Mac Client

[Armatone]

Due to a series of unfortunate events for the last several years I have been forced onto windows. I will be getting back on a mac very soon.

What, if any, are the pros and cons of the Mac Client?

[Tricosene]

The two biggest issues I can think of are:

- Damage numbers don't show up properly on the screen during combat. This doesn't bother me as I've never used the Windows client and pay more attention to red bars.
- There's a visual bug that can occur in quests indoors after about an hour of play. Essentially, it's like every 20 ft or so there is a black wall that you can't see past. If I've been playing for 30 minutes or so, I'll close the client before entering another quest. Since I've started this, I haven't had the issue come up much. When it does, like on longer Wizard King runs, I find a safe space to hide out, then close the client and log back in.

There also seem to have been some install issues lately. Check out the Mac section of the forum for details.

[Armatone]

I've had the blanking out happen on the windows client every once in a while. It isn't black, for me it is green.

Are you on an older Mac? I'm looking at the top end 22" 4k iMac or the low end 27" 5k.

The two biggest issues I can think of are:

- Damage numbers don't show up properly on the screen during combat. This doesn't bother me as I've never used the Windows client and pay more attention to red bars.
- There's a visual bug that can occur in quests indoors after about an hour of play. Essentially, it's like every 20 ft or so there is a black wall that you can't see past. If I've been playing for 30 minutes or so, I'll close the client before entering another quest. Since I've started this, I haven't had the issue come up much. When it does, like on longer Wizard King runs, I find a safe space to hide out, then close the client and log back in.

There also seem to have been some install issues lately. Check out the Mac section of the forum for details.

[kbaskins]

Aside from the things mentioned above, you can't dual-box on a Mac.

Also, you can't change your gamma settings.

[JQP]

1. I have the blanking out of the screen issue that Armatone and Tricosene describe, but re-logging always fixes it.

2. I did not have any luck installing the Mac client on my new Mac. I e-mailed SSG but they say they don't support the Mac client.

[Tricosene]

I've had the blanking out happen on the windows client every once in a while. It isn't black, for me it is green.

Are you on an older Mac? I'm looking at the top end 22" 4k iMac or the low end 27" 5k.

I am on a 2011 iMac.

The people with install issues like JQP above worry me. It seems like some have been resolved, sometimes by a Steam install IIRC. However, us Mac users may need to consider that an upgrade might break our DDO habit.

[Tyrande]

I do have a newer late 2015 Macbook Pro with 16GB and 1TB flash2 and Radeon Pro 370X that I use for DDO once a week. The renderings seemed fine until after about 1.5 hours play.

Re-logging does fix it. I have seen the two issues described above by Tricosene.

Do you see an official statement from SSG that Mac Clients are not supported?

[kbaskins]

1. I have the blanking out of the screen issue that Armatone and Tricosene describe, but re-logging always fixes it.

2. I did not have any luck installing the Mac client on my new Mac. I e-mailed SSG but they say they don't support the Mac client.

Try installing Steam, then install and launch the DDO Mac client through Steam. I use macOS Sierra 10.12.5 on my newish Mini, and have no problems when using Steam.

[Carpone]

When I installed on a 2015 MacBook Pro running macOS 10.12.5 (Sierra) from ddo.com in June 2017, it was one of the worst user experiences I've ever had with software. I spent two hours getting the client to work: The instructions are outdated and obtuse, and the Akamai installer is error prone but doesn't provide useful diagnostic information. The only reason I didn't walk away was because of two decades of sysadmin pride telling myself: I can get this to work, dammit.

[Kaytis]

I have heard some horror stories about the Akamai installer messing up the process for folks recently. That's a shame and something SSG needs to fix. I have been using the client on the same machine forever, and as such don't have that issue since it has been updating the original client all this time.

The graphics glitch is awful. It has been there since the very first beta. Installer issues aside, if they would fix this glitch, that would be all I would want. None of the other issues are particularly game-breaking. I heard someone commenting that I have to "relog all the time" as I was coming back in to a group the other day. It's officially embarrassing now.

As to not being able to dual box, that isn't accurate. I triple box all the time when I am farming. Any number of clients will work in theory, but there is probably some upper limit. Look for the Mac OS X Launcher Script in the Mac section for one way to do it.

[Saekee]

I use a mac laptop and am so unsavvy that I cannot even tell you what model it is.

I get the dreaded blackscreen after about 1.5 hours; I usually just close the client and open a new one quickly and things fix.

No adjustment to things like brightness contrast etc. which makes some quests a PITA. I think macs have brighter screens too so I feel like this evil machine really zaps me with some EMFs.

[kbaskins]

As to not being able to dual box, that isn't accurate. I triple box all the time when I am farming. Any number of clients will work in theory, but there is probably some upper limit. Look for the Mac OS X Launcher Script in the Mac section for one way to do it.

The last time I tried your script I couldn't get it to work. I'm sure it was PEBCAK. I'll have to give it another try. Thank you for making the script.

[Armatone]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Since everyone is focusing on problems, would I be correct in stating that other than the problems mentioned it runs good? Nice and smooth, good responsiveness?

[Saekee]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Since everyone is focusing on problems, would I be correct in stating that other than the problems mentioned it runs good? Nice and smooth, good responsiveness?

yes--MACs were built for the graphic capability once upon a time so they handle the game fine.

[goodspeed]

Due to a series of unfortunate events for the last several years I have been forced onto windows. I will be getting back on a mac very soon.

What, if any, are the pros and cons of the Mac Client?

lol I don't think theirs any pros to be had. Unless you just looooove troubleshooting.

[PermaBanned]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Since everyone is focusing on problems, would I be correct in stating that other than the problems mentioned it runs good? Nice and smooth, good responsiveness?

As the only problem I've encountered is the graphics issue that requires a re-log, I'd have to say yeah it runs great as I never really encounter most of the issues I see complained about on the forums.

That said though, maybe newer isn't always better? I'm still running on a Mac Pro 1.1 (circa 2006) with an ATI RADEON HD58770 (genuine Apple - not flashed) on OSX Lion... maybe the old game just likes my old system

[silent_man]

As the only problem I've encountered is the graphics issue that requires a re-log, I'd have to say yeah it runs great as I never really encounter most of the issues I see complained about on the forums.

That said though, maybe newer isn't always better? I'm still running on a Mac Pro 1.1 (circa 2006) with an ATI RADEON HD58770 (genuine Apple - not flashed) on OSX Lion... maybe the old game just likes my old system

And here I thought I was running an older Mac system. I'm running a quad core 2.8 GHz Xeon Apple Mac Pro 3,1 (Early 2008) with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2048 MB with a 2 TB SSD as the main drive. With the SSD & the GeForce on place the machine is still very responsive for a 9 year old computer.