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Can something be done about the Mac Client?

originary91·12/21/2015, 4:55:27 PM·3 votes·1,876 views

Now I know that most of the people reading this will be Windows PC users, and because of that you might end up thinking 'lolwat? We don't give a shit about you and your Mac Client, you brought a Mac and expected to play Games? Smh, go buy a _real _Gaming PC.' That is until you have a Mac User on your team and they experience problems because the Mac Client, after two freaking years, is still in its Beta Phase.

Some problems that I experience as a Mac User are, but are not limited to; Insane loading times. Seriously. Sometimes it'll take me 3-5 minutes to load into a game, although sometimes I'll also be lucky and load in less than 20 seconds. But in most cases I'll be the last to load by far. (My mac is the 2013 series btw.) I believe that the reason as to why it takes me so long to load is because of the fact that the client is CONSTANTLY bouncing between Working and Not Responding.

Another problem is that at the end of Champion select, when it should be coming up with the Loading screen my Client instead crashes. I have to watch for this like a Hawk, force quit and relog as fast as possible with the hope that I either Reconnect before the Loading Screen is finished so that it stalls out for me, or that I load into the game before 1;10 - the last one is really tough considering how long Loading takes on the Mac Client, and the first one isn't easy either as the Mac Client is fairly slow at opening up.

Another problem is that just before I die I lag out. I'll be on low HP one moment and the next I'll be dead, I won't even get to see how it happens. This can be really frustrating, especially when you're in a situation where you can potentially outplay to survive - when you have a heal or a stun up or whatever, every iota of HP counts - and going from Hp - No HP with no clue what happened is just annoying. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens often enough to piss me off.

Lastly, I'll occasionally get a 'Failed to Retrieve information' or 'Attempting to retrieve information' popup when I'm in a lobby. Sometimes it goes away, although if I'm FP I'll probably miss out on a few bans before it does. Sometimes it doesn't and it forces me into a dodge. This can suck, especially if I'm in Promos or near promos.

Shit, I probably posted this in the wrong section. Probably belongs more in bugs than in Gameplay.

8 Comments

My Sea Cow12/21/2015, 5:02:10 PM1 votes

I've played on a mac before and had the same issues though are you sure it's client related and not just mac related? Have you tried partitioning your mac and try it on a windows side? I went from playing on a mac to a regular computer and I don't regret the decision at all. I know you don't want to hear it but they are far superior gaming wise then macs.

I'm sure Riot is aware of the issues on Mac Client but I'm sure it's low on their priority list since there aren't many Mac players.

Barkhoof12/21/2015, 5:11:09 PM1 votes

So a couple things here: I've played mainly ARAM and normals, but I noticed a huge difference when switching out the stock HDD with a SSD. There are 2 things here: 1) a clean install gets rid of a lot of junk you could have on the machine and 2) your load times are going to dramatically increase. I used to have problems where I would crash once a week before the switch - I haven't crashed once since then. I'd also advise on checking what programs you might have running in the background, if any. Chrome, for instance, might hang, causing LOL to lag out. It honestly might not be entirely the Mac client, at least concerning loading times. (Just for reference, I'm using a 2010 Pro with Yosemite, 2.4 Core Duo, and 4 Gig RAM; I would seriously doubt my hardware would be better than yours.) I think the drive makes all the difference in the world.

I completely agree with you about the "I've alive with low-hp...oh, now I'm dead" experience, which hasn't changed with the drive change. It's especially difficult as kog or karthus where the 1-1.5 second lag can really make a decent amount of difference both before and after death.

Maximum Morde12/21/2015, 5:17:30 PM1 votes

Rito knows, in fact they recently patched in some bug fixes for Mac client. I'm sure they are continuing to work on it

AL00012/21/2015, 7:24:15 PM1 votes

actually client in windows 10 is bugged too...

Mountain Warden12/21/2015, 7:52:58 PM1 votes

The mac client has been nothing but stable for me for the last year or so. I get into games quickly and the client doesn't bugsplat. The only downside is the lack of performance parity between the mac and windows client. But as I understand it, there are deep technical issues that prevent from achieving comparable performance between the two platforms. The Windows client runs on DirectX vs openGL on the mac. DirectX is significantly more optimized than openGL so there isn't much Riot can do. However things may change performance wise if Riot decides to adopt the Metal API or perhaps the upcoming Vulcan API.

Melee Form12/22/2015, 2:41:55 AM1 votes

I've played on a 2010 macbook and on two different 2015 macbooks (pro and air). I had a lot of the same problems as you on the old junky macbook. There was a very slow loading speed, lag while dying, and bugsplats.

On the new macbooks I haven't had any of those problems. The loading speeds were a little slower than pcs but not horrible, otherwise the game was fine.

TLDR: Get a newer macbook.