 35fps average, sometimes as much as 50!
After DB, it was back hovering between 20 - 30.

Just out of curiosity more than anything, I installed windows 10 via bootcamp. I installed the windows client and ran it.
Colour me surprised when I can run it with ALL details on full, including subsampling high, and still get 40 - 50fps!
So from that I can assume either the nVidia mac drives suck, the ESO client on mac needs more work, or OSX is a huge resource drain.
As the performance got steadiliy worse patch after patch, I'm leaning towards the ESO client itself.

Please Zenimax, can you do some work on the mac client? I don't like having to have windows installed for the ONE game I actually play

Wussypants · June 2016

The Mac Client runs on OpenGL which is a great but a little older and not so close to the hardware graphics API (Application Programming Interface).

So in a sense the Mac client isn't as well optimised as the DX12 (win10) client, because it is running on a not so optimised technology. That said I am playing on an integrated graphics card (Intel Iris Pro) and I easily get 30-60 FPS with medium to high settings and subsampling at high on a Macbook Pro.

Apple has released a new and much faster graphics API called Metal, but I don't think Zenimax would spend their ressources to implement this new technology.

KhajitFurTrader · June 2016

@Wussypants, the client uses Direct3D 11 on Windows. DX12 support is planned, but not here yet.

@Asharin, the Mac client has been updated to use OpenGL 4.1 with the Thieves Guild DLC. Formerly, it was on a much older version (2.1). Not only that, but textures have also been improved as well, taxing older/weaker machines more, while on the other hand delivering other improvements (e.g. the ground is now rendered in one pass instead of two). You could try out some of the performance tips I give in my Mac 64-bit client FAQ (link in sig).

bitsquare · June 2016

Graphics problems, sound problems, framerate problems...

I don't know how things look on the PC side, but Elder Scrolls Online support for Mac is dreadful.

Delpi · June 2016

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but for me, the performance was better with the 32 bit version. Since TG dlc, I have to use low graphics to have a decent fps.

KhajitFurTrader · June 2016

@Delpi, please refer to my 64-bit Mac client FAQ (link in sig) for some reasons why you might see a degradation of performance with the new client. Switching to OpenGL 4.1 with simultaneously improved textures could be a possible cause of it. There are some ways that probably could alleviate this.

Sadly, or luckily, the 64-bit client for the Mac is here to stay, i.e. there is no going back to a 32-bit option.

Asharin · June 2016

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

@Wussypants, the client uses Direct3D 11 on Windows. DX12 support is planned, but not here yet.

@Asharin, the Mac client has been updated to use OpenGL 4.1 with the Thieves Guild DLC. Formerly, it was on a much older version (2.1). Not only that, but textures have also been improved as well, taxing older/weaker machines more, while on the other hand delivering other improvements (e.g. the ground is now rendered in one pass instead of two). You could try out some of the performance tips I give in my Mac 64-bit client FAQ (link in sig).

True, but the same hardware, running windows 10 x64 (bootcamp) the performance is back where it was before the 'updates' to the mac client (also 64 bit) Zenimax need to take a good look at the client I think.

Washac · July 2016

Asharin wrote: »

I'm running a late 2013 iMac, with nVidia GT750m gfx card. Playing ESo, when I first switched to using my mac (my PC motherboard died) I was pleasantly surprised how well it ran. Granted I had to have subsampling and textures at medium, low shadows etc, but I had a playable 35fps on average. After the TG update, this dropped to 20 fps at best...but then I installed the nVidia web drivers, and was back getting 35fps average, sometimes as much as 50!
After DB, it was back hovering between 20 - 30.

Just out of curiosity more than anything, I installed windows 10 via bootcamp. I installed the windows client and ran it.
Colour me surprised when I can run it with ALL details on full, including subsampling high, and still get 40 - 50fps!
So from that I can assume either the nVidia mac drives suck, the ESO client on mac needs more work, or OSX is a huge resource drain.
As the performance got steadiliy worse patch after patch, I'm leaning towards the ESO client itself.

Please Zenimax, can you do some work on the mac client? I don't like having to have windows installed for the ONE game I actually play

I run the game on Mac, how did you run it under Bootcamp, did you buy another copy for PC ?

Edit: OK sorted thanks.

Asharin · July 2016

Sorry, didn't see your post until now, but for others reading the thread. No you don't need to buy a new copy for PC/Mac, your account works on either, same characters, same servers. It's only consoles that have separate servers.

henrycupcakerwb17_ESO · July 2016

Asharin wrote: »

I'm running a late 2013 iMac, with nVidia GT750m gfx card. Playing ESo, when I first switched to using my mac (my PC motherboard died) I was pleasantly surprised how well it ran. Granted I had to have subsampling and textures at medium, low shadows etc, but I had a playable 35fps on average. After the TG update, this dropped to 20 fps at best...but then I installed the nVidia web drivers, and was back getting 35fps average, sometimes as much as 50!
After DB, it was back hovering between 20 - 30.

Just out of curiosity more than anything, I installed windows 10 via bootcamp. I installed the windows client and ran it.
Colour me surprised when I can run it with ALL details on full, including subsampling high, and still get 40 - 50fps!
So from that I can assume either the nVidia mac drives suck, the ESO client on mac needs more work, or OSX is a huge resource drain.
As the performance got steadiliy worse patch after patch, I'm leaning towards the ESO client itself.

Please Zenimax, can you do some work on the mac client? I don't like having to have windows installed for the ONE game I actually play

Lol I'd rather just skip / stop playing the game if that game isn't released on the MacOS and I'm not gonna install any micros ft's crap on my device ( my boss has asked me to install Skype on my office's pc and I said no and just use slack would be sufficient , he wanted to video call I will FaceTime , and I will switch on plane mode and only let people FaceTime audio to contact me

When he ask me to install that lame WhatsApp and china malware WeChat *** I said why even bother when we have iMessage ?

Why bother giving money to the developers who disrespect the Mac community , we got too much games too few times for gaming anyway

henrycupcakerwb17_ESO · July 2016

Delpi wrote: »

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but for me, the performance was better with the 32 bit version. Since TG dlc, I have to use low graphics to have a decent fps.

Man you are delusional , lol........

The 64 bit silent is like heaven and hell comparing with the crashing for every hour 32 bit so cilent

All max setting + aa I think I got 2x fps during a 1xx siege and never crashed once in the 64 bit cilent ( the game will eventually used up all the GPU cache memory + ram and freeze and crash after 1x hours of playing )