Has anybody tried to run ESO in Parallels or VMWARE

AlbertVonMoosseedorf · August 2020

I have a Macbook Pro Late 2016 with max. config in this year (2.9 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3)
Attached eGPU Razor Core X with Sapphire 5700 XT Nitro+ Special Edition. Because of lack of MacOS support in ESO I need
sooner or later Windows either in Bootcamp (I don't like this) or in a virtual desktop (Parallels or VMware).

Has anybode tried to run ESO in a virtual machine ?
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vamp_emily · August 2020

If you are going to use a virtual machine, you might want to try VirtualBox. It is fee and dynamically allocates storage which could be useful.

I use virtualbox at work, never used it for ESO.

Rtzon · August 2020

Wait, ESO works on Mac. I play ESO on a Mac. What do you mean lack of MacOS support?

Taleof2Cities · August 2020

Rtzon wrote: »

Wait, ESO works on Mac. I play ESO on a Mac. What do you mean lack of MacOS support?

Agreed, no clue what the OP means if Mac is a supported platform for ESO.

AlbertVonMoosseedorf · August 2020

Rtzon wrote: »

Wait, ESO works on Mac. I play ESO on a Mac. What do you mean lack of MacOS support?

At least me have a lot of problems (crashes, freezing screens, unable to switch to another task, keyboard errors,
UI-Problems, loose of focus, unable to loot, ...) and the "support" doesn't care about it. I have also found a lot of
complaints of other Mac Players with partially the same problems and they made the same experience like me
regarding the support. There are bugs that are reported since a long time, but they don't care and fix it. I have the
same problems with Mojave and with Catalina. On Cataline there is only ESO installed, nothing else !

That's what I mean with lack of MacOS support. But anyway, that was not my question !
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coletas · August 2020

you should use bootcamp. afaik osx doesnt support PCI passtrough

BlueRaven · August 2020

@AlbertVonMoosseedorf Hey! A fellow Mac user here and I feel your pain.

In the Mac Technical Support forum (which is basically just a place for Mac users to fruitlessly post technical problems) there was a forum thread about parallels and about how much better the game runs while using it.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/539430/workaround-for-the-outdated-inaccessible-client-ambitious-expensive#latest

They list the pros and cons there.

BlueRaven · August 2020

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Rtzon wrote: »

Wait, ESO works on Mac. I play ESO on a Mac. What do you mean lack of MacOS support?

Agreed, no clue what the OP means if Mac is a supported platform for ESO.

Technically there is a mac game client, but it has gotten so riddled with bugs (which are on top of the normal issues PC players get like lag, etc.). There is a long list of Mac client issues, my personal beef is that the game will occasionally make the ENTIRE MAC OS reset and throw the user to a system log in screen.

Then they have to use system utilities to close the client just so they can get back into the game. I personally experience this 3-4 times a night.

Using Paralles on the same exact machine fixes problems like freezing screens, the pointer disappearing. I have even heard reports that the frame rate improves. That is how bad the dedicated mac client is.

•••

There is a huge list of mac bugs at this point and in the three months they had to work on the game they did this;

“Mac Game Client
Windowed (Fullscreen) mode on Mac will now use a borderless window.”

Thats it. No bug fixes at all, instead they are adding a feature that no one really saw as an issue. Do our bug reports ever get read? There is no indication that they do.

Another hilarious problem is controller support. Macs can use Xbox controllers (for example) for games, it's built into the OS. But the ESO game client still does not support this, but apparently reports are that using while Stadia to play ESO on a Mac, suddenly controller support is there.

Yes, there is a mac icon at the bottom of this page indicating support, but at this point it is a technicality. I can log in and see people running around, but any stress (like a loading screen) can cause the client to crash my entire OS. And it's been like this for over two years now.

This game USED to be super stable on a Mac, now it is hanging by a thread.

technohic · August 2020

I get tired of Windiws crap and sometimes thing about alternatives, but running something else just to run windows virtually is not what od have in mind.

Sylvermynx · August 2020

technohic wrote: »

I get tired of Windiws crap and sometimes thing about alternatives, but running something else just to run windows virtually is not what od have in mind.

Yeah. I'm NOT happy with win 10 - but my option is to go to linux.... and deal with a non-native client etc.

Sorry. I'm too old to bother. Serious. 25 years ago? Sure. Now? Nope.

AlbertVonMoosseedorf · August 2020

coletas wrote: »

you should use bootcamp. afaik osx doesnt support PCI passtrough

At the moment I am not able to use Bootcamp. I had Bootcamp with Mojave, but it was to small for ESO.
Mojave was unable to make Bootcamp bigger, there was a memory block witch could not be removed. Then
I made an experiment, created an APFS volume and installed Catalina there. Worked, then I tried to use the
Catalina Bootcamp install. Oh surprise, Catalina removed the missing memory and created a bigger Bootcamp
Partition, but the Windows Installer is unable to install Windows in the prepared partition and Mojave Bootcamp
Installer doesnt work anymore. Catalina has removed something that the Windows Installer needs and I could
not figure out what the problem is. Maybe I make another try with the next MacOS

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AlbertVonMoosseedorf · August 2020

BlueRaven wrote: »

@AlbertVonMoosseedorf Hey! A fellow Mac user here and I feel your pain.

In the Mac Technical Support forum (which is basically just a place for Mac users to fruitlessly post technical problems) there was a forum thread about parallels and about how much better the game runs while using it.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/539430/workaround-for-the-outdated-inaccessible-client-ambitious-expensive#latest

They list the pros and cons there.

Thank you, I have read the thread, but English is not my mothertongue and I am not sure about the result
regarding the use of an external eGPU. But maybe I have to give it a try, I need Parallels anyway because
of other Windows-Only software.
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BlueRaven · August 2020

Why did they move this thread?

AlbertVonMoosseedorf · August 2020

BlueRaven wrote: »

Why did they move this thread?

Moved into the waste bin

Nachtfrost · October 2020

Tried it today. After countless issues with ESO on the Mac and eGPU with Bootcamp I gave Parallels a try.

Setup:
Macbook Pro 13, 8GB RAM, 2018 edition
Razer Core X with AMD RX 580
Small Bootcamp partition with Windows 10
ESO on external Thundebolt SSD

Downloaded VM16 trial troday, after installation I started Bootcamp from Parallels.

ESO run with high / medium settings at 60 FPS, so far no lags in the world PVE environment, dungeons are at about 45-40 FPS, havent tested a trial yet. Harrowstorms are laggy at about 20 FPS with 8-15 players around me.

But it runs much better as I expected, at least much better as the Mac client. Plain Bootcamp Windows doesn't work well for me, from time to time the eGPU gets disconnected and ESO crashes. So Parallels might be an option.

demerdecanswrath · October 2020

AFAIK Parallels is a great, lower-than-most overhead hypervisor.

In the last few years the company has noticed the Mac gaming community's interest for Parallels and they are constantly tuning their DX11 drivers.

Personally, I've been playing ESO and other games through Parallels for 3 months on a Radeon 560X 15" MBP and I've been very satisfied with the results. ZoS, either fix the client or team up with Parallels to make up for the mac mess of the last 2 years.