14 replies to this topic

[Wumpus]

Hooray! Witcher 2 coming to Mac this fall. See here: http://evolvepr.crea...540EF23F30FEDED

Relevant quote near the end:  "and the studio will bring “The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition” to Mac this fall."

I can't imagine W2 running on Wineskin. The game is a beast and several times bigger and better looking the first game. No offense to wineskin, its just a very performance heavy game. But maybe that's my ignorance speaking. Doh123 can correct me or not

Either way I'm excited! Already have this on PC, but its so awesome I want to get it on Mac too.

[Cougar]

Damn, should've gotten it on Steam for the inevitable SteamPlay.

[doh123]

If they custom build their own Wine version with the right changes and tweaks, they could probably get it running around 85% - 90% as fast in Wineskin as it does in Windows on the same hardware.

I have no idea what they'll use though... maybe people liked Witcher 1 enough they will put the money into a native port?

[Kilvain]

From: GameBanshee

Quote

Marcin then moved on to talk about the Mac release of the original The Witcher, which he claims was very successful, and announced that the team is also working on another Mac port, this time for The Witcher 2, which will get a "fully native" version. The team is apparently working to make it run as smoothly as possible on all the support Mac configurations. The targeted release window is "Fall 2012".

I suppose it all depends on what the definition of fully native is, but whatever the case, more good news for Mac gamers!

Since they've hopped on the Mac bandwagon maybe we'll see a Mac version of their upcoming Cyberpunk game, perhaps even a simultaneous release? Here's hoping.

[Janichsan]

Wumpus, on 30 May 2012 - 11:49 AM, said:

I can't imagine W2 running on Wineskin. The game is a beast and several times bigger and better looking the first game. No offense to wineskin, its just a very performance heavy game.

Well, so far CD Project Red hasn't shown much commitment to the quality of their Mac releases. Correct me if I'm wrong, but their miserable Mac version of The Witcher 1 never got patched or fixed in any other way, didn't it? Their stance seems to have been, that it's good enough if it launches.

Quote

...a "fully native" version.

I'll refrain from cheering until the version is actually out. As crappy native ports like Assassin's Creed 2 show, being fully native isn't necessarily a guarantee for quality and performance.

[Wumpus]

Janichsan, on 31 May 2012 - 01:58 AM, said:

Well, so far CD Project Red hasn't shown much commitment to the quality of their Mac releases. Correct me if I'm wrong, but their miserable Mac version of The Witcher 1 never got patched or fixed in any other way, didn't it? Their stance seems to have been, that it's good enough if it launches.

I'll refrain from cheering until the version is actually out. As crappy native ports like Assassin's Creed 2 show, being fully native isn't necessarily a guarantee for quality and performance.

AFAIK the Witcher 1 didn't get any patches, which is too bad. It does remain to see how well they can pull off a native port. Serious Sam 3 was "native" and had enormous game breaking bugs and issues upon launch. It is no guarantee.

What was wrong with the AC2 port for you? I don't recall any particular problems, though its been awhile since I played it.

[Janichsan]

Wumpus, on 31 May 2012 - 03:28 AM, said:

What was wrong with the AC2 port for you?

For me personally? Nothing – because I never bought it. I don't put up with this online DRM sh*t, remember? But even if that had been patched out (like in the Windows version),  you'll only have to check these forums here for problems with it, beginning with the horrible performance on many Macs, to problems with third-party keyboards and mices, complete freezes, problems with Lion and so on and so forth.

[Wumpus]

I must have been lucky, I had no bugs or performance issues with the game whatsoever. I know the game (and many, if not all) Ubisoft games don't run on laptops and specify them as unsupported. As such they will run, just run like crap. It ran flawlessly on my iMac, I could even record video at 2560x1440 without anything taking a hitch. That impressed me. A lot of people on MGS and the MAS try running it on laptops then give it a one star review because of how slow it runs. Try reading the requirements, it says in big letters "laptops are NOT supported." Duh.

To call the port "crappy" without ever having playing it, and based on some peoples issues (which I suspect are due to subpar machines. I doubt many running a high spec system got performance issues. But maybe that's random) is a touch silly. I'm not saying the port is perfect (always online requirement did suck) but its not horrible either.  I haven't tried it in Lion, so if it fails in that, then it is of course an issue. But the game was out a long time before Lion was released, and games not being updated to run on the latest OS isn't a problem specific to Ubisoft.

I did encounter a very stupid mouse bug in AC Brotherhood. I use a wireless Logitech trackball and most of the time the game wouldn't recognize it. I finally figured out I could start the game with my usb dongle unplugged, then plug it in once I got to loading the game since you can control the menus with the keyboard.

I'm not an Ubisoft fanboy. I like their games (AC series, Splinter Cell, a lot of the Rainbow Six / Ghost Recon series.) but their customer support is bottom of the barrel for sure and has never been of any real help to me. All their games have run well the exception of sometimes cutting out due to the online requirement, but it was never rage inducing. As ever, every gamers level of acceptance is different.

[Cougar]

Wumpus, on 31 May 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

To call the port "crappy" without ever having playing it, and based on some peoples issues (which I suspect are due to subpar machines. I doubt many running a high spec system got performance issues. But maybe that's random) is a touch silly. I'm not saying the port is perfect (always online requirement did suck) but its not horrible either.  I haven't tried it in Lion, so if it fails in that, then it is of course an issue. But the game was out a long time before Lion was released, and games not being updated to run on the latest OS isn't a problem specific to Ubisoft.

In both Lion and Snow Leopard, I got this annoying bug where the mouse would not work. Sometimes I would have to restart the game 5-6 times to get it to work. Luckily, that issue doesn't seem to be present in Brotherhood.

There were also issues with Resume, but I believe they patched that.

Splinter Cell: Conviction, for me, is unplayable. I used to get about 15 FPS (I well exceed the recommended), and now the game quits 2 seconds into the UbiSoft screen. No crash report. Ubisoft never bothered to reply to my support emails.

If I didn't have a Bootcamp partition, I would never buy a Ubisoft port, because the chances of the game having major problems are just too high.

[Janichsan]

Wumpus, on 31 May 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

To call the port "crappy" without ever having playing it, and based on some peoples issues (which I suspect are due to subpar machines. I doubt many running a high spec system got performance issues. But maybe that's random) is a touch silly.

So you say I'm not allowed to form an opinion by gathering information about the quality of a port before I shelve out a significant amount of money? Even when you find complaints all over the net, like the game running like crap on a (surely "sub-par") Mac Pro? And there are numerous reports of such unimportant little things like keyboards or mice not working? Seriously?

[Wumpus]

A single thread on the IMG forum does not qualify for "all over the net." And the Mac Pro guy only had a 512MB card. The 8800GT isn't exactly next gen, or even current gen at the time of that posting. The game needs more to run on High smoothly. Okay, he had stuttering...I know 5 other people who played it on iMacs and laptops just fine. Not everyone is going to have the same experience, even on the same machine. Unless said bug or performance is actually game wide, a la Serious Sam 3.

You can form whatever opinion you want. I'm not saying you can't do that. I'm just saying given the port in fact, works just fine for a lot of people, it doesn't make it crappy. Far from perfect sure? Its an okay port, neither great nor horrible. People have a range of experiences on both sides. Also people with problems tend to be more vocal than the people it runs just fine for. If it runs great there's not much to say other than its fun.

If you want to go by IMG/MGS metrics (which we seem to be here) then AC2 has about 125 great reviews/stars and about 50 bad one's. That's still a 2/1 ratio. Does it make the game port awesome? No. Does it make it crappy? Nope. Makes it just fine. 2 out of 3 people had a great time with the game more or less.

[Janichsan]

Wumpus, on 31 May 2012 - 11:58 PM, said:

A single thread on the IMG forum does not qualify for "all over the net."

Except that I only linked to a single thread, because it was pretty late and I was too tired to compose a larger collection of reports. How many threads with problems do you need? I can provide you with many more – and most of them have nothing to with bad performance on lower end hardware.

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And the Mac Pro guy only had a 512MB card. The 8800GT isn't exactly next gen, or even current gen at the time of that posting. The game needs more to run on High smoothly.

And how much more? From an MGS review:

Quote

Mac Pro (16GB, 4-core Xeon, 1GB GPU), guess what, no difference at all, SLOW!!!

I agree that there are even worse ports, but there are more than enough reports of fundamental problems with that game that in my opinion it justifiably deserves the label "crappy".

(Besides, I think we are getting seriously sidetracked here.)

[Wumpus]

Okay, fair enough. And yes we are getting seriously sidetracked

On a more related note, I'm really interested to see what CDP does with their Cyberpunk game. They said its taking all the good elements of the witcher series and putting them into that.

[tbade]

Let me pipe in here with my rather silly thoughts!

IMHO, I don't thin it is the "sub-par" Macs that are having he issues. I have been playing with an ancient Early 2008 MacPro, eleven hours so far and I have had one lockup. I don't consider that very serious. Is there anyone else that has tried The Witcher on an older Mac? I would be curious to see what their experiences are.

T Bade

Wumpus, on 31 May 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

I must have been lucky, I had no bugs or performance issues with the game whatsoever. I know the game (and many, if not all) Ubisoft games don't run on laptops and specify them as unsupported. As such they will run, just run like crap. It ran flawlessly on my iMac, I could even record video at 2560x1440 without anything taking a hitch. That impressed me. A lot of people on MGS and the MAS try running it on laptops then give it a one star review because of how slow it runs. Try reading the requirements, it says in big letters "laptops are NOT supported." Duh.

To call the port "crappy" without ever having playing it, and based on some peoples issues (which I suspect are due to subpar machines. I doubt many running a high spec system got performance issues. But maybe that's random) is a touch silly. I'm not saying the port is perfect (always online requirement did suck) but its not horrible either.  I haven't tried it in Lion, so if it fails in that, then it is of course an issue. But the game was out a long time before Lion was released, and games not being updated to run on the latest OS isn't a problem specific to Ubisoft.

I did encounter a very stupid mouse bug in AC Brotherhood. I use a wireless Logitech trackball and most of the time the game wouldn't recognize it. I finally figured out I could start the game with my usb dongle unplugged, then plug it in once I got to loading the game since you can control the menus with the keyboard.

I'm not an Ubisoft fanboy. I like their games (AC series, Splinter Cell, a lot of the Rainbow Six / Ghost Recon series.) but their customer support is bottom of the barrel for sure and has never been of any real help to me. All their games have run well the exception of sometimes cutting out due to the online requirement, but it was never rage inducing. As ever, every gamers level of acceptance is different.

[Cougar]

tbade, on 01 June 2012 - 06:51 PM, said:

Let me pipe in here with my rather silly thoughts!

IMHO, I don't thin it is the "sub-par" Macs that are having he issues. I have been playing with an ancient Early 2008 MacPro, eleven hours so far and I have had one lockup. I don't consider that very serious. Is there anyone else that has tried The Witcher on an older Mac? I would be curious to see what their experiences are.

T Bade

Wumpus was referring to Assassin's Creed 2. The thread got a tad derailed.