If it were only a 5% performance hit, as others have mentioned, this would be a great day for Mac users and GW2. But unfortunately, after my experience on Mac Pro hardware, the performance degradation is at least 50%. I’ve also read a few people saying that a user wouldn’t notice the Cedar layer unless they were told; not quite true. I have played games on my Macs that are truly native, and apps that have been run on top of Wine and it’s offshoots. The performance is not there and it is obvious.
I am glad for a few fellow Mac users that have actually seen a performance increase (although this is suspect). Some call it playable, most don’t.
@AN I hope for the sake of Mac users, this is a BETA test to see if you are going to actually deploy this substandard product, or invest time into a quality release on the Mac platform.
There are many problems:
FPS performance is drastically reduced on most systems. The game was beautifully done, and will likely not allow Mac users to enjoy it to it’s fullest.
Audio Problems with some Mac hardware (this is the fault of the emulation layer, what these users will find, is that the audio will work out of the headphone output jack but not the system speakers or digital ports). Transgaming can fix the audio issue easily, but in the years I have seen this product used, they have not.
Although the game is generally stable and most things function now, opting to use this product is going to result in a perpetual need to chase bugs with each change in the game. Some will be fixed, while others simply will remain. I would hope that AN takes the time to review the complaints from users about their experiences with this product in other games and quickly find another way to bring the game to the Mac. The problems mainly are the FPS hits, and Transgaming has had a long time to work on that, with no improvement. Short of a native application, there is no product out there that is going to work. Nothing but harm can come to the game’s image by putting this out to the player base.
How bad is it? My FPS was 60 (v-sync enabled) on the Windows side using Bootcamp on Ultra settings. My FPS on low settings varies currently between 15-25 depending on proximity to other players or water. Sure this is a BETA release. But I fear this will not change based on past experiences with Transgaming’s product.
I was optimistic when I saw the post about the Mac client.
I was optimistic when I saw it was emulated.
I was disappointed when I saw how bad the performance hit really is.
