The Mac version of Final Fantasy XIV

The Mac version of Final Fantasy XIV uses middleware developed by TransGaming to get Windows’ DirectX visual systems working in the Mac’s OpenGL environment. That, in portability parlance, is what’s known as a wrapper, and since wrappers have to translate crazy-complex rendering logic in realtime, they always induce a performance penalty. Studios use wrappers to port games much faster, lowering their development costs. But what’s interesting in Yoshida’s disclosure is his claim that a native OpenGL version would still have been significantly inferior to the DirectX version. “Taking into account FFXIV’s high-end graphics, and the need to simultaneously render multiple objects, we determined that it would be near impossible to provide the same frame rate in native OpenGL that could be achieved with DirectX,” he writes, going on to explain why, and that both cost and the low rate of native performance returns led to the company’s decision to use a wrapper. Long story short, if you want to play Final Fantasy XIV at maximal speeds on a Mac, use Boot Camp. If you want a refund, Square Enix has you covered here. And if you bought the game and plan to ride things out, Yoshida says the company plans to update the game’s system requirements imminently, continue to improve the game’s performance, and once those two points align, re-release the game for sale.