New Mac Client Review and Request

[jkalten]

So I've been playing with the new Mac client this past weekend and I wanted to point out my thoughts on it.

First I did my testing on a MBP 8,2 running an unsupported 10.14.6 with the dGPU disabled accessing only the iGPU an Intel HD Graphics 3000, 8gb Ram, and a 2TB SSD.

The first thing to note is that this Mac should probably be considered min spec even with the old client. With the new client, there is definitely a small amount of overhead from running things through the wine compatibility layer. However, even with my ancient hardware, I was able to get the new client into a state that I found playable as far as graphics go. It's on really low quality graphics but it works.

There have been no noticeable network problems or lag spikes that seem related to the new client through my weekend of play. Other, than the graphics needing to be set back down a little bit, I found no significant difference in my end user experience between the Windows Client on my other computer, and the new DDO client on my Mac.

That said, 10.15 is right around the corner next month and all 32 bit support is going to be gone. The wine wrapper you're currently using is still 32 bit. Do you have a 64 bit wine wrapper ready for beta testing? I have a Catalina partition and I would be more than happy to beta a 64 bit wine client.

[AstorPotamus]

I've tested the new wine client as well. It fixes absolutely nothing other than my current mic permissions issue while decreasing frame rates, taking away command key functionality and overclocking my cpu so hard it sounds like my cooling fan is gonna explode.

They actually made it worse.

Much, much worse.

[AstorPotamus]

So yeah...the wine client just overclocked my CPU so hard it reset itself. I'm hoping this isn't going to become the next new thing that Mac user are going to endure.

[Saekee]

I can't just do the windowed version of graphics so it looks terrible--all stretched out...

[dmeister]

The Wine client pre-loader is 32-bit which doesn't work on Mac OS 10.15. There doesn't seem to be a stable Wine release that is 64-bit compliant and isn't one expected by the time Mac OS 10.15 is released later this month.

I did get it to install but was unable to change resolution in Options, once options menu came up, all button options froze, still able to move mouse and hear music, but nothing else. Had to quit Wine client (could not close or quit within game).

Many of us Mac users have spent hundreds if not a couple grand on the game, we need a proper Mac 64-bit client. The performance on Wine was not even close to equivalent to the Mac 32-bit client version.

[jkalten]

The Wine client pre-loader is 32-bit which doesn't work on Mac OS 10.15. There doesn't seem to be a stable Wine release that is 64-bit compliant and isn't one expected by the time Mac OS 10.15 is released later this month.

I did get it to install but was unable to change resolution in Options, once options menu came up, all button options froze, still able to move mouse and hear music, but nothing else. Had to quit Wine client (could not close or quit within game).

Many of us Mac users have spent hundreds if not a couple grand on the game, we need a proper Mac 64-bit client. The performance on Wine was not even close to equivalent to the Mac 32-bit client version.

Honestly, I just did some more testing this weekend, and sadly, I was able to get better performance from parallels with windows 10 than I was in either macOS native or macOS wine. As far as the old Mac client being better, I disagree as the memory leak or whatever it was that created problems had left the official Mac client in an almost unplayable state on older hardware for years. To that end, the wine client is as good as other wine solutions which made the game playable.

[Cofrathzel]

So yeah...the wine client just overclocked my CPU so hard it reset itself. I'm hoping this isn't going to become the next new thing that Mac user are going to endure.

Same here. Even just standing in the airship alone my poor machine was about to explode, even when i got all graphics down to the bare minimum. So hope they can do something (empty hopes tho) because rip ddo for me.

[jkalten]

Same here. Even just standing in the airship alone my poor machine was about to explode, even when i got all graphics down to the bare minimum. So hope they can do something (empty hopes tho) because rip ddo for me.

Honestly, the person you quoted didn't even make sense. DDO and wine are not overclocking anyones cpu. Are you trying to say that it uses more resources? Because it's a compatibility layer. It will use more.