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Path of Exile for Mac

So, I played a little more today. Safe to say, there's no GPU support. It's actually the macOS window server that is consuming a ton of GPU power when PoE is launched. PoE is maxing out four CPU cores though (I wonder why not more...). Sad, but I doubt we'll see any improvements soon.

That being said, the state of gaming on a Mac is shocking. I fired up CS:GO for the first time in four years today. What an absolute mess. Performance is horrible, within 15 minutes I've had it crash three times. I'm not sure where we're going with all of this. CS:Source isn't even supported anymore (32-Bit). I was looking forward to the new Macs coming out this year with more CPU and GPU power than the current M1. Apple is porting Tensorflow right now, which should be interesting, but the rest of the software world (at least in my cases) seems to offer lackluster support, especially for 3D simulation. I already have to ssh into my >$30k Dell box with RTX8000 or a GPU cluster to get the number crunching done right now and it looks like things are getting worse and not better. If it keeps going like this a M1 Mac Mini is probably all I need in the future for browsing, emailing, some casual stuff while I have to offload everything else to a Linux/Windows box. :(
 
If Activity Monitor reports GPU usage, it means the GPU is used.
A modern game not using the GPU would mean running at 1fps or less. The issue is simple. Path of Exile is not optimised yet to run decently on macOS.
CS:Source has the same issue. A very old OpenGL only codebase that has never been update to run on modern macOS.
 
Ritsuka said:
If Activity Monitor reports GPU usage, it means the GPU is used.
Click to expand...
GPU Monitoring is reporting GPU resources are used, Activity monitor is reporting PoE isn't using it. Please check the screenshots I posted.
Ritsuka said:
A modern game not using the GPU would mean running at 1fps or less.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but that's non-sense. I'm not going to bother digging up a link for you, so go to Youtube and search for "intel 630 game benchmark". Plenty of comparison videos out there that will show way more than 1fps. :rolleyes:
Ritsuka said:
CS:Source has the same issue.
Click to expand...
No it doesn't. CS:Source is a 32-bit app, so it simply won't run as macOS doesn't support 32-bit apps anymore.
 
Your screenshot shows the discrete GPU being used. The "Graphic Card" column can report the wrong value, it depends on how the app initialise the Metal device. If you want to be sure, make a sample of the app and check which MTL device calls are being used. Each GPU drive has got a different calls name.
Maybe I misunderstood, but the "intel 630" is a GPU too. A slow and integrated one, but it's still a GPU.

Right, CS:Source is 32bit, but my remark is still right: "A very old OpenGL only codebase that has never been update to run on modern macOS."
I confused it Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (64bit, but yet again OpenGL and not optimised at all).
 
Ritsuka said:
Your screenshot shows the discrete GPU being used. The "Graphic Card" column can report the wrong value, it depends on how the app initialise the Metal device.
Click to expand...
See what I wrote before. I've never seen the wrong value in this, but then again, I've never watched it closely. Could be related to Big Sur or maybe MoltenVK.

Ritsuka said:
If you want to be sure, make a sample of the app and check which MTL device calls are being used.
Click to expand...
We're not talking about finding out what device a sample app uses. We're trying to find out about PoE specifically. All the rest is of absolutely no interest at all.

Ritsuka said:
Maybe I misunderstood, but the "intel 630" is a GPU too. A slow and integrated one, but it's still a GPU.
Click to expand...
We're talking about what is commonly called dGPU, not an integrated GPU from Intel. No offense, but please read the thread and what we've been talking about. In the case of a MBP, this could be something like a 5000 series AMD, which is then switched to in case it's utilized.

PoE shows GPU is not utilized (a big fat "no" in activity monitor). Yet, when the game is launched, the GPU History shows heavy utilization. Upon taking a closer look, the PoE process shows no % of GPU used, the process shooting up for % of GPU usage is the WindowServer, which is expected, but maybe not that high. So is what you're saying that PoE consuming no GPU usage is actually using the WindowServer services via the global bootstrap namespace?
 
I highly doubt the game is using the dedicated GPU because it isn't even giving us the option of selecting it in the options like it does on Windows 10

this is probably why I can't handle the rituals (current league mechanic) so I am just playing on standard non league HC. The rituals make my FPS go crazy low but no one else seems to have any issues so I am fairly certain it's not using our dedicated GPU. But maybe it is.
 
Run a sample of Path of Exile, the instructions are in the link above. Then post the output here. I'll check which GPU driver uses.
 
It's using both, the AppleIntelKBLGraphicsDriverMTLDriver and the AMDRadeonX6000MTLDriver. But at least the Update to the render pipeline is happening via AMD driver.

I did a bit of playing around with some other reverse engineering tools (at least the NSA is good for something) and resources are loaded into GPU memory (and yes, I mean the AMD dGPU), quite a bit actually. The state of performance when utilizing the GPU is miserable at best. It could be MoltenVK related, but I've seen much better jobs there. In the end, there's nothing that can be done about it except to wait for GGG to get their act together. I'll do one more test running PoE in Parallels/Windows on the same machine and see how performance compares and then probably switch over to native Windows to actually play the game whenever I have time.
 
There was a patch recently 3.13.1 it's supposed to have improved the performance a bit. I can't really tell much of a difference but maybe a little better.
 
TBoneMac said:
There was a patch recently 3.13.1 it's supposed to have improved the performance a bit. I can't really tell much of a difference but maybe a little better.
Click to expand...
Seems about the same to me, only fixed a bug where certain microtransactions would appear invisible. But the game is playable if do usual reduce resolution.
 
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Another small update today, around 180MB. Is it just me or is the game unplayable now? While it's running at 60fps, as soon as anything happens it drops to around 15fps. I guess one could say it's running at 15fps with the occasional spike to 60fps. It's become petty much unplayable.

Then again, I've had sidecar active with the iPad as another screen when I launched it. So maybe something went wrong there and I'll have to reboot to test it again.

EDIT: Reboot fixed it. Still think it's dropping to lower fps here and there though, more than before.
 
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Revisited this on macOS. Depending on the character, it becomes pretty much unplayable. I'm playing elementalist and in some rare +Tier 5 maps, it's impossible to survive. It turns into a slideshow and it's impossible to move around properly which is necessary to survive. :(
 
GrumpyCoder said:
Revisited this on macOS. Depending on the character, it becomes pretty much unplayable. I'm playing elementalist and in some rare +Tier 5 maps, it's impossible to survive. It turns into a slideshow and it's impossible to move around properly which is necessary to survive. :(
Click to expand...
that's disappointing to hear. I am just starting act 6 so hearing that it's instant death basically is a bummer since I play hardcore.

Do you limit your FPS Gcoder? Like at 30FPS
 
They keep patching 3.13.1.c was large, see a 3.13.1.d restart less now. Wish they work on fixed windows so that horizontally resizing window crash was gone.

Known Issues: (modified 2/15 NZT)
  • Game crashing with M1 based systems.
  • Helmet attachment slot missing.
  • While running around, you may occasionally see a black tile on the edge of the screen briefly. This is an engine quirk that occurs with the Windows version also, but it's more pronounced in our current Mac version.
  • Window Resolution/Size is too small when opening the game.
  • Pressing the Esc key in Fullscreen exits fullscreen mode.
  • Horizontally resizing the client window can sometimes cause a crash.
  • Cannot rotate while using Channelling skills with RMB or MMB.
Startup on a M1 Mac they said this:
Yes, it's definitely in the list. We are blocked by the third party libraries the game client uses, M1 support will be added as soon as we get them so I can't provide any reliable timeline right now.
Click to expand...
 
TBoneMac said:
Do you limit your FPS Gcoder? Like at 30FPS
Click to expand...
I tried, but it doesn't make much of a difference. Who it drops, it usually does to well below 10fps. Overall it's playable, it's just when all hell breaks loose, say a ritual encounter, then it becomes unplayable.

Realityck said:
Game crashing with M1 based systems.
Click to expand...
This is something I can't understand. They insist on making their own game engine, which from a technical point of view is the most complicated thing to do and then they're using a 3rd party tool which is a show stopper. Using a well established engine like Unreal or Unity and building the game around it and we'd be able to play on a M1 now.
 
I did upgrade to Catalina just to be able to play POE.
But the game does not install. been posting everywhere to get an update about what is happening. I am on a macbook pro retina 15"
did the xattr -c but still nothing. installer trying to download a 33mb file and then crashes.
Just because I updated to catalina now I cant play bunch of other games because of 32/64 bit issues.
So pissed at grinding games atm.

Process: Path of Exile [51658]
Path: /Applications/Path of Exile.app/Contents/MacOS/Path of Exile
Identifier: com.GGG.PathOfExile
Version: 1.0 (161847)
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: ??? [1]
Responsible: Path of Exile [51658]
User ID: 501

Date/Time: 2021-02-20 13:15:47.162 +0300
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.15.7 (19H15)
Report Version: 12
Anonymous UUID: FE4D26AB-A3E0-189A-6AAF-45F7E2905FA9

Sleep/Wake UUID: 05703EF4-3811-414E-AC20-1A302534A1CA

Time Awake Since Boot: 410000 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread: 4

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_INSTRUCTION (SIGILL)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000001, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal: Illegal instruction: 4
Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0x4
Terminating Process: exc handler [51658]
 
cevdetarkun said:
I did upgrade to Catalina just to be able to play POE.
But the game does not install. been posting everywhere to get an update about what is happening. I am on a macbook pro retina 15"
did the xattr -c but still nothing. installer trying to download a 33mb file and then crashes.
Just because I updated to catalina now I cant play bunch of other games because of 32/64 bit issues.
So pissed at grinding games atm.

Process: Path of Exile [51658]
Path: /Applications/Path of Exile.app/Contents/MacOS/Path of Exile
Identifier: com.GGG.PathOfExile
Version: 1.0 (161847)
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: ??? [1]
Responsible: Path of Exile [51658]
User ID: 501

Date/Time: 2021-02-20 13:15:47.162 +0300
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.15.7 (19H15)
Report Version: 12
Anonymous UUID: FE4D26AB-A3E0-189A-6AAF-45F7E2905FA9

Sleep/Wake UUID: 05703EF4-3811-414E-AC20-1A302534A1CA

Time Awake Since Boot: 410000 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread: 4

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_INSTRUCTION (SIGILL)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000001, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal: Illegal instruction: 4
Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0x4
Terminating Process: exc handler [51658]
Click to expand...
Does it work on Catalina? I thought it worked only on Big Sur but I am not sure.
 
GrumpyCoder said:
So, I played a little more today. Safe to say, there's no GPU support. It's actually the macOS window server that is consuming a ton of GPU power when PoE is launched. PoE is maxing out four CPU cores though (I wonder why not more...). Sad, but I doubt we'll see any improvements soon.

That being said, the state of gaming on a Mac is shocking. I fired up CS:GO for the first time in four years today. What an absolute mess. Performance is horrible, within 15 minutes I've had it crash three times. I'm not sure where we're going with all of this. CS:Source isn't even supported anymore (32-Bit). I was looking forward to the new Macs coming out this year with more CPU and GPU power than the current M1. Apple is porting Tensorflow right now, which should be interesting, but the rest of the software world (at least in my cases) seems to offer lackluster support, especially for 3D simulation. I already have to ssh into my >$30k Dell box with RTX8000 or a GPU cluster to get the number crunching done right now and it looks like things are getting worse and not better. If it keeps going like this a M1 Mac Mini is probably all I need in the future for browsing, emailing, some casual stuff while I have to offload everything else to a Linux/Windows box. :(
Click to expand...
How do I ”offload//run windows 10” on my Mac? Do I need any external devices? I think I need an external hard drive or something? Not sure, I don’t have a lot of money so spending for a external drive and then paying for windows is going to be tough for me... (is windows free??)
 
cevdetarkun said:
I did upgrade to Catalina just to be able to play POE.
But the game does not install. been posting everywhere to get an update about what is happening. I am on a macbook pro retina 15"
Click to expand...
It should run in Catalina unless one of the recent patches broke that. I'm on Big Sur, so I can't say for sure.
What year is your MBP? From what you've posted it looks like your system is not supporting instructions the game is using (same as M1).
TBoneMac said:
How do I ”offload//run windows 10” on my Mac? Do I need any external devices? I think I need an external hard drive or something? Not sure, I don’t have a lot of money so spending for a external drive and then paying for windows is going to be tough for me... (is windows free??)
Click to expand...
You can resize the hard drive in the system and install Boot Camp. But you're giving up disk space for Windows. Or as you say, buy an external drive and install it there. Windows is not free, but you can install it and never activate it. Then it's free, but you're missing out on features. To be honest, MS licensing model is a mess. Check out this article for more details: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/get-windows-10-free-or-cheap,5717.html
 
GrumpyCoder said:
It should run in Catalina unless one of the recent patches broke that. I'm on Big Sur, so I can't say for sure.
What year is your MBP? From what you've posted it looks like your system is not supporting instructions the game is using (same as M1).

You can resize the hard drive in the system and install Boot Camp. But you're giving up disk space for Windows. Or as you say, buy an external drive and install it there. Windows is not free, but you can install it and never activate it. Then it's free, but you're missing out on features. To be honest, MS licensing model is a mess. Check out this article for more details: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/get-windows-10-free-or-cheap,5717.html
Click to expand...
I tried to resize the harddrive once and it didn't work?? like whenever I tried it failed/came up with an error
 
TBoneMac said:
I tried to resize the harddrive once and it didn't work?? like whenever I tried it failed/came up with an error
Click to expand...
Never had a problem resizing. Not sure about Bootcamp, it's been ages since I've used it. I'm running Windows/Linux on a dedicated PC. To have it with me on a MBP, I'm using a VM instead.
 
cevdetarkun said:
on their web site they say minimum catalina
Click to expand...
Don't believe anything they say as far a suggested game requirements they don't even try playing this on various Mac computers. Catalina is only one of several requirements, a Mac laptop running Catalina won't work if it's an old model.
GGG has yet to even move from experimental to a official Mac game client.
 
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