TBC Classic Will Support M1 (Maybe?)

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1

WOWHead posted the Global Strings from the Classic PTR. Looks like M1 is on the menu?

Now yes - this COULD theoretically be literal ARM64 as in Windows on ARM, but I doubt it. Since the string is literally right above the strings about macOS settings and system info.

ARM64_BUILD arm64

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2

Wouldn’t surprise me if TBC Classic’s client is based on the Shadowlands client (and thus gets ARM for “free”). It’s also possible that both Classics are getting their clients rebased on Shadowlands’ and the TBC Classic client is just the first that’s publicly visible.

3

Odds are pretty good there will be an ARM client eventually. The issue is likely a lack of resources to make it happen. It took quite some time to get an ARM client for Shadowlands ready for prime time and it’s still a work in progress.

Remember, just getting the old code to run on the retail engine was a challenge in and of itself. Adding on to that another layer, ARM, means doing that pass all over again.

Since classic hit before shadowlands, it’s likely that pass either never happened or started much later and thus is still undergoing some work. I would suspect that the TBC client will be built with ARM in mind from the on set.

Remember, Blizzard isn’t going to support two different Mac platforms. They’re going to pick one and drop the other like they did with PPC to INTEL transition. It’s highly probable that the next expansion will be ARM only.

It’s still too early to tell what direction Apple is taking on their line up. This year will be quite telling for both Apple and Blizzard as to what their plans will be going forward.

Be certain that we are the ugly stepchild in this equation. We (Apple) are forcing Blizzard to write additional code to support multiple versions of an OS on a platform that makes up a much smaller demographic overall. That’s multiple versions of Shadowlands, Classic, and TBC. It’s no wonder they just cross entire titles right off the list from the get go on this platform.

4

It is very unlikey Blizzard drops the Intel Mac client anytime soon. Far too many users are on Intel Macs and only a sliver are on M1 Macs thus far. For WoW specifically, both platforms will likely be supported for the foreseeable future since Apple’s XCode provides the ability to create “fat” binaries that run on both platforms. The hangup is mostly with transitioning from Intel specific instructions to ARM64 equivalents and cleaning up the code so it doesn’t flat out crash on ARM64 as that architecture will simply halt the CPU entirely on illegal instructions whereas Intel’s architecture will silently ignore those instructinos (at the cost of CPU cycles to attempt to execute them first).

WoW is likely to be the only game outside of Hearthstone, which already has an iOS port that can run on M1 macs natively with minimal effort, to get continued support on Macs (and on both Mac platforms). Diablo 2: Resurrected has no indications of coming to the Mac at all, and if that’s the case, then WoW is likely the last bastion (no pun intended) for full Mac support and Diablo 3 will simply be left to run until it can’t run anymore.

Apple isn’t exactly making it easy on developers to work with their OS requirements and continued heightening of restrictions.

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5

I don’t think it’s that much of a mystery. They made their intent to have all the Macs, including the Mac Pro (which is serious big iron, ranging from 8-core to 28-core Xeons) to ARM and they haven’t scaled back development or support on their pro apps (Final Cut, Logic, etc) even a little bit. There’s even rumors floating around of a “Mac Pro mini” that’d add to the higher-end portion of their lineup.

The exact nature of high end M-series is a bit more of a question but there’s no doubt in my mind that there will be exceedingly powerful M-series Macs made available in the not so distant future. We may even see some of it announced as soon as WWDC in June since higher-end “pro” hardware has a history of being revealed then.

6

If you believe some of the rumors Apple still plans on putting out another Intel Mac, albeit on the extreme high end. WWDC will be telling, I think, as to the immediate future. Heck, if the rumor mill is correct, we might see some new stuff in the next couple of weeks.

7

I agree, I don’t think they’re entirely done with Intel Macs. At the very least the latest macOS betas include drivers for RX6xxx series AMD GPUs so we know that discrete GPUs are safe for the time being.

8

Bump. I would love to know the answer to this since the beta is out.
It does have the raytracing options that the retail client supports, so I assume it is the same client which supports M1. Can any Mac users with tb beta confirm?

9

Ray tracing is disabled on the Mac client, regardless of whether or not the user is on an M1 Mac. None of the GPUs available have hardware ray tracing capability on the Mac side. Only the Windows side has that option as both AMD and nVidia have GPUs available there that can do ray tracing, albeit at a very high resource cost on AMD cards.

10

Question was whether the beta supports native M1, not raytracing.
When you launch the TBC beta, and check Mac processes does it say Intel or Apple for the tbc client?

11

The Burning Crusade Classic Beta supports M1/arm64 natively

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12

That’s great to hear! Does it also support CPU multithreading that was added to retail with patch 8.1?

13

It should, since the Classic client has been based on 8.1.5 minimum thus far AFAIK. Classic would interest me a whoooooooole lot more if it had modern graphics capability, but that’s one area Blizz isn’t really going to change directions on. Shame too. Modern physics/graphics w/ the original content would be sweet. :slight_smile:

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14

This may be changing however, given that RX 6xxx series drivers (including those for the 6800/6900) have been found in the latest macOS betas. Remains to be seen if Apple will offer any Macs with these GPUs, but Mac Pro and hackintosh users will be able to use them.

15

tbc beta is unplayable on Macbook pro.
Message: Interface\SharedXML\VideoOptionsPanels.lua:131: attempt to concatenate field ‘?’ (a nil value)
Time: Wed Apr 28 22:58:20 2021
Count: 1
Stack: Interface\SharedXML\VideoOptionsPanels.lua:131: attempt to concatenate field ‘?’ (a nil value)
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[string “@Interface\SharedXML\VideoOptionsPanels.lua”]:659: in function RefreshValue' [string "@Interface\GlueXML\OptionsPanelTemplates.lua"]:288: in function <Interface\GlueXML\OptionsPanelTemplates.lua:286> [string "=[C]"]: in function securecall’
[string “@Interface\GlueXML\OptionsPanelTemplates.lua”]:323: in function BlizzardOptionsPanel_Refresh' [string "@Interface\SharedXML\VideoOptionsPanels.lua"]:192: in function VideoOptionsPanel_Refresh’
[string “@Interface\SharedXML\VideoOptionsPanels.lua”]:187: in function <Interface\SharedXML\VideoOptionsPanels.lua:179>
[string “=[C]”]: in function pcall' [string "@Interface\GlueXML\OptionsFrameTemplates.lua"]:255: in function <Interface\GlueXML\OptionsFrameTemplates.lua:254> [string "=[C]"]: in function securecall’
[string “@Interface\GlueXML\OptionsFrameTemplates.lua”]:311: in function OptionsFrame_RefreshCategories' [string "@Interface\GlueXML\OptionsFrameTemplates.lua"]:222: in function OptionsFrame_OnShow’
[string “:OnShow"]:1: in function <[string ":OnShow”]:1>
[string “=[C]”]: in function Show' [string "@Interface\GlueXML\GlueParent.lua"]:303: in function <Interface\GlueXML\GlueParent.lua:282> [string "@Interface\GlueXML\GlueParent.lua"]:362: in function GlueParent_OpenSecondaryScreen’
[string “@Interface\GlueXML\GlueParent.lua”]:652: in function `GlueParent_ShowOptionsScreen’
[string “:OnClick"]:2: in function <[string ":OnClick”]:1>

Locals: self = Advanced_RTShadowQualityDropDown {
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description = "Improves shadow quality with ray tracing, which produces shadows with more natural softness, greatly increased precision, and from additional light sources.

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A hardware ray tracing capable graphics card
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Up to date graphics drivers
DirectX 12
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16

I keep getting armor rendering issues on M1. Like the bright color, GPU dying colors but I’m fine.

1 Like
17

Enabling IPv6 causes all kinds of problems with the client. Not that I care, but I thought I’d mention it. Sometimes when zoning into places with IPv6 on, the connection just kinda sits there and does nothing. The loading screen makes no progress, nothing happens. It doesn’t even disconnect, drop or crash. It just sits there indefinitely. Obviously turning it off remedies that.

18

Pretty soon we Mac users will have to look to other gaming companies!