How about those who backed the KickStarter because it promised a OSX version?
How about those who would love a version for AmigaOS 4?
Last edited:
Engineers Engineers needs a branch for Mac users in stations
- Thread starter Ludo Madrid
- Start date
How about those who backed the KickStarter because it promised a OSX version?
How about those who would love a version for AmigaOS 4?
How about those who backed the KickStarter because it promised a OSX version?
How about those who would love a version for AmigaOS 4?
You have a OSX version of Elite Dangerous.
Sadly Frontier can't tell the future for additional content moving forward and if the company creating your operating system are going to be stupid idiots and shaft their userbase in the interests of trying to give their own pointless technologies a reason to even exist in the first place and discontinue updated support for what they were offering at the time Elite Dangerous was in initial development.
The same would go if Microsoft were to decide that no non-windows store software was allowed on Windows 10. Put licensing agreements on developers to publish on the store that would cripple Frontiers efforts with the game if they accepted them, and Frontier ended up having to pull Windows 10 support.
Or worse if Microsoft did something really weird and put extensive effort into reworking DirectX and ended up making Windows 10 (or 'Windows') only support DX12 onward compatible software, and then added in requirements for any DX12+ utilising software to have to be included on the Windows store as well as any other market place. Meaning Frontier would either need to make Elite Dangerous entirely work within the new limitations or pull availability for the game from Windows 10.
Frontier can't predict nor solve such things themselves.
Only consumer pressure on the arsehats perpetrating the actual problem acts will lead to a resolution.... Apple would without a doubt give in to such consumer demand if enough of it was sent their way and it started harming their bottom line, but people putting that amount of pressure on them will likely never happen.
Last edited:
No, no you're quite wrong, it's our fault for not realising that technically FD were being economical with the truth
No you're both wrong, they state clearly that it does not work on Mac on their store page. They explained it and offered refunds. The reason it doesn't work is a shader technology that it not supported on Mac's graphics API libraries.
A minor point it's called "Mac", it's supposed to be a shortening of Macintosh, their original line. Which were, named after an apple - the "McIntosh" apple.
MAC is something different.
Sadly I don't have all the future content that was promised at the level that I backed at.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
It does now, didn't always. And a minor point, it does work on the Mac but not on macOS.
I presume that the support page on this issue gives the 'official' FD position:
Will Elite Dangerous: Horizons be released for Mac OS X?
Last edited:
Wow! I can't believe all the childish comments I read in this thread. Seriously, grow up people! I think that in 2016, we're passed the age where who had the biggest muscle car could brag the most, frankly.
We all know that there is (apparently) a technical limitation to Mac OS X (not the Mac hardware, mind you, we can install Windows on our Macs and play Horizons there) as to why the Mac version doesn't allow you to land on planets.
What the OP asked is to make a few engineers starport-based. That's all. All the commodities, raw materials and data that I gather when playing under Windows are there when I play under Mac OS X. All the commodities, raw material and data that I gather when playing under Mac OS X are there in Windows. All the engineers' mods I did under Windows are perfectly working under the Mac version. I can see which modules have been modified. Even the engineers appear in the galaxy map. I just don't understand why Frontier had to make ALL engineers planet-based. If they wanted to allow only those who purchased Horizons to access engineers, I'm sure that with a bit of effort, they would have found a way to validate that. Making all engineers planet-based as a "copy-protection" is a bit simplistic in my opinion.
Not only that but look what they did with the engineers' bases on planets. Now, think about what they could have come up with for starport/outpost-based engineers...
We all know that there is (apparently) a technical limitation to Mac OS X (not the Mac hardware, mind you, we can install Windows on our Macs and play Horizons there) as to why the Mac version doesn't allow you to land on planets.
What the OP asked is to make a few engineers starport-based. That's all. All the commodities, raw materials and data that I gather when playing under Windows are there when I play under Mac OS X. All the commodities, raw material and data that I gather when playing under Mac OS X are there in Windows. All the engineers' mods I did under Windows are perfectly working under the Mac version. I can see which modules have been modified. Even the engineers appear in the galaxy map. I just don't understand why Frontier had to make ALL engineers planet-based. If they wanted to allow only those who purchased Horizons to access engineers, I'm sure that with a bit of effort, they would have found a way to validate that. Making all engineers planet-based as a "copy-protection" is a bit simplistic in my opinion.
Not only that but look what they did with the engineers' bases on planets. Now, think about what they could have come up with for starport/outpost-based engineers...
Last edited:
Anything that would be done to that effect would have to be a full replacement for all versions. Otherwise the asset creation and work involved just for one environment technically not even officially supported for the product in question simply isn't worth it.
I'd be all for shifting engineers to orbital stations, would certainly make getting to them less time intensive flying down to surfaces, approaching, landing etc. But there's no real justification for making a 'special branch' with Engineers shifted for OSX.
I certainly have no problem with Engineers having their own orbital bases, actually I would prefer it, seems a bit weird to me that they are all on rocky bodies. It is certainly not a solution to the Mac problem though and I would expect it to be done simply for the game in general rather than as a band-aid for Mac. Apple needs to get their foot out and address the consumers desire for a capable gaming platform.
When you say the level you backed out - do you mean you have access to all future seasons?
I see you felt like I was being a know-it-all twit, I was, I do apologise it just reads weirdly. Anyway, to continue being a know-it-all twit:
It doesn't work on Mac, it might work on "a Mac", but not on Mac or "the Mac". Mac is a platform, the "OS" is implied, it simply means Operating System. We also say "Windows" which is a shortening of "Windows OS". "A Mac" or "my Mac" or "his/her Mac" is a hardware unit. Also macOS is the latest currently in beta Sierra platform, I think you mean Mac OS X.
Computer abbreviations and short hand are fun aren't they?
Whether they want it to or not, because it's on their support page it is definitely their official position and it rings true with what I remember them talking about when they said they couldn't get it to work sometime last summer-ish.
I want ED on all platforms where feasible, more players is better, better for the community, the "economy" and for FD's pockets which will help to ensure the game continues to be developed.
I do. Though probably not on my present Mac unless a suitable eGPU becomes commercially available
Well, I think Apple has clearly shown the path with Metal on OS X. Thing is, OpenGL is more or less moribund. There were some talks about a successor in Vulkan but that doesn't seem to get any traction. So, the real only game in town right now is DirectX for Windows and what appears to be Metal on OS X. I've read another thread in the Mac forum that for a seasoned OpenGL/Metal programmer, such a task could be done relatively easily. It all depends on how the Cobra engine separates or abstracts the calls to the graphic APIs. I would imagine that having at this moment to support both DirectX and OpenGL, the Cobra engine would already do that separation. It still means that Frontier would have to add Metal support to ED, though. To that end, someone suggested in a Mac forum to have another Kickstarter campaign to help fund the transition. I'm already a Kickstarter backer and I already bought my Lifetime Pass Expansion but I'd be willing to contribute again, call me an idiot...
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
Oh no, I'm not suggesting that only Mac OS X have access to these orbital stations. It should be available to all players. It just seems to me the this would be a nice way to not "nick" the Mac OS X users and, at the same time, add some needed variation to the game with totally different orbital stations.
The likelihood of Metal will ever picking up traction in terms gaming is slim to non-existent I'd say. It serves no real purpose other than for Apple to try create their own enclosed DirectX-like box a couple of decades too late in a time when there is a serious alternative on the table... all it will really do is just ensure OSX doesn't get many titles released supporting it.
Vulkan given that it was only publicly made available to the larger world little over 6 months actually has a fair bit of traction to it already as mentioned in previous posts in this thread, as many larger companies have been directly involved in shaping it (even more if you consider the roots Vulkan has behind it in the Mantle period), and GPU manufacturers are taking Vulkan support for their hardware very seriously, but like DirectX 12 it will be some time yet before we see a proper range of titles utilising either as DX10/11 and OpenGL still offer the most solid tried and tested options for wider scale deployment, especially considering the restrictions to DX12... but that's another area Vulkan can step into further down the road.
Apple have very much shot themselves in the foot, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't quietly concede that by discretely adding reasonable support for Vulkan down the line after few developers bother with porting titles to Metal just for the smaller OSX market.... compared to Vulkan where they could opt to make that the main API utilised and target Windows, Linux or whatever other environment in a more combined effort if they did wish to target a wider range of environments with smaller userbases on top of targeting the bulk of their end userbase (Windows).... as that's where Mac/OSX finds itself, it's a minor market.
Gaming and OSX is not a major massive chunk of the market in terms of userbase with much 'umph' behind it that justifies dealing with incorporating support for a OSX exclusive API.... it's a secondary market that gets targeted if it's not too much of a hassle. And Apple have gone out of their way to now make it a even bigger hassle than it ever was before.
There will certainly be developers that want to introduce more titles onto OSX especially as it will be a area with less direct competition and simply supporting it will bring sales from users with less natively supported options.... but those I suspect will be few and far between.
Apple had a hard enough time attracting developers to support OSX when it was simply a question of dealing with shaky support for OpenGL and debugging all the performance and stability issues that came with that.... they're not going to win anyone over by making it even more work by forcing having to incorporate an entirely different API down their throats.
But perhaps what Apple are counting on is for OSX to end up not having a wide range of titles available on other environments, but instead to breed an entirely new sub-culture of developers that focus entirely on nothing but OSX titles driven by Metal.... kind of creating their own version of 'Console exclusive' developer groups but ones that only develop titles for Apple products.
Vulkan given that it was only publicly made available to the larger world little over 6 months actually has a fair bit of traction to it already as mentioned in previous posts in this thread, as many larger companies have been directly involved in shaping it (even more if you consider the roots Vulkan has behind it in the Mantle period), and GPU manufacturers are taking Vulkan support for their hardware very seriously, but like DirectX 12 it will be some time yet before we see a proper range of titles utilising either as DX10/11 and OpenGL still offer the most solid tried and tested options for wider scale deployment, especially considering the restrictions to DX12... but that's another area Vulkan can step into further down the road.
Apple have very much shot themselves in the foot, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't quietly concede that by discretely adding reasonable support for Vulkan down the line after few developers bother with porting titles to Metal just for the smaller OSX market.... compared to Vulkan where they could opt to make that the main API utilised and target Windows, Linux or whatever other environment in a more combined effort if they did wish to target a wider range of environments with smaller userbases on top of targeting the bulk of their end userbase (Windows).... as that's where Mac/OSX finds itself, it's a minor market.
Gaming and OSX is not a major massive chunk of the market in terms of userbase with much 'umph' behind it that justifies dealing with incorporating support for a OSX exclusive API.... it's a secondary market that gets targeted if it's not too much of a hassle. And Apple have gone out of their way to now make it a even bigger hassle than it ever was before.
There will certainly be developers that want to introduce more titles onto OSX especially as it will be a area with less direct competition and simply supporting it will bring sales from users with less natively supported options.... but those I suspect will be few and far between.
Apple had a hard enough time attracting developers to support OSX when it was simply a question of dealing with shaky support for OpenGL and debugging all the performance and stability issues that came with that.... they're not going to win anyone over by making it even more work by forcing having to incorporate an entirely different API down their throats.
But perhaps what Apple are counting on is for OSX to end up not having a wide range of titles available on other environments, but instead to breed an entirely new sub-culture of developers that focus entirely on nothing but OSX titles driven by Metal.... kind of creating their own version of 'Console exclusive' developer groups but ones that only develop titles for Apple products.
Last edited:
I like it when people presents information that helps support their biased views...
Unreal Engine has already added support for Metal rendering on OS X: https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-4-11-released.
Unity3D has already added support for Metal rendering on OS X: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/06/17/wwdc-unity-metal-tessellation-demo/
So, the 2 biggest game engines are supporting Metal on OS X. I'm not sure I would say that "Apple shot themselves in the foot".
As for the other assumptions, comments and opinions, they are just that, assumptions, comments and opinions...
wow.. opinions and speculative discussion are opinions and speculative discussions.... great insight.
And yes, they would have included Metal support. As there's practically no alternative for OSX now. The only other option would be for them to go "Sorry guys, our engines don't support Mac at all now", and has little bearing on how much actual traction Metal may or may not have with developers and adoption for the bulk of gaming as an industry.
Well I see we've now got to the stage of the discussion where it has gone from discussing opinions and how things might go to "OMG! YOUR OPINION IS JUST A OPINION! AND THAT MAKES IT LESSER BECAUSE IT DIFFERS TO MY OPINION!"... so guess the rational discourse part of the whole thing is concluded.
Bravo internet.
Last edited:
I'd suggest that Metal already has traction, though as an api for iOS.
The plan presumably is to encourage those who already know about Metal from iOS to move into the macOS space. Unreal and Unity supporting Metal seems to be fact rather than opinion.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
If I was following your reasoning, shouldn't both Unity and Unreal have refused to support Metal because it was OS X only?
The plan presumably is to encourage those who already know about Metal from iOS to move into the macOS space. Unreal and Unity supporting Metal seems to be fact rather than opinion.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
If I was following your reasoning, shouldn't both Unity and Unreal have refused to support Metal because it was OS X only?
I'll try to make it simpler. You stated that Apple shot themselves in the foot. I replied that the 2 biggest game engines are already supporting Metal on OS X. The rest was just speculation on your part from that unsubstantiated claim that Apple shot themselves in the foot. It seems pretty easy to understand...
Not really, they need to offer Metal support simply to allow developers who would like to, to ship anything to Mac. But like I said in a previous post in regards to the 3 wide scale packaged engines available to developers already pushing Vulkan support:
I've bolded the important bit. But with Metal there's the additional consideration if developers gravitate toward it of "do we want to do part of the work again just for OSX?".... and as the answer for many when it was just a matter of OpenGL was already 'no'. I don't see that changing when it's a question of integrating full blown engine support for a secondary API just for that platform due to no other alternative.
On an aside and going back to packaged engine development. If Metal really doesn't properly support some of the functionality available in current OpenGL standards, let alone DX12/Vulkan which the Frontier comment about Horizons would seem to suggest is very much the case. Simply 'Using Unreal Engine' or 'Using Unity' doesn't magic away incompatibilities if you've got something that's using say compute shaders in your project and Metal either doesn't allow it or alternative doesn't allow you to utilise them in the same way which impacts end performance/stability.
Anyone who has ever dealt with Unity for example and is working with custom shaders can likely attest to the fact that compiling a DirectX (Windows) build of a Unity Project and a OpenGL (Linux for example) build of a Unity Project isn't necessarily effortless.... especially when it comes to optimisation and making sure things behave sanely between the two environments.
Last edited:
But I thought you were arguing no developers would want to support Metal. If no developers want to support the OS X api why would the developers of Unity and Unreal go to the considerable effort of supporting Metal?
And that's just avoiding the question, which is if no-one is going to want to use Metal, why are the developers of Unity and Unreal engine (who might have a reasonable finger on the pulse) bothering to support it?
Last edited:
Dev's will support Metal. Blizzard for example, always release their games on Mac also so will probably get Metal working on their engine.
And Unreal Engine and Unity are Engine's from Engine developers - the idea being to make the Engine everyone wants to use. One of the best ways of doing that is offering the most features.
But most importantly, it's about mobile. iOS has a lot of customers and metal is the API you want to use there for best performance. UED and Unity would be foolish to not include it when it offers a huge performance benefit over OpenGL.
Why does it offer a huge performance benefit? Because OpenGL hasn't been updated on Mac since 4.1. ~5 years ago. 4.5 is the latest version iirc. This is why ED had such an issue with compute shaders and performance on Mac for Horizons.
If Metal is easy to implement FD will probably get it working though - planet coaster is the perfect type of game for multiple platforms as the demographic who use it is so diverse. I doubt FD will tell us that they are working on it if they are, announcing it makes for a great "LOOK WE GOT IT WORKING" marketing boost.
Again, re-read what I actually said. And not the cherry picking of a single paragraph that was about Metal acting as a detractor for wider scale adoption of Metal for self developed Engine creation for multi-platform titles, and acting like that's all I said.
Frontiers support article regarding Horizons that got linked earlier mentions Metal also doesn't support compute Shaders in the way needed to make it viable, which is why they weren't able to do so.
Does seem they looked into it, but then found it wasn't a practical option.
Last edited: