Hello.

It's been a long time to be here. Between work and family haven't had much time to join in the forums. I am probably overlooking this topic and if so kindly point me in the right direction.

Granted I am going to get screamed at but here goes. Any particular reason why TW3 cannot be made to run on a mac like TW1 and 2? I am very late to come in on this game I know but originally TW2 was first for the PC then made available for the Mac later on if my memory is right? This is just a friendly question as to why no TW3 for the Mac? I have TW1 and 2 and I loving the way that either on a PC or Mac I can play them. I do have a PS4 so it's only a matter of time before I am able to get it for that. On that thought. Wish I could buy the PS4 disc or download TW3 from GoG instead of from Sony PSN or trying to find a copy of TW3 here in Japan. SO expensive here.

Thanks for your time to read and look forward to seeing you all in the forums soon.

MAC isn't supported, but you can run it in Windows under Bootcamp apparently.

Thanks for replying to my question. Yeah I know about bootcamp. I don't have any windows os nor VM of it. I think I am just going to have to get TW3 for the PS4 and just enjoy it from there. Would had been awesome to have a Mac version but I think the devs have moved on to more better stuff for us. Was curious since Macs are finally getting better inners than when TW3 first came out. Maybe sometime in the future GoG will surprise us Mac users with a TW3 runnable game.

Bootcamp seems to be the only solution so far, which is a shame. I, as a mac user, even preordered Witcher 3 expecting that it would get ported to the Mac like the first two in the series. Well, it was the first and also the last time I preordered a game.
Anyway, if anyone at GOG reads this, could you please give us at least a running cider/wineskin port?

God bless,
Avarchillion

The problem was (and probably is) that Witcher 3 is a 64bit program and its also using DirectX 11, Wine only got (often still buggy) 64bit support a while ago and DX11 seems to be hit and miss as well, so its unlikely that we will see a Wineskin/Cider version anytime soon.
Dunno about eOn (which they used for the other Witcher games) but i guess its similar...

...and i guess the amount of work for a real port wouldn't really pay off as even now many Macs that Apple sells use GPUs that simply are too slow.

I can understand the GPU of older Macs and MacBook Pro entry level models as not being up to par for hungry graphic games. But I think the GPUs of the latest and soon to come models should offset the lag behind the native PC models. I know the iMac lineup has improved rather very well. The MacBook needs help but the Pro lines should be better next time around for the entry level ones. Or at least I am hopeful of it.

My biggest beef is the .NET and DirectX builds of games. Too many scream how much better it is then the rest when it only runs on Window OS. It was built from the ground up to be totally flawless in Windows only. So I think it's unfair to compare to others when it wasn't design for any other OS. If there was a version to run on other OS's and the other companies refused to use it that would be a different story. I understand that some may think that a port is better because it may save a few extra bucks down the line. But if a company just simply would make a ground up version in the 3 major OS's out here one could clearly see which is the true best choice to go with. Ports don't usually work as they should like the original designed game was made. NW 1 & 2 for the Mac could had been much better if there were a toolbox added as in the PC version.

Well just my thoughts on it.

In the end its all about economics unfortunately :P I'd like to see more (good) Mac versions as well, but personally i just choose the OS to use based on what i need to run on it, my "serious" software is fine on OSX (which very much prefer as an OS) but for games i've had Win installed ever since i got an Intel Mac and im fine with switching. Recently played the Feral Mac version of Bioshock Remastered though and it ran flawless, much better than the buggy Win version. Nice for a change.

Problem was also that Apples video drivers were pretty slow and outdated for quite some time and now they're trying to do their own thing again with Metal instead of going with the Vulkan API... guess they always need their extra route.

Maybe now that theyre starting to support external GPUs we will see some movement...

Thanks again for your input. I hope the game companies and Apple can work together better than before. Plus it would be cool for more love for Linux too

Yes, the main issue with getting The Witcher 3 to run on a Mac is DirectX 11. Though Wine has had a recent breakthrough in the title on Linux, it still has graphic glitches. There is a lack of commands in alternative graphics API’s such as Open GL, Vulkan, and Metal to correspond with specific commands in the DirectX 11 API. Though Wine is making progress with DirectX 11, the main issue is the translatable commands in the API’s. I’ve read a rumor that Apple intends to launch updates to metal that will close the gap on the missing commands from DirectX. There is also an announcement by The Khronos Group (they own Vulkan) that they are launching free software to map the Vulkan API to Metal so games created on Vulkan can be more easily ported to macs. Unfortunately because developing the best API for your OS in order to attract creators and customers and maintain that edge means that evil word “proprietary”. That is the biggest challenge to software companies.

I agree with you on the argument of DirectX performance. Make the same game for OSX and designed on Metal 2 and then compare the performance (or for Linux with Vulkan). I think the graphic capabilities of macs are good, but they could be better. Not sure why they are pairing Intel with AMD graphics. If they want to stay away from Nvidia they should pair it with a Threadripper otherwise match the Intel up with an Nvidia card.

My fingers are crossed that the APIs reach a level of full translatability soon. Maybe something will happen with this at the WWDC in a couple months.