Guild Wars 2

Mathematical proof about PC optimization causing Mac problem:

PC_old_fps = Mac_old_fps

PC_new_fps = PC_old_fps * 1.1 (ie: 30 to 33)
Mac_new_fps = Mac_old_fps * 0.1 (ie: 30 to 3)

old_total_fps = Mac_old_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac + PC_old_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_PC
new_total_fps = Mac_new_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac + PC_new_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_PC

update is beneficial if new_total_fps > old_total_fps, or, to put it another way:
Mac_new_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac + PC_new_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_PC > Mac_old_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac + PC_old_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_PC
simplified:
Mac_old_fps * 0.1 * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac + PC_old_fps * 1.1 * percentage_of_users_that_use_PC > Mac_old_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac + PC_old_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_PC
simplified:
PC_old_fps * 1.1 * percentage_of_users_that_use_PC – PC_old_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_PC > Mac_old_fps * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac – Mac_old_fps * 0.1 * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac
simplified:
PC_old_fps * 0.1 * percentage_of_users_that_use_PC > Mac_old_fps * 0.9 * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac
simplified:
PC_old_fps * 0.1 * percentage_of_users_that_use_PC > PC_old_fps * 0.9 * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac
simplified:
0.1 * percentage_of_users_that_use_PC > 0.9 * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac
simplified:
percentage_of_users_that_use_PC > 9 * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac

which translates to: the update was beneficial if there are more than 9 times as many PC users as Mac users that play GW2, ie: 10% of players use Macs, 90% use PC
If this is not the case, the optimization update should be reversed without question.

I’ll bring up, however, there’s still a problem of user experience. basically, you could replace fps with user_experience to get this:
PC_new_user_experience = PC_old_user_experience * 1.05
Mac_new_user_experience = Mac_old_user_experience * 0.05

and the math would simplify to:
percentage_of_users_that_use_PC > 19 * percentage_of_users_that_use_Mac

which translates to: the update was beneficial if there are more than 19 times as many PC users as Mac users that play GW2, ie: 5% of players use Macs, 95% use PC

Mystic, that’s amazing! Thanks for the data.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

haqqa.8194:

It is just an OS X issue.

I installed bootcamp just cuz I had the time and for the heck of it, and went straight to zerg vs zerg in EOTM. It’s no issue on the windows version. On OSX I fall to ~4FPS and it’s frustrating even just to stand in one spot and turn the camera in those same fights.

I used the windows installer, stopped it when it started updating the game, then copied the 17GB or so file from my OSX partition; saved me the download.

P.S. It’s a working copy till OSX version is better. I just can’t stand the reversed mouse wheel direction on zoom in, zoom out :P

Oh my. Are you one of those weird people who uses the “natural” scrolling on OSX? That’s shameful

Holy kitten, not even the support section is free from elitism in this game.

Are you one of those guys that walks up to our table at a restaurant from across the room, where we have to pause our conversation just baffled at what you might want; then with a kitten look on your face you go “I like the fish” ?

That’s annoying. My OSX version is still unplayable, run along.

Remember last year when Ashley started posting that “I’m working to get more info. Good things coming! I’ll keep you guys posted.” and then she disappeared from the Mac forums and none of our concerns were addressed?

Oh, or how about the time when Luis started posting that “I’m working to get more info. Good things coming! I’ll keep you guys posted.” and then he disappeared from the Mac forums and none of our concerns were addressed?

Well, now we have Gaile posting here. I certainly feel she has the best intentions at heart, just as Ashley and Luis did, but we have to face the harsh reality that with their current track record there is no reason to believe that this issue, or any other Mac issues, will be addressed anytime soon if they are at all.

We’re in “beta”, remember? lol

To be fair Gaile’s attention is possibly a little more meaningful – she’s been with Arenanet for a long time.

haqqa.8194:

I just can’t stand the reversed mouse wheel direction on zoom in, zoom out :P

How to turn off natural scrolling in Mac OS X Lion

1. Open System Preferences (under the Apple menu, top left-hand corner).
2. Click Trackpad.
3. Select the Scroll & Zoom tab.
4. Deselect Scroll direction: natural.

I think on Mavericks they moved this checkbox to the Mouse & Keyboard preferences

I love the overall silence and general lack of disconcern for our issues. GG Anet

mikeew.8607:

I love the overall silence and general lack of disconcern for our issues. GG Anet

Historically speaking, this is more than we usually get. Kind of depressing but whatever. Anyone have any ideas how we might fix this partially on our own? Like, is there a way we can somehow use an old version of the game (we were using an old version back when the mac patcher was screwing up)? I doubt we can, but it doesn’t hurt trying weird things at this point.

I haven’t notice any significant difference in framerate. The only thing that improved it was turning antialiasing on (I usually run it off because antialiasing usually kills my framerate). I’m running with basically everything on high because everything on low doesn’t really change performance any (new high end iMac so it could run with about 30 fps before patch).

Frankly, I’m using a windows partition for the last couple days (because of getting in a certain other MMO) so I’m not sure if anything has changed since then.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, here’s a new update to the update:

The devs have developed a fix that should address certain performance issues you have been posting about, and that fix will be rolled out after testing is completed.

That’s not months from now, by the way. Testing is underway!

Mac client confirmed ! (and not a beta one)

Anen.1742:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, here’s a new update to the update:

The devs have developed a fix that should address certain performance issues you have been posting about, and that fix will be rolled out after testing is completed.

That’s not months from now, by the way. Testing is underway!

Mac client confirmed ! (and not a beta one)

lol :p but thanks for the update

+1 wins for Gaile.
- Gaile is awarded with cookie -

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, here’s a new update to the update:

The devs have developed a fix that should address certain performance issues you have been posting about, and that fix will be rolled out after testing is completed.

That’s not months from now, by the way. Testing is underway!

Dear Gaile,

My first forum post has not been in vain, thank you very much for the updates! Looking forward to the fix

Regards,
Benn

Thank you for the update, Gaile!

Please relay our appreciation to the Devs for their work on this issue.

Thank you for letting us know!

Just tested with new (Free Trial) of Crossover in identical settings to mac beta SAME performance Solo areas 30~50 FPS LA 15~25 FPS WVW 20~1 FPS (Or any other large scale events). Side note Crossovers crashed in the middle of Stonemist attack. For now beta is the best VM option as far as I can tell. I agree that it’s something in the base game not the wrapper causing the issue this time. Granted I never really Have good FPS anyways ins zeros or LA

Running Late 2013 rMBP 2.3ghz I7 16gig RAM GeForce 750M 2 gig
I can post my GW2 settings if anyone wants to know.

Please ArenaNet please make this a usable game for us and remember OpenGL works on Windows Mac and Linux making your market even bigger if you update the engine!

Thank you for the upcoming fix because currently the game is unplayable. Average of 5 fps in WvW zerg battles. Used to be 15-25 at minimal settings.

Kamikae.9536:

Please ArenaNet please make this a usable game for us and remember OpenGL works on Windows Mac and Linux making your market even bigger if you update the engine!

It wouldn’t be updating the engine though, it would be completely rewriting it.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Kamikae.9536:

Please ArenaNet please make this a usable game for us and remember OpenGL works on Windows Mac and Linux making your market even bigger if you update the engine!

It wouldn’t be updating the engine though, it would be completely rewriting it.

I know it it would mean rewriting, but a lot of ArenaNet’s goals require a better engine, we are currently using a heavily modified version of the GW1 engine, and going from DirectX coding to OpenGL coding is a HARD transition and is not fun for the software guys. But in the long run it saves everyone headaches you have 1 version of the game to update across all OS’s it’s as close to universal compatibility as you can get and they can optimize it for longevity so they can use the GW1 expansion pack model in a few years and give us Cantha or Elona back

PS: Props to Gaile for quoting me

Thank you Gaile for responding .. !!

As others have pointed out .. we mac users have too often seen official posts about various things .. and never any sort of follow up or the person ever to be heard from again.. Many of us having had to deal with that (and as mac users with other MMORPGs/games that treated us the same way) you can understand how we feel when the bug is as serious as this specific one is crops up and things go silent. As I mentioned before even a periodic “hey guys we are still working on a fix” goes a long way.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

+1 wins for Gaile.
- Gaile is awarded with cookie -

Totally agree!!

Thanks for the update, Gaile. Whatever happened to Ashley btw.? She was so enthusiastic about communicating with the Mac community, then she vanished without a trace. We’re a bit concerned about her well-being. You didn’t lock her up becasue she was fraternizing with the players, did you?

Naqaj.6219:

Thanks for the update, Gaile. Whatever happened to Ashley btw.? She was so enthusiastic about communicating with the Mac community, then she vanished without a trace. We’re a bit concerned about her well-being. You didn’t lock her up becasue she was fraternizing with the players, did you?

Her post history suggests that she is still actively doing tech support – just for windows (which i think is her job anyway and has been since GW1).

Thanks for the update. I hope the QA process will always include mac os in the future so as to avoid this type of situation again. Also, I look forward to more communication and stability.

For context on how people feel on this issue, there is another, larger MMO that has a mac client and, in the 7 years my husband and I played it, we never once had to think about the mac client (well, it did break once in 7 years, but was fixed within a couple of days). There aren’t many interesting MMOs that are mac friendly and GW2 is such a superior game in terms of design philosophy (living story is brilliant with its dynamic, changing world) that it would be nice to never have to think about the mac client in this game either.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I will do that. They sit near me, and it’s nice to see them busy at work on stuff that you guys want and need.

Thank you for the update Gaile. Very glad to hear that this is being addressed. We sincerely appreciate it.

Any chance we will ever know who the mystical “they” are? lol. Seriously though, would be great if we could develop an actual relationship with the devs who work on this client, much like the PC team does.

Also, any chance patches will be QA tested on the Mac client in the future to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again? Considering it is across the board it just seems odd that something this huge fell through the cracks. Thanks!

Gaile Gray.6029:

We don’t have a “PC Team” and a “Mac Team.” So it’s not possible to give you names of people working on the Mac improvements. Basically, development is handled by the team as a whole, with several people picking up or providing input on various parts of a particular project. If we can flag names in the future, we’ll do it.

Darn, I guess this means we will still not be getting native support. I was still holding out that the exciting updates you keep mentioning that are coming could mean that we would finally have an actual client….

Gaile Gray.6029:

All Mac improvements have and will have a thorough QA pass. If something creeps up after release, there can be a dozen different reasons why that happened. But testing is done and with every issue, we learn things that help us prevent future issues. (Nothing will ever be flawless, but each fix is both a fix and an education, if that makes sense.)

I completely understand that you would QA the Mac patches but what we were asking is that you test the PC patches, such as this last optimization patch, on the Mac. Because you guys use a cider client, everything you change on the PC affects us. If the patch had had even a minimal QA pass, let alone the type of “thorough QA pass” you are referencing, this huge mess would have been avoided. We would really appreciate it if the team would take the time to do that.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• We don’t have a “PC Team” and a “Mac Team.”

That certainly explains the absurdly low priority level we’re given. I mean we all knew it but seeing it stated in an official capacity stings a bit. It also explains why the mac client isn’t tested after each patch/build independently, if it was this current bug that dropped people from 40fps down to 8fps wouldn’t have gone live I’d hope.

Either way I’m still happy to know that the devs recognize we still exist at least in some capacity and things are being done to right this wrong.

I am glad to see attention from Anet here again so the following will probably make me look like I’m not. However, in tune with wondering if updates are tested on Macs before they go live I’d like to offer this quote from the Mac Beta Client webpage:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/announcing-guild-wars-2-for-mac-beta/

On top of it all, ArenaNet staffers are big fans of Macs. We offer them as part of our employee laptop subsidy program, and our president Mike O’Brien is rarely seen without his Mac laptop. We’re as excited as anyone to play Guild Wars 2 on OS X.

I reference that because if you Google ‘guild wars 2 for mac’ that is the first page that comes up.

Perhaps staff could use those Macs prior to future updates to check for bugs like the one we have now and the gem store issue that I still am not sure if it has been fixed aside from user fixes. Just a thought. Oh and I bolded that part about Mike because I’d like to see if he has played GW2 on his Mac that he is almost never seen without.

Or maybe you could offer up some dedicated Mac users to be part of the live test server before updates go live. Not me because I don’t play much but I could give some recommendations for Mac players that I know would properly test things. Perhaps FlamingFoxx for example. He has been in this forum since I started here and seems to know a lot about the Mac client and seems to be highly invested in playing the game. Having some Mac customers on the test server might be a good thing to help avoid future problems.

Again, Gaile, thank you for your attention to this forum. I know this isn’t your area as you are responsible for account issues but your continued attention to Mac issues does have meaning to us.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Or maybe you could offer up some dedicated Mac users to be part of the live test group before updates go live. That might be even better.

That would be AWESOME!!! Take some of the really active members like FlamingFoxx, Kylla, JustTrogdor and give them a chance to QA the content before the release. It would be like the Mac team you’ve never had. (In all seriousness though, I think this is a great idea)

Aigisthos.3059:

JustTrogdor.7892:

Or maybe you could offer up some dedicated Mac users to be part of the live test group before updates go live. That might be even better.

That would be AWESOME!!! Take some of the really active members like FlamingFoxx, Kylla, JustTrogdor and give them a chance to QA the content before the release. It would be like the Mac team you’ve never had. (In all seriousness though, I think this is a great idea)

You caught my post in the middle of edits. I have a bad habit of typing and submitting then editing LOL.

I’m a pretty casual player, just a few days a week for a few hours a time, so I don’t think I could contribute much. I have not seen Kyllaa here in several months. However, FF and I’m sure a few others here would be great candidates to be part of the test server. It would really only take a few Mac players that play on MacBooks and or iMacs to help out. It seems like it would be a logical thing to do in the future to help minimize issues like we are having now.

Just wanted to post some findings here that I stumbled onto tonight.

I was having issues with safari mac os x 10.9.1 and completely not to do with guild wars but pages weren’t loading or were loading very slow. I did some digging and stumbled across some info about changing the DNS to Googles open DNS servers.

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/

link explains more.

Long story short I set up my router and mac and phone and wives phone with that specific DNS of 8.8.8.8 and did a speed test at speedtest.net I usually get around 60ms ping and it returned a ping of 16ms. I then wondered how fast other things such as youtube and other locations loaded and they are blazing now. So I delve a bit deeper wondering how this would impact my Guild Wars 2 Game play and I am sitting at around 50 fps now and have amazingly noticeable speed increases in load times as well. So hope this helps anyone that wants to give it a go.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Disastro.4086:

Gaile Gray.6029:

• We don’t have a “PC Team” and a “Mac Team.”

That certainly explains the absurdly low priority level we’re given. I mean we all knew it but seeing it stated in an official capacity stings a bit. It also explains why the mac client isn’t tested after each patch/build independently, if it was this current bug that dropped people from 40fps down to 8fps wouldn’t have gone live I’d hope.

Either way I’m still happy to know that the devs recognize we still exist at least in some capacity and things are being done to right this wrong.

Please don’t read that the wrong way. That means we don’t have a team for each discipline, but that anyone on our team may work on either. This is a good thing, as far as I can see.

mikeew.8607:

Just wanted to post some findings here that I stumbled onto tonight.

I was having issues with safari mac os x 10.9.1 and completely not to do with guild wars but pages weren’t loading or were loading very slow. I did some digging and stumbled across some info about changing the DNS to Googles open DNS servers.

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/

link explains more.

Long story short I set up my router and mac and phone and wives phone with that specific DNS of 8.8.8.8 and did a speed test at speedtest.net I usually get around 60ms ping and it returned a ping of 16ms. I then wondered how fast other things such as youtube and other locations loaded and they are blazing now. So I delve a bit deeper wondering how this would impact my Guild Wars 2 Game play and I am sitting at around 50 fps now and have amazingly noticeable speed increases in load times as well. So hope this helps anyone that wants to give it a go.

Wow, impressive! Thank you for sharing this information.

My pleasure, was just something I stumbled across but I have tested on both mac and windows based pc’s and noticed huge improvements on both. So hope it will help some at least.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Disastro.4086:

Gaile Gray.6029:

• We don’t have a “PC Team” and a “Mac Team.”

That certainly explains the absurdly low priority level we’re given. I mean we all knew it but seeing it stated in an official capacity stings a bit. It also explains why the mac client isn’t tested after each patch/build independently, if it was this current bug that dropped people from 40fps down to 8fps wouldn’t have gone live I’d hope.

Either way I’m still happy to know that the devs recognize we still exist at least in some capacity and things are being done to right this wrong.

Please don’t read that the wrong way. That means we don’t have a team for each discipline, but that anyone on our team may work on either. This is a good thing, as far as I can see.

I really don’t think I am reading this the wrong way at all. Not necessarily better in most cases but certainly there are some situations where I can see it’s very good especially in the context of cider.

There are some things so radically different between the platforms it generally requires one be specialized in such differences even more so when you’re dealing with a system like cider as it has it’s own issues and limitations on top of it and to my knowledge has not been updated to take advantage of some of the major OGL changes in 10.9. It’s also extremely evident in the current problem we’re facing right now and very noticeable every time a new problem is introduced and never addressed or placed on extremely low priority because the developers for the primary system have other things they need to be focusing on instead of mac only issues and it has a negative impact on us. Having them come back to mac issues takes time away from other issues that effect the majority of the player base which is why we’ve to date only seen fixes for the absolutely most game breaking problems and nothing else.

While I have no doubt there is an effort being made on the mac front now and that the developers are a very passionate lot of folks, actions always speak louder than words even more so when there is a lack of.

mikeew.8607:

Long story short I set up my router and mac and phone and wives phone with that specific DNS of 8.8.8.8 and did a speed test at speedtest.net I usually get around 60ms ping and it returned a ping of 16ms. I then wondered how fast other things such as youtube and other locations loaded and they are blazing now. So I delve a bit deeper wondering how this would impact my Guild Wars 2 Game play and I am sitting at around 50 fps now and have amazingly noticeable speed increases in load times as well. So hope this helps anyone that wants to give it a go.

Network lag (communication with servers that can be on the other side of the world) and FPS (computation is done locally on the machine) are two very different things..

I think a lot of the problems we are seeing today could have been avoided if they had provided the Mac playerbase with a mac test client for the “edge of the mists” patch ..

Honestly I was able to scrap one together myself just so I could see the mists content and play some test with my guildies (but work and life issues cropped up preventing me from using it beyond a quick run around when no one was on so the FPS issues didn’t present themselves unfortunately) ..

Having said that and having made a test client own my own by myself for the EOM beta wasn’t terribly hard and it could have easily been done by aNet — IF — they had opted to do so.. So I am still pondering why they didn’t .. (I just copied the existing gw2 application , opened the package contents, changed a few options inside to prevent auto updating, and replaced the gw2.exe with the eom.exe test binary —really not rocket science here)

Gaile Gray.6029:

Please don’t read that the wrong way. That means we don’t have a team for each discipline, but that anyone on our team may work on either. This is a good thing, as far as I can see.

Nurse: “So we know you’re having open heart surgery today but the only guy we could find was a brain surgeon who has never done open heart surgery in his entire life but he’s like REALLY smart so we’re pretty sure he can figure it out.”

(see the problem?)

Just because you can code on a PC does not mean you can code on a Mac and vice versa. It is most certainly NOT a good thing that ArenaNet has not hired a team that is experienced and specialized in developing for the Mac. In fact it is actually quite alarming that you would brag about such a fallacy. Our concerns in this regard are extremely valid.

ps You want to know why Blizzard is able to release working clients for both the Mac and the PC for all of their games? They understand and value the importance of specialization and have a dedicated team for each client. (hint hint: I’m trying to convince you that you guys need a Mac team if this is ever going to work)

Just in case anyone reads my post the wrong way, I want to come out and say that I have the utmost respect for the PC team and for all the incredible work that they do. The problem simply is that no matter how much I may like oranges, if you’re going to grow an apple tree you need an apple seed. (see what I did there?)

Experience and specialization needs to be acknowledged as a necessity in this regard, not an after-thought. It’s not as easy as “Hey, you made GW2 for the PC so SURELY you can make it for Mac right?” It just simply does not work that way.

I think that was code for, “It’s a good thing because it reduces the cost of having a Mac port to the point where the client can exist.” not, “Our programmers are gods who can code the entire game in FORTRAN in their sleep. Mwahahahaha. Even now they are reprogramming the Matrix!”

I’ll take what I can get, but I hope some lessons were learned to avoid such game breaking bugs from hitting us again even if we continue with this type of “beta”.

I know I’m getting rather wound up at the prospect at having to enjoy the fall of Lion’s Arch at 4 FPS. Further, I’m a little miffed that despite all the money I’ve pumped into this game — and it’s a lot — it appears that my client is at the bottom of the priority list and doesn’t even get tested before releases.

And It is just so annoying to be told to “just get Windows” as a solution. Yep, I should spend $140 and exit my operating system to enjoy a game I thought was fully supported on my platform.

There’s a bunch of very good reasons why I stopped using Windows as my primary platform. I spend my money on software that is advertised to work on OSX because I WANT to work and play on that platform and have been prepared to pay for it. If I wanted to keep using Windows software I’d still have a Windows machine.

Beta does not mean “we don’t test it before releases”.

Beta is not equivalent to “low priority”.

Anyway, just make it right before the next content patch and all is forgiven. Mac users are fanatical about the software companies that treat them well. You’ll be happy to serve us.

:-D

Can you not release your fix as a “hot fix”? I will gladly help test the fix for you! Anything better than what I deal with now.

For the time being I have stopped playing since 4FPS in WvW is migraine inducing.

After last night, just so you guys know..some of us PC users have joined you in this lag problem. I was running to Crag in our BL from spawn. I missed a jump and landed face first at the bottom of the cliff at full health, ran to the gate of Crag then died from the fall. The scout on duty actually rezzed me. No idea how that worked. Sadly, it then happened again another time with no rez. After another round of disconnects, and skills circling after hitting them for 30 seconds or more, I gave up and left game.

Darlgon.9273:

After last night, just so you guys know..some of us PC users have joined you in this lag problem. I was running to Crag in our BL from spawn. I missed a jump and landed face first at the bottom of the cliff at full health, ran to the gate of Crag then died from the fall. The scout on duty actually rezzed me. No idea how that worked. Sadly, it then happened again another time with no rez. After another round of disconnects, and skills circling after hitting them for 30 seconds or more, I gave up and left game.

Please STOP confusing LAG with FPS drop…

Yes this issue has nothing to do with lag / networking latency .. its all about the speed which graphics are rendered on your screen ..

I was really hoping they would have this fix out for the weekend. It’s sad that we have to wait another 4 days before it’s even possible to get the update.

I really wish there was some way the Guild Wars 2 Mac community could show ArenaNet that we are committed to them if they will work WITH us. Plus we can pressure Transgaming to put out a 64bit Cider almost all Intel Mac’s I know of are 64 bit why in the heck are we still running a 32 bit wrapper from Transgaming,and why aren’t they all over the OGL update it’s not like Apple just sprung it on them the other day and said Oh by the way here’s a bunch of new OGL stuff weeee.

~Pants Heavily~

There’s my rant for tonight