[Development] War Thunder on Mac supported by Metal

[FredericusRer 5,089]

---

The version of our game for Apple computers now supports Metal, which means that battles are going to look even better!

---

We are pleased to announce that War Thunder for Apple computers will support Metal in the incoming update, a graphics API that will substantially boost the game's frame rate. Previously, the Mac version of our game client only worked with OpenGL, which restricted the speed at which battles could be displayed and could lower the frame rate in scenes involving a large number of shaders, for example when a player takes an artillery hit. With Metal, dynamic scenes in the Mac client will be displayed much faster, and in some cases, the frame rate will be doubled!

 

War Thunder will automatically switch to Metal on all Apple computers that support this technology. 

To try the new Metal technology currently, you need to include the following line in the config.blk file in the vide section: driver:t="metal".  

---

---

List of computers that support Metal
Metal Best Practices Guide

Download War Thunder client for Mac

[Guest]

Hi, I tried changing the Blk driver to metal but it doesn't change anything and when I check back it says driver:t="auto" . While it should change to metal but it doesnt and still remains having the same meh 45 fps instead of the boost from metal. Metal doesnt work rn for the current client? 

EDIT: I also run a mid 2014 MBP with retina display so metal should work.

EDIT 2: Does this have to do with https://gdoc.pub/doc/1mIdM_23l9h7sKQ1p1yh8-d3G5HxUz4_PSdbrsVo31ww ? Because Mike10d on reddit found an issue with metal on mac and I use steam.

 

Edited May 24, 2017 by Guest
I needed to add a detail about my computer.

[FredericusRer 5,089]

1 hour ago, Renamed11570 said:

EDIT 2: Does this have to do with https://gdoc.pub/doc/1mIdM_23l9h7sKQ1p1yh8-d3G5HxUz4_PSdbrsVo31ww ? Because Mike10d on reddit found an issue with metal on mac and I use steam.

Retest without Steam and give feedback please.

[Guest]

Ok I will do that @fredericusrer 

[Vitasalato 681]

1 hour ago, Renamed11570 said:

Hi, I tried changing the Blk driver to metal but it doesn't change anything and when I check back it says driver:t="auto" . While it should change to metal but it doesnt and still remains having the same meh 45 fps instead of the boost from metal. Metal doesnt work rn for the current client? 

EDIT: I also run a mid 2014 MBP with retina display so metal should work.

EDIT 2: Does this have to do with https://gdoc.pub/doc/1mIdM_23l9h7sKQ1p1yh8-d3G5HxUz4_PSdbrsVo31ww ? Because Mike10d on reddit found an issue with metal on mac and I use steam.

 

 

You must add the new line without overriding the old driver:t="auto".

 

[FredericusRer 5,089]

Just now, Vitasalato said:

You must add the new line without overriding the old driver:t="auto".

Oh, these little details. Good catch.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, FredericusRer said:

Retest without Steam and give feedback please.

So it should work with the launcher from your website because it isnt steam right? I will just check and see.

2 minutes ago, Vitasalato said:

 

You must add the new line without overriding the old driver:t="auto".

 

What performance boost have you gottem from this?

[FredericusRer 5,089]

Yes, the launcher on the website is without Steam.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, FredericusRer said:

Oh, these little details. Good catch.

So I just have to add that extra line to the video section of the config instead of overriding the original driver:t="auto" to get a boost?

[FredericusRer 5,089]

3 minutes ago, Renamed11570 said:

So I just have to add that extra line to the video section of the config instead of overriding the original driver:t="auto" to get a boost?

Yes, as it is written above:

4 hours ago, FredericusRer said:

To try the new Metal technology currently, you need to include the following line in the config.blk file in the vide section: driver:t="metal".

 

If that still not work then without Steam.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, FredericusRer said:

Yes, as it is written above:

 

If that still not work then without Steam.

Thank you, however I deleted my steam version before I added the new line in the Blk so I am going to test the Gaijin website launcher and report details of the metal api boost back to you guys. On a side note this is what I have been wet dreaming about for 2 years now because in another thread a guy with the same hardware was able to run this game so well on windows! Now that we have this amazing optimization I hope I see much better results because I was getting like mid 40 fps in battle.

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, FredericusRer said:

Yes, as it is written above:

 

If that still not work then without Steam.

I tried using it without steam and my client became kinda blurry after I added the metal support. Then when I hit resoultion as auto, it made my resolution huge and then I got more lag. So far that metal support isnt giving me anything that I expected.

[Sworn_Assassin 37]

18 hours ago, Renamed11570 said:

I tried using it without steam and my client became kinda blurry after I added the metal support. Then when I hit resoultion as auto, it made my resolution huge and then I got more lag. So far that metal support isnt giving me anything that I expected.

Me either my resolution is not the same anymore even though its set the same, and while I'm getting MASSIVE FPS boosts I'm getting even more micro freezes and sudden .5 second fps drops from 120 to 5 fps and back .. lol good to know you guys are working on it though and i do understand that calibrating Metal is a process that will have to be continuously worked on.  So thanks for showing us mac users some attention.

 

btw personally i could care less about high fps, because i can deal with low frames to a point.. but the micro freeze / sudden fps drops are miserable.. this tends to happen when i try to turn quickly, or look at a different section of the map

 

also just with everything set as i usually play i have an fps boost of around 20-30, but when i enabled lt VSYNC it shoots up to around a 60-70 fps boost if only there were a way to put a max fps on so these drops were not as bad

 

Edited May 25, 2017 by Sworn_Assassin

[Webhunter 12]

Do we still need to add this line now the update has dropped? I enabled metal in the launcher but instead of a boost i get a whopping 1 fps. Do drivers infulence this maybe? 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Sworn_Assassin said:

Me either my resolution is not the same anymore even though its set the same, and while I'm getting MASSIVE FPS boosts I'm getting even more micro freezes and sudden .5 second fps drops from 120 to 5 fps and back .. lol good to know you guys are working on it though and i do understand that calibrating Metal is a process that will have to be continuously worked on.  So thanks for showing us mac users some attention.

 

btw personally i could care less about high fps, because i can deal with low frames to a point.. but the micro freeze / sudden fps drops are miserable.. this tends to happen when i try to turn quickly, or look at a different section of the map

 

also just with everything set as i usually play i have an fps boost of around 20-30, but when i enabled lt VSYNC it shoots up to around a 60-70 fps boost if only there were a way to put a max fps on so these drops were not as bad

 

My resolution became a little blurrier and my fps was not stable and I even got lower fps in tank test drive. I would reccomend staying on OpenGL until gaijin fixes metal because it is not giving any boost when it should.

[Prantz 11]

how do u change back to OpenGL?

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Prantz said:

how do u change back to OpenGL?

Its in the launcher in settings

[Prantz 11]

where i can't find it     w8 nvm

Edited May 25, 2017 by Prantz

[NoNick_Nick 205]

Just a little feedback for what it's worth. I uploaded the latest version (1.69) and the result so far is bad. I get reduced fps (down to 20-24 from 30-40), and very jerky, inconsistent screen updates. Almost unplayable. Could be related to poor ping times (290+ ms) on a bad (for me) server.

 

machine is iMac 27" 2013, i5 @ 3.2 GHz, 16 GB RAM, NVidia 780M graphics. Also does not change crashes that I get about every 10-15 games (registered bug report but not fix yet made available). Latest update OS.

 

Would suggest caution using Metal drivers until further fixes available; unless there is something else we need to do to get this to function properly ?

Edited May 26, 2017 by NoNick_Nick
Added OS details.

[Sworn_Assassin 37]

 

not fun

Edited May 26, 2017 by Sworn_Assassin

[RealMajorHavok 208]

Played without metal support for a while. FPS was down slightly, but the real problem was that there were periodic lags where the FPS would drop to about 12 for 3 or 4 seconds.

 

Turned on metal support in config. No change in FPS that I could see. Same periodic dropouts to 12 FPS.

 

MacPro 2013 stock model dual D300s 10,12.5 everything fully updated.

[Contankerous_ 1]

cmon man.... I have no clue how to switch a ''BLK driver'' to ''Metal'' or something...i just want to play war thunder...

[MaybeMaybeNot 1,759]

11 hours ago, RealMajorHavok said:

Played without metal support for a while. FPS was down slightly, but the real problem was that there were periodic lags where the FPS would drop to about 12 for 3 or 4 seconds.

 

Turned on metal support in config. No change in FPS that I could see. Same periodic dropouts to 12 FPS.

 

MacPro 2013 stock model dual D300s 10,12.5 everything fully updated.

 

Yup sounds about right :-) 

 

 

21 minutes ago, MikeGoesRawr said:

cmon man.... I have no clue how to switch a ''BLK driver'' to ''Metal'' or something...i just want to play war thunder...

 

Then just play and forget about this gimmick as that's kind of what it is at its current state 

Edited May 29, 2017 by MaybeMaybeNot

[RealMajorHavok 208]

Yeah, the switch doesn't seem to do anything that I can see.

 

Although the area in the lower left that shows damage (etc) now has three copies of my plane or turret, so there's that.

[NoNick_Nick 205]

Just to note that a bug report (0055222) has been accepted for analysis based on game crashing. It used to crash in 1.67 but the behaviour has changed in 1.69.

 

Seems to be much worse, now getting a crash every 2-3 games so almost unplayable and forcing a temporary abandonment of the game; at least hopefully a temporary hiatus.