Path of Exile for Mac

[GrumpyCoder]

Downloading a (small) patch. About the macOS version... it's a mess. Performance is worse than last league. During the time I've played it on Mac, I ran into a lot of graphical glitches. Resources are not loaded right away, sometimes not at all. I sometimes can't see monsters or items. I'll keep checking out the macOS version every now and then.

That being said, after they fixed their server issues, I enjoy the league so far. I'm into mapping now, beginning to look into crafting/buying endgame gear. I may start another character in the future, not sure what yet, maybe tectonic slam or blade fall.

 

[TBoneMac]

has anyone tried the m1 version?

 

[NotTooLate]

When was that released ? I only knew about the Rosetta version

 

[GrumpyCoder]

When was that released ? I only knew about the Rosetta version

There is no native M1 version. The current version runs via Rosetta and in the patch notes, they've announced a native version will be available in the future, but they have not given a date.

Via reddit:

 

[Feyl]

Can anyone help me and tell me how to run the game in fullscreen and in my desired resolution on M1 Mac mini? Nothing seem to work for me.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Can anyone help me and tell me how to run the game in fullscreen and in my desired resolution on M1 Mac mini? Nothing seem to work for me.

You can't. You can set it to fullscreen, by entering Full Screen mode as with any application. But there's no option to set resolution. GGG never bothered to implement these features into the macOS version.

 

[Feyl]

You can't. You can set it to fullscreen, by entering Full Screen mode as with any application. But there's no option to set resolution. GGG never bothered to implement these features into the macOS version.

That honestly sucks. Thanks for an answer.

 

[TBoneMac]

That honestly sucks. Thanks for an answer.

As far as I remember you can’t choose your dedicated GPU either so it’s really hard to know if the game is properly using the Gpu or not. GGG are still updating the macOS version so we can hope that things improve over time but basically not worth it for my intel mac it just overheats///starts performing poorly within no time and so it’s not fun. Really too bad cause the game seems cool.

 

[TBoneMac]

Does anyone know if Path of Exile 2 is a fully reworked code? I.E will the game have better performance finally..

And does anyone know if PoE:2 is coming to macOS?

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Does anyone know if Path of Exile 2 is a fully reworked code? I.E will the game have better performance finally..

And does anyone know if PoE:2 is coming to macOS?

PoE2 is based on the same engine as PoE, whether it's exactly the same or the next iteration remains to be seen.

No official word on a macOS version, but given it's the same engine, I'd say it's very likely PoE2 will also be out on macOS.

 

[NotTooLate]

Its so sad we have basically like 3 games native for M1 so far , hopefully the popular games studios can see the value in catering to the ever growing Mac user base , its also a place with no competition , so for the early adaptors studios there is also great gains to be made , so if D4 wont be on a Mac and POE 2 will be , then a Mac user looking for a good ARPG will have 1 option , which is great for GGG.

I am also , from a technical POV , want to see if the Apple GPU TBDR arch has real world benefits in games.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Its so sad we have basically like 3 games native for M1 so far , hopefully the popular games studios can see the value in catering to the ever growing Mac user base , its also a place with no competition , so for the early adaptors studios there is also great gains to be made , so if D4 wont be on a Mac and POE 2 will be , then a Mac user looking for a good ARPG will have 1 option , which is great for GGG.

And therein lies the problem. I've done the math in another thread, but you're looking at a market share of 3% macOS gamers vs 97% Windows/Linux gamers in the desktop market. The only number that counts is gamers on a Mac, not total number of Mac users. As they say: Mac is for working, Linux for networking and Windows for Solitaire.

Do the math, if (and that is a big if) you sell 50 millions copies of a AAA game over its lifetime for an average of $30 (more at release, less later on). That's $1.5B. Seems like much, but count the running costs for servers, patches, content, etc.

Assuming 3% are Mac users, that's $45M in sales. Let's say that game costs $150M (and you can bet Blizzard games cost more with their years and years they put into it) to make and a Mac-port or support from the beginning eats up additional $50M (and it's usually much more, I'd start at a minimum of 50% for a custom engine in a absolutely best case scenario on x86 with Nvidia/AMD GPU)... they're losing money bringing it to the Mac.

Probably the same reason GGG does not have a "proper" macOS version, it's too expensive for the number of players.
Different story for indie developers using off-the-shelf-engines. Pretty much flip a switch and be done porting. That's what Blizzard does with Diablo Immortal which is using Messiah engine.

Apple can release the best hardware in the world, as long as they don't have much more than 3% of the gaming desktop market, it won't matter. History told us, not the best system wins, but the one that is cheapest and sells the most copies.

Now that Apple broke the software eco-system and many people in research are moving away from the Mac, I can't see this getting better. This might change again in a few years though, only time will tell.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Not had the time to play anything lately, but it looks like the latest patch for Expedition literally is a game changer. They changed pretty much everything and went back to the roots with it. Good or bad? I don't know. Have yet to try it myself, but doubt I'll be able to anytime soon.

On a side note, some live streams happened with Chris the past week or two and it slipped that PoE2 is "years" aways. So here's the big question... what's first D4 or PoE2?

 

[TBoneMac]

Not had the time to play anything lately, but it looks like the latest patch for Expedition literally is a game changer. They changed pretty much everything and went back to the roots with it. Good or bad? I don't know. Have yet to try it myself, but doubt I'll be able to anytime soon.

On a side note, some live streams happened with Chris the past week or two and it slipped that PoE2 is "years" aways. So here's the big question... what's first D4 or PoE2?

If you’re referring to the pre-patch right before Expedition that was supposed to change a lot of things and improve the performance greatly - I tried it and it’s exactly the same performance as it was before (For me, YMMV)

In other words, it works fine for a couple minutes and then it severely drops frames and jumps from 5-15FPS afterwards.

I am nearly certain Diablo IV is going to release next summer or fall

 

[TBoneMac]

And therein lies the problem. I've done the math in another thread, but you're looking at a market share of 3% macOS gamers vs 97% Windows/Linux gamers in the desktop market. The only number that counts is gamers on a Mac, not total number of Mac users. As they say: Mac is for working, Linux for networking and Windows for Solitaire.

Do the math, if (and that is a big if) you sell 50 millions copies of a AAA game over its lifetime for an average of $30 (more at release, less later on). That's $1.5B. Seems like much, but count the running costs for servers, patches, content, etc.

Assuming 3% are Mac users, that's $45M in sales. Let's say that game costs $150M (and you can bet Blizzard games cost more with their years and years they put into it) to make and a Mac-port or support from the beginning eats up additional $50M (and it's usually much more, I'd start at a minimum of 50% for a custom engine in a absolutely best case scenario on x86 with Nvidia/AMD GPU)... they're losing money bringing it to the Mac.

Probably the same reason GGG does not have a "proper" macOS version, it's too expensive for the number of players.
Different story for indie developers using off-the-shelf-engines. Pretty much flip a switch and be done porting. That's what Blizzard does with Diablo Immortal which is using Messiah engine.

Apple can release the best hardware in the world, as long as they don't have much more than 3% of the gaming desktop market, it won't matter. History told us, not the best system wins, but the one that is cheapest and sells the most copies.

Now that Apple broke the software eco-system and many people in research are moving away from the Mac, I can't see this getting better. This might change again in a few years though, only time will tell.

Windows is only the king of gaming because they essentially have a pseudo-monopoly via forcing people to utilize their graphics API to make games. Since most games are only released on windows and it has been that way for decades of course most people are going to play games on windows PC‘s because even when games are released on macOS they developers almost never put the same time into making a proper macOS version so the windows version works better, it essentially feeds into more people buying windows PCs for gaming. People who own macs and still want to game don’t have any option unless they can afford to buy a completely separate windows PC. It’s not microsofts fault though, we’re the ones buying into their monopoly system so we’re sort of to blame as well.

 

[diamond.g]

Windows is only the king of gaming because they essentially have a pseudo-monopoly via forcing people to utilize their graphics API to make games. Since most games are only released on windows and it has been that way for decades of course most people are going to play games on windows PC‘s because even when games are released on macOS they developers almost never put the same time into making a proper macOS version so the windows version works better, it essentially feeds into more people buying windows PCs for gaming. People who own macs and still want to game don’t have any option unless they can afford to buy a completely separate windows PC. It’s not microsofts fault though, we’re the ones buying into their monopoly system so we’re sort of to blame as well.

MS doesn't force anyone to use DirectX to make PC games. You can use alternatives like OpenGL and Vulkan.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

If you’re referring to the pre-patch right before Expedition that was supposed to change a lot of things and improve the performance greatly - I tried it and it’s exactly the same performance as it was before (For me, YMMV)

In other words, it works fine for a couple minutes and then it severely drops frames and jumps from 5-15FPS afterwards.

I mean Expedition. I missed the patch before that. I've not used a Mac to play recently, absolutely no performance problem with Windows for me with an older Titan RTX card.

I won't bother playing on macOS at this point. I'm slowly moving away from macOS except for reading/writing/webbrowsing/emails and occasionally photo processing and cutting some videos, which I could easily do on a MacBook Air or MacMini. Apple is so locked-in in their own eco-system by now, I just can't get work done anymore. Most of the software I'm using doesn't work in macOS anymore and the tipping point for me was Unity as a game engine, which has massive issues in macOS while working perfectly for everything else. Unreal engine has similar problems. So I'm using a Linux machine for most of the work now (which involves graphical simulation with Unity/Unreal) and dual boot into Windows for games.

Expedition is a major game changer for PoE. While they have buffed some stuff and introduced a ton of new gems, there have been significant nerfs all over. It made the game much slower and also harder. It feels like going back to the early days of the game. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. People who just recently started PoE will probably be very frustrated. It usually takes about 3-4 leagues to really get into the game and Expedition is a hard reset. So I think until people really figure out all the new mechanics, it will be Q2 of 2022.

I am nearly certain Diablo IV is going to release next summer or fall

Maybe. That sure is optimistic on the other hand. They announced it in 2019 and given Blizzards history, I'd say 2023 at the earliest. D2 came out in 2000, D3 in 2012. So maybe even 2024? Luis Barriga said it's not coming out soon and even added "not even 'Blizzard soon'". I'm keeping on eye on the D4 status updates over at neoGAF and it just doesn't look ready yet (visually). PoE2 looks better at this point, but it's much more complex (similar to D3 vs PoE) so it's hard to tell how far they really are.

There's also Lost Ark and Lost Epoch, which could be the next big thing if Blizzard and GGG don't up their game.

 

[TBoneMac]

I mean Expedition. I missed the patch before that. I've not used a Mac to play recently, absolutely no performance problem with Windows for me with an older Titan RTX card.

I won't bother playing on macOS at this point. I'm slowly moving away from macOS except for reading/writing/webbrowsing/emails and occasionally photo processing and cutting some videos, which I could easily do on a MacBook Air or MacMini. Apple is so locked-in in their own eco-system by now, I just can't get work done anymore. Most of the software I'm using doesn't work in macOS anymore and the tipping point for me was Unity as a game engine, which has massive issues in macOS while working perfectly for everything else. Unreal engine has similar problems. So I'm using a Linux machine for most of the work now (which involves graphical simulation with Unity/Unreal) and dual boot into Windows for games.

Expedition is a major game changer for PoE. While they have buffed some stuff and introduced a ton of new gems, there have been significant nerfs all over. It made the game much slower and also harder. It feels like going back to the early days of the game. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. People who just recently started PoE will probably be very frustrated. It usually takes about 3-4 leagues to really get into the game and Expedition is a hard reset. So I think until people really figure out all the new mechanics, it will be Q2 of 2022.

Maybe. That sure is optimistic on the other hand. They announced it in 2019 and given Blizzards history, I'd say 2023 at the earliest. D2 came out in 2000, D3 in 2012. So maybe even 2024? Luis Barriga said it's not coming out soon and even added "not even 'Blizzard soon'". I'm keeping on eye on the D4 status updates over at neoGAF and it just doesn't look ready yet (visually). PoE2 looks better at this point, but it's much more complex (similar to D3 vs PoE) so it's hard to tell how far they really are.

There's also Lost Ark and Lost Epoch, which could be the next big thing if Blizzard and GGG don't up their game.

Grumpy Coder.

I can’t really afford to buy another PC just to play games though ): I don’t have that kind of money yet.. ): and by the time I have the money for that I don’t know if I’ll even be playing videogames anymore.

So I have to play on my macOS system and like I said PoE still has terrible performance.

You mentioned Unity.. I play Clone Hero (a guitar hero/rock band game that’s free and made by fans of those games) on my macOS and it’s built in Unity and it runs PERFECTLY. I wish more games ran this well on macOS I can get 600+ FPS if I want.

I feel like if Blizzard doesn’t at least release something next year they will pretty much lose all their fan base.

I am only guessing but I am guessing that WoW:Shadowlands has lost more players that normal expansions lose after the first few months. Blizzard is having some tough times recently as you may have seen with harassment suits and stuff like that making people quit their games and boycott.

If blizzard doesn’t do something in 2022 then they’re certainly going to lose me as a fan. I don’t even know if I will be able to buy Diablo 2 resurrected because it doesn’t seem like they’re making it available on macOS (Even though when catalina came out and deprecated 32 bit apps like Diablo 2, the blizzard Quality Assurance promised us that they were working on a fix for Diablo 2 so it would be playable on macOS But that was a while ago and now they‘ve instead given us a link where it says “Diablo 2 is no longer supported on macOS” so it’s not even in the system requirements anymore... in other words they aren’t willing to lose some money even though they’d likely make money off the macOS/iOS version in the longrun)

I love Diablo 2 it’s one of my longtime all time favs. But I basically have to spend $500 to play it because I would need either an XBOX a PS4/5 a Nintendo Switch or a Windows PC. So I would have to buy both the game and the system to play it on and that’s quite an expense for a student.


Do you know if Last Epoch or Lost Ark will have macOS versions?

 

[TBoneMac]

MS doesn't force anyone to use DirectX to make PC games. You can use alternatives like OpenGL and Vulkan.

Yeah OpenGL and Vulkan are not as good as DirectX and if you want to make the best games you have to use DirectX or Metal 2.

And everyone is super crazy about graphics being “perfect” everything has to look cutting edge which means game developers are forced to use DirectX because it gives the best graphics/performance. Since everyone is addicted to overdone graphics the developers have to use what works best Since they cannot make the game look worse because then it won‘t sell..

Most games today are about looking good not being fun to play. The best games don’t care about looking good, just think about Stardew Valley and Minecraft or Terraria for example. Diablo 2 never needed great graphics it was sort of dated when it came out but it was awesome.

These days everything has to be a 3D model and the textures have to be like 512x512 and beyond. It’s overdone for no reason other than to make people want to buy the game. Microsoft has always been at fault for this. Since their original XBox they’ve always tried to push graphics for the sake of pushing graphics. That’s why ”graphics whores” became a saying in the early 2000s especially.

Now in 2021 people expect 3D models and tons of particles and 4K graphics even though most people don’t even have a 4K screen/GPU capable of running 4K Gaming. For those who have the capabilities that’s awesome but it always comes at the expense of those who can’t run those games (i.e. when the graphics are so high that even lowering them doesn’t help the FPS much) , It‘s just a marketing scheme much like Diablo 4.

I am not certain but I am fairly certain that Blizzard started working on D4 AFTER the Diablo Immortal announcement Which in other words means they’re just rushing it out to please fans, they’re just trying to keep us interested with flashy cinematic and graphics. But the actual gameplay looks pretty dated and bland. Like I’m sure it’ll be fun but it doesn’t look special in any way. I’d rather have them tone the graphics down and just make a great game instead of making a great looking game that is only decent at best in gameplay.

 

[diamond.g]

Yeah OpenGL and Vulkan are not as good as DirectX and if you want to make the best games you have to use DirectX or Metal 2.

And everyone is super crazy about graphics being “perfect” everything has to look cutting edge which means game developers are forced to use DirectX because it gives the best graphics/performance. Since everyone is addicted to overdone graphics the developers have to use what works best Since they cannot make the game look worse because then it won‘t sell..

Most games today are about looking good not being fun to play. The best games don’t care about looking good, just think about Stardew Valley and Minecraft or Terraria for example. Diablo 2 never needed great graphics it was sort of dated when it came out but it was awesome.

These days everything has to be a 3D model and the textures have to be like 512x512 and beyond. It’s overdone for no reason other than to make people want to buy the game. Microsoft has always been at fault for this. Since their original XBox they’ve always tried to push graphics for the sake of pushing graphics. That’s why ”graphics whores” became a saying in the early 2000s especially.

Now in 2021 people expect 3D models and tons of particles and 4K graphics even though most people don’t even have a 4K screen/GPU capable of running 4K Gaming. For those who have the capabilities that’s awesome but it always comes at the expense of those who can’t run those games (i.e. when the graphics are so high that even lowering them doesn’t help the FPS much) , It‘s just a marketing scheme much like Diablo 4.

I am not certain but I am fairly certain that Blizzard started working on D4 AFTER the Diablo Immortal announcement Which in other words means they’re just rushing it out to please fans, they’re just trying to keep us interested with flashy cinematic and graphics. But the actual gameplay looks pretty dated and bland. Like I’m sure it’ll be fun but it doesn’t look special in any way. I’d rather have them tone the graphics down and just make a great game instead of making a great looking game that is only decent at best in gameplay.

Folks who have beefy hardware want it utilized to justify their purchase.

 

[Feyl]

Yeah OpenGL and Vulkan are not as good as DirectX and if you want to make the best games you have to use DirectX or Metal 2.

I think id Software would strongly disagree.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

I can’t really afford to buy another PC just to play games though ): I don’t have that kind of money yet.. ): and by the time I have the money for that I don’t know if I’ll even be playing videogames anymore.

Sell your Mac, come to the dark side and buy a PC. Windows for games, Linux for working. Problem solved. 😆

You mentioned Unity.. I play Clone Hero (a guitar hero/rock band game that’s free and made by fans of those games) on my macOS and it’s built in Unity and it runs PERFECTLY. I wish more games ran this well on macOS I can get 600+ FPS if I want.

I'm not talking about playing a finished game. Basic stuff works. I'm talking about creating your own game or simulation using Unity as an engine with plug-ins/add-ons. For starters, try to use ml-agents (which is not even 3rd party) and try to communicate with the proxy API it's using for communication. Watch the whole thing blow up. Windows/Linux just works. I want to work on my own projects, not fix Unity and macOS.

Do you know if Last Epoch or Lost Ark will have macOS versions?

No word on Lost Ark, it's Windows only. Looks like it will come to consoles and mobile. No Linux and macOS mentioned so far.

Last Epoch was macOS, they've cancelled support:

Greetings Travelers,

We’ve recently had to make a difficult decision regarding the future of our macOS client for Last Epoch due to Apple’s announced upcoming transition to ARM-based Macs [“Apple Silicon”].

The future of Macs is promising, but at this time Apple’s transition will involve dropping instruction set support for the Intel and AMD CPUs that power most modern computers. Similar to other games, Last Epoch relies on those instruction sets and a number of third-party libraries to function properly. While many organizations have expressed a desire to adopt support for ARM-based Macs, it is unclear whether all of these libraries will be updated as necessary and how long it may take their new versions to become fully stable and feature complete.

Unfortunately, it is not within our means as an indie team with limited resources to properly support these upcoming Macs therefore will no longer be releasing updates on MacOS. However, Mac players will still be able to play the latest Last Epoch content through Apple’s Boot Camp feature and when using computers running Windows or Linux.

If you need help transitioning please see our support article 90 for more information.

Yeah OpenGL and Vulkan are not as good as DirectX and if you want to make the best games you have to use DirectX or Metal 2.

I'd disagree with that statement. OpenGL and Vulkan are great. However, when the goal is to make games and actually make money with it, then Windows/DirectX is the right choice... not OpenGL, not Vulkan and not Metal.

 

[TBoneMac]

It's fine I really don't care about gaming that much. I just won't buy their games. If I was younger still then I would probably care more but games have gotten old for the most part, it's more of a side thing I do while doing something else or waiting to meet someone

 

[GrumpyCoder]

No worries, your choice. I don't play much either. It stuck to me from the 1980s and 1990s, so playing a game every now and then is a reminder of the old days. At some point I also thought I wouldn't play games in my late 20s or 30s or 40s. But it seems like I was wrong. I still can't see myself playing in my 70s or 80s (if I ever make it that far), but only time will tell.

 

[Realityck]

Just as a FYI I totally backed away from using PoE for Mac as that it turned into a endless situation of additional files added via large patches. I was restoring Mac OS at times when running beta testing using Migration Assistant and noticed the huge numbers of files involved. In fact my Mac runs a lot faster without all those files present.

Besides its almost a year later and their beta client never went official, what a waste of a game company.