Yeah. Metal on Desktop is in the same state on Mac that DX12 is on Windows. If we're talking Mobile, yes, Metal is on iOS, DX12 is not yet on Windows Mobile/Phone whatever it's called now.
Pretty obvious Apple didn't have gaming in mind when they made this decision. In my mind Vulkan is now pretty much DOA as it's basically just a DX12 competitor on Windows and we've seen how that has played out for the last 10 years with OpenGL.
The difference this time around is that Apple has a thriving mobile platform for gaming. Metal is already used by some iOS games where as what DX12 games are there on the market right now?
By bringing Metal to OS X, Apple is providing a means to quickly port between the two platforms.
iProducts aren't my favorite, but I believe it's time for Apple to release a console competitor. They now have what it takes to develop a mid-ranger akin to nVidia's 4K Android TV with ARMv8 cores and massive PowerVR GPU capable of 4K gaming utilizing Metal and slap a $199-$299 price tag on it. Curent iOS game devs can benefit by leveraging their existing games, adding multi-gampad support, with he-res textures, and more optimization and stuff then re-release them with similar pricing currently offered on iOS store.
I hate to say it, but Apple tends to create/improve a market for something that has already been there but not so popular. PS4 and XBox sales numbers are good, but they aren't an incentive to make game devs lower their prices (volume). With larger, wider spread adoption, there will be an improved, more mature market for affordable set-top boxes that get updated every 2-3 years instead of 7-10. This should also help expedite OpenGL Next or something similar from Google to be supported on Android (and Android TV set-top boxes, with Tegra X1 being a minimum requirement hopefully to guarantee a higher performance point).
This should also help KILL the ludicrous Smart TV market and its overpriced BS that gets obsolete before year's end after purchase....
Forget to mention that Metal for gaming probably has no future on iPhones and iPads, because 3D games really need a controller, and touchscreens are only good for 2d games (or not-so-immersive 3D eye candy games)...
I absolutely agree that Apple should make an optional AppleTV with gaming. Even if they use the existing A8X to keep costs down, they would have a very competitive machine. As for gaming controllers, Apple built and API for that already. That market hasn't taken off over the past year, but I suspect a dedicated AppleTV gaming box would change that.
If the rumoured addition of Force Touch and the Taptic Engine to this years' iPhones and iPads comes to pass, it'll be interesting to see if input pressure sensitivity and fine-grained feedback from the device improves the experience.
Yup, that's exactly what the world needs - another gaming console. /s
Also,
"... and slap a $199-$299 price tag on it."
lol, when was the last time when Apple offered competitive prices or budget hardware? If Apple ever came out with a console this generation, it could have weaker hardware than PS/XB and it would still cost $500 - $600.
Huh? If Apple is able to sell an A5 based AppleTV for $69, how much do you really think an A8X based AppleTV would cost? That's all that's needed to make a reasonable gaming box. iPads push far more pixels than 1080P and there are impressive games available that don't even begin to push these devices to what they're capable of. Currently, Apple still requires apps to be available in both 32bit and 64bit versions, but that's changing with iOS 9.
If you understand how gaming works, this isn't a big issue at all. If you port the top few gaming engines over to Metal, you essentially have the gaming market covered. Apple already did this when the worked with these companies for bringing Metal to iOS 8. They've done this with the Unreal gaming engine, Frost, Unity, etc. Additionally, OpenGL is still an option and there is no reason Apple couldn't also support Vulkan, etc. as well. It makes sense for Apple to go all in on Metal because then it controls their own entire graphics stack.
You must not be aware of the fact that over 1.2 billion devices sold yearly will soon be running Vulkan (and growing yearly it seems). Also by the time it ships they'll all have Tegra X1 level gpus in them at 14nm, even the low end next year will be K1 level gpus and Q1 2017 we start seeing low end at 10nm being X1+ levels of gpu maybe even with some HBM etc helping boost perf. I'd say DX12 is DOA before Vulkan. Nobody will want to code for DX12 if Vulkan is the same feature wise and easier to port from PC to android etc. Unlike previous years, OpenGL didn't have a billion units sold yearly that could push it. Now they do. I see metal the same way as DX12, as programming for either will mean more work to get to the bulk of the world; IE android, linux, steamos etc. I'm sure a port of SteamOS to ARM is on the way, and as all 3 add up to the majority of the world, you'll want to use Vulkan if given a choice and MS/Apple will have to use it too. The only people at that point making Metal/DX12 games will be Apple/Microsoft or people these two PAY to use them...LOL.
Android just needs another year or so to amp up gpu power across the board and all will be aiming here. Heck they already are, see GDC 2014/2015 survey results. Only PC has more devs aiming at them (51% vs. 49% mobile). I'm not even sure apple will be able to continue to use IMG.L chips once the samsung/qcom suit ends in a settlement shortly. It's doubtful they'll go past the next court date and proceed to trial, as the onus will be on settling rather than face a 12 person american jury wanting to fry samsung for willful infringement for 2+yrs. Apple will take a look and not want their chips/devices banned (runs same img chip as samsung) and will move to rectify their issues. You can't afford to delay a whole launch cycle. Apple will have to deal in some way shape or form (most likely license NV gpu ip or something for future revs+ a pretty hefty settlement to allow shipping the next models already in design etc).
@TheJian I'm not sure what you're talking about. Anyone targeting Windows will want to target DX12 as that will be the most supported environment on that platform. Just as developers will start to target Metal on Apple devices. If anything, Vulkan has the uphill battle to climb. It may be the only choice for Android and even that will be off into the future. If Vulkan ever does take off, there is no reason it can't run side by side with proprietary APIs like DX12 and Metal. Also, I don't know what you're talking about regarding Apple moving away from IMG chips. That's not likely to happen and they still offer a competitive advantage over alternatives like Mali, nVidia, etc.
There is much more to Vulkan than just being a low level API, its a modern API and can use GPU's in a way that direct (its still based on archaic GPUs that are very different and much simpler than modern ones) pretty much never will and opens up for more interesting setups and drivers. For example crossfire and SLI is very much a hack that needs to be done differently for every game with a performance loss, however with vulkan its a bit of a different story: it sees every processor and memory as a resource to be used and uses them properly. No memory is wasted, crossfire and SLI is no longer necessary, and it all comes from just using the API. The "only" advantage directx has is developer experience and the xbox.
Metal is the big unknown now, but doesn't really matter that much outside apple unless they open it for other platforms.
Mmmhmm...and what happens when android adopts vulkan? Let's us not forget that Vulkan will work on windows as well (and driver quality should be far better than is currently the issue with opengl variations).
Also, in the same way Snow Leopard (10.6) was merely a refinement of Leopard (10.5). El Capitan (10.11) is merely a refinement of Yosemite (10.10). Hence the similar location (El Capitan even being inside Yosemite).
This will be the third non-big cat release. Apple changed their naming scheme in 2013 from big cats to California landmarks. 10.9 was Mavericks, a beach, and 10.10 was Yosemite.
They get there from Yosemite - the big mountain you see on the desktop background image is called "El Capitan", it's famous for rock climbing. For more info Look for "el Capitan Yosemite" on Wikipedia/google
I wonder how much improvement in performance non-Metal compatible Macs will see, since most of the improvements seem directly tied to Metal. It requires an Intel HD 4000 and up, GT 400 and up, or Radeon HD 7000 and up. So with those requirements, a few macs compatible with El Capitan are not compatible with Metal.
Sadly the same ones that could use the improvement the most, Yosemite is pretty chunky on a 320M for instance. Same with iOS on A5 chips, which don't get metal either, nor do A6 chips.
I really hope they adopt Vulkan later too, with Metal being adopted now just to bring the speed improvements to the OS, and Vulkan for easier cross platform game porting later when it's out. Metal would also bring easier iOS Metal to OSX Metal game porting.
Just because Metal is a low level API doesn't make it an equal to DX both in capability and efficiency. Metal is good for fringe cases that involve CPU bottlenecks and OSX' atrocious GUI lags.
Your of course correct, there's no guarantee that it will be better (or worse for that matter) than DirectX 12. DirectX 12 has the benefit of years of graphics API coding experience behind it. That being said, this is the first time in OS X history that there has been a reasonable chance at possibly matching Windows Graphics performance. Thats no small thing for OS X users. I'm personally hoping to see better performance parity with windows. Anytime I've ran games on a Mac, I usually load bootcamp to get a 30% frame rate boost.
Apple introducing Metal to OSX means nothing right now. You do realize that games must be coded with metal in mind. DX12 availability means nothing without DX12 games and DX12 hardware. Current GPU hardware is DX12 compliant but not fully. Hardware design around the spec is paramount.
Usually games are either DX or OGL. On the top of my head I can only imagine Blizzard targeting Metal. I doubt Valve's(or any other) going to do OSX exclusive games at the detriment of OpenGL - they are big pushers of Vulkan.
Those, the 1.4x app launch, 2x app swtiching and so on optimizations they brought up in the keynote before they talked about Metal. Those are just optimizations they did in OSX and are not related to Metal at all. You mixed up something there. The only thing they said about Metal is the 40% reduction in CPU overhead and the up to 50% rendering performance, which really could mean anything. Likely just some inefficient OpenGL implementation that got fixed and maybe no changes about most things. The 40% cpu overhead reduction is the only really worthwhile hint at benefits.
"Those, the 1.4x app launch, 2x app swtiching and so on optimizations they brought up in the keynote before they talked about Metal. Those are just optimizations they did in OSX and are not related to Metal at all. You mixed up something there."
You're right. I uploaded the wrong screenshot. It has been corrected.
I think this is also one of the reason why they went with AMD GPU. So they have a working model of low level API. I think they might still use AMD for next several generation until they completely mastered Metal before going to another GPU maker.
I wonder who will be developing the drivers for Metal on OS X? Is Apple going to do the drivers themselves or did they manage to convince the GPU vendors to do it?
And will Ivy Bridge be supported since Apple is still selling MacBook Pros with them? I don't believe Ivy Bridge supports DX12 or Vulkan, but that might be more because Intel only releases bugfix drivers for Ivy Bridge on Windows now that Haswell and Broadwell are out rather than the hardware not actually being compatible.
Apple does not currently write all the OpenGL drivers themselves. It's a plugin architecture system where Apple writes the top level that accepts the OpenGL code and produces an intermediate representation and GPU vendors write the low level code that takes that intermediate representation and runs it on each specific GPU.
Multiple graphics APIs on various platforms will just mean that middleware (game engines etc.) will be even more important. They will allow developers to develop once (for the engine), then have the engine produce code for each individual platform with any compatible API. Some tweaking will be required, but nowhere near as much if you developed for each platform individually.
I think, there are two points to consider when discussing the issue of extra development effort and fragmentation of developer resources when trying to place metal in the general 3D/GPU-API landscape. For one, many major engines and middleware are targeting mobile devices these days. Since iOS makes up a huge chunk of the (especially money spending) user base, most of them will at least consider Metal. As mentioned above, the Unreal Engine already provides Metal support. It makes sense for mobile software and the desktop benefits presumably come with no or hardly any additional effort. Also, since all low level GPU APIs claim to be very close to actual hardware functionality and that is the same no matter what OS you choose to run on it, I am wondering if those APIs are fairly similar at least when it comes to programming concepts. This is not true for DX (pre 12) and OpenGL and still lots of engines have supported both over the years. Syntax is another issue, of course. It might not be too much effort to add functionality of one a second/third low level API once the first one has been implemented...
Metal for iOS and OS X is virtually identical. All the development resources going into iOS game development engines, benefit OS X. Every Mac since 2012 is compatible with Metal. Besides games, Metal will underly may of the UI and vector math libraries. Metal also replaces OpenCL, so it's great for Apple's professional and scientific markets, which they are also popular in.
Metal, additionally manages OS X memory transfers between a GPU's private memory and shared RAM thus reducing overhead. Of course, Macs with shared memory between the CPU and GPU will see no overhead at all. It's a very nice upgrade for OS X system wide, in addition to gaming.
Thank you apple but we really don't need a new low level api. There is vulkan that will be efficient and multiplatform and that's all developers want, a new standard to focus on. Do your stuff but don't force us to use it.
I don't really get the negative responses to Metal. Vulkan isn't here yet. Metal is. It makes sense for Apple to invest in Metal and control it's own destiny. Just because Apple's internal graphics are based on Metal doesn't mean it won't also support Vulkan when the time comes. Apple still supports OpenGL, right? This was a good move for Apple that allows them to be competitive with Microsoft, etc.
"Do your stuff but don't force us to use it." I am not negative with apple tech, most of the times i am negative with apple politics... if vulkan will be fully supported i don't have nothing to blame.
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kpkp - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Isn't OSX 10.11 as much "in testing" as Windows 10?WinterCharm - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
It's a bit behind, with an expected fall release, whereas windows 10 comes out in the next 3 weeks.vgermax - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Metal was announced after Vulkan and DX12 last June but launched in the fall with the release of iOS 8.hfm - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Yeah. Metal on Desktop is in the same state on Mac that DX12 is on Windows. If we're talking Mobile, yes, Metal is on iOS, DX12 is not yet on Windows Mobile/Phone whatever it's called now.Jtaylor1986 - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Pretty obvious Apple didn't have gaming in mind when they made this decision. In my mind Vulkan is now pretty much DOA as it's basically just a DX12 competitor on Windows and we've seen how that has played out for the last 10 years with OpenGL.Kevin G - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
The difference this time around is that Apple has a thriving mobile platform for gaming. Metal is already used by some iOS games where as what DX12 games are there on the market right now?By bringing Metal to OS X, Apple is providing a means to quickly port between the two platforms.
Pneumothorax - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
YESS!!! I can't wait for even more Candy Crush clones for my iMac.FunBunny2 - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Cynical, or what???lilmoe - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
iProducts aren't my favorite, but I believe it's time for Apple to release a console competitor. They now have what it takes to develop a mid-ranger akin to nVidia's 4K Android TV with ARMv8 cores and massive PowerVR GPU capable of 4K gaming utilizing Metal and slap a $199-$299 price tag on it. Curent iOS game devs can benefit by leveraging their existing games, adding multi-gampad support, with he-res textures, and more optimization and stuff then re-release them with similar pricing currently offered on iOS store.I hate to say it, but Apple tends to create/improve a market for something that has already been there but not so popular. PS4 and XBox sales numbers are good, but they aren't an incentive to make game devs lower their prices (volume). With larger, wider spread adoption, there will be an improved, more mature market for affordable set-top boxes that get updated every 2-3 years instead of 7-10. This should also help expedite OpenGL Next or something similar from Google to be supported on Android (and Android TV set-top boxes, with Tegra X1 being a minimum requirement hopefully to guarantee a higher performance point).
This should also help KILL the ludicrous Smart TV market and its overpriced BS that gets obsolete before year's end after purchase....
lilmoe - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Forget to mention that Metal for gaming probably has no future on iPhones and iPads, because 3D games really need a controller, and touchscreens are only good for 2d games (or not-so-immersive 3D eye candy games)...techconc - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
I absolutely agree that Apple should make an optional AppleTV with gaming. Even if they use the existing A8X to keep costs down, they would have a very competitive machine. As for gaming controllers, Apple built and API for that already. That market hasn't taken off over the past year, but I suspect a dedicated AppleTV gaming box would change that.ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
If the rumoured addition of Force Touch and the Taptic Engine to this years' iPhones and iPads comes to pass, it'll be interesting to see if input pressure sensitivity and fine-grained feedback from the device improves the experience.eanazag - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Game controllers are already supported on iOS for like two years. There just isn't really any good ones out there or games that really need it.D. Lister - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Yup, that's exactly what the world needs - another gaming console. /sAlso,
"... and slap a $199-$299 price tag on it."
lol, when was the last time when Apple offered competitive prices or budget hardware? If Apple ever came out with a console this generation, it could have weaker hardware than PS/XB and it would still cost $500 - $600.
D. Lister - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Also, this:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Apple_Ba...
ciparis - Thursday, June 11, 2015 - link
"lol, when was the last time when Apple offered competitive prices or budget hardware? "Umm, AppleTV? Which seems all the more appropriate since the topic was AppleTV.
techconc - Thursday, June 11, 2015 - link
Huh? If Apple is able to sell an A5 based AppleTV for $69, how much do you really think an A8X based AppleTV would cost? That's all that's needed to make a reasonable gaming box. iPads push far more pixels than 1080P and there are impressive games available that don't even begin to push these devices to what they're capable of. Currently, Apple still requires apps to be available in both 32bit and 64bit versions, but that's changing with iOS 9.stingerman - Friday, June 12, 2015 - link
Apple's waiting for the A9X, I hope...augiem - Friday, June 12, 2015 - link
>> and slap a $199-$299 price tag on itYou forgot this is Apple, right?
bernstein - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
you forget android & ps4 (true that doesn't use vulkan, but it's api is very close to mantle/vulkan)techconc - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
If you understand how gaming works, this isn't a big issue at all. If you port the top few gaming engines over to Metal, you essentially have the gaming market covered. Apple already did this when the worked with these companies for bringing Metal to iOS 8. They've done this with the Unreal gaming engine, Frost, Unity, etc.Additionally, OpenGL is still an option and there is no reason Apple couldn't also support Vulkan, etc. as well. It makes sense for Apple to go all in on Metal because then it controls their own entire graphics stack.
TheJian - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
You must not be aware of the fact that over 1.2 billion devices sold yearly will soon be running Vulkan (and growing yearly it seems). Also by the time it ships they'll all have Tegra X1 level gpus in them at 14nm, even the low end next year will be K1 level gpus and Q1 2017 we start seeing low end at 10nm being X1+ levels of gpu maybe even with some HBM etc helping boost perf. I'd say DX12 is DOA before Vulkan. Nobody will want to code for DX12 if Vulkan is the same feature wise and easier to port from PC to android etc. Unlike previous years, OpenGL didn't have a billion units sold yearly that could push it. Now they do. I see metal the same way as DX12, as programming for either will mean more work to get to the bulk of the world; IE android, linux, steamos etc. I'm sure a port of SteamOS to ARM is on the way, and as all 3 add up to the majority of the world, you'll want to use Vulkan if given a choice and MS/Apple will have to use it too. The only people at that point making Metal/DX12 games will be Apple/Microsoft or people these two PAY to use them...LOL.Android just needs another year or so to amp up gpu power across the board and all will be aiming here. Heck they already are, see GDC 2014/2015 survey results. Only PC has more devs aiming at them (51% vs. 49% mobile). I'm not even sure apple will be able to continue to use IMG.L chips once the samsung/qcom suit ends in a settlement shortly. It's doubtful they'll go past the next court date and proceed to trial, as the onus will be on settling rather than face a 12 person american jury wanting to fry samsung for willful infringement for 2+yrs. Apple will take a look and not want their chips/devices banned (runs same img chip as samsung) and will move to rectify their issues. You can't afford to delay a whole launch cycle. Apple will have to deal in some way shape or form (most likely license NV gpu ip or something for future revs+ a pretty hefty settlement to allow shipping the next models already in design etc).
techconc - Thursday, June 11, 2015 - link
@TheJianI'm not sure what you're talking about. Anyone targeting Windows will want to target DX12 as that will be the most supported environment on that platform. Just as developers will start to target Metal on Apple devices. If anything, Vulkan has the uphill battle to climb. It may be the only choice for Android and even that will be off into the future. If Vulkan ever does take off, there is no reason it can't run side by side with proprietary APIs like DX12 and Metal.
Also, I don't know what you're talking about regarding Apple moving away from IMG chips. That's not likely to happen and they still offer a competitive advantage over alternatives like Mali, nVidia, etc.
Akalack - Thursday, June 11, 2015 - link
There is much more to Vulkan than just being a low level API, its a modern API and can use GPU's in a way that direct (its still based on archaic GPUs that are very different and much simpler than modern ones) pretty much never will and opens up for more interesting setups and drivers. For example crossfire and SLI is very much a hack that needs to be done differently for every game with a performance loss, however with vulkan its a bit of a different story: it sees every processor and memory as a resource to be used and uses them properly. No memory is wasted, crossfire and SLI is no longer necessary, and it all comes from just using the API. The "only" advantage directx has is developer experience and the xbox.Metal is the big unknown now, but doesn't really matter that much outside apple unless they open it for other platforms.
tuxRoller - Friday, June 12, 2015 - link
Mmmhmm...and what happens when android adopts vulkan?Let's us not forget that Vulkan will work on windows as well (and driver quality should be far better than is currently the issue with opengl variations).
Murloc - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
El Capitan?How do you get there from big cats?
What next, El Generalissimo? El Presidente? El Capo?
jeffkibuule - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Mavericks (OS X 10.9) and Yosemite (OS X 10.10) were not cats either. The theme now is places in California.El Capitan is a rock formation inside Yosemite National Park in California.
nathanddrews - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
"Look, I'm trying to make an ascent here!"https://youtu.be/qL1WqN1XKK0
hfm - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Through Mavericks and Yosemite.tipoo - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Welcome back from your three year coma :PThey're off cats now, Mavericks and Yosemite were not cats, and this is a place within Yosemite.
SirMaster - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Uh, California landmarks?Mavericks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavericks,_California
Yosemite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite_National_Par...
El Capitan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Capitan
SirMaster - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Also, in the same way Snow Leopard (10.6) was merely a refinement of Leopard (10.5). El Capitan (10.11) is merely a refinement of Yosemite (10.10). Hence the similar location (El Capitan even being inside Yosemite).Ashinjuka - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
So we can expect 10.12 to be called The Nose or something?djboxbaba - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Remember in 2013 when they switched from cats? Mavericks? 2014 Yosemite?sheady - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
This will be the third non-big cat release. Apple changed their naming scheme in 2013 from big cats to California landmarks. 10.9 was Mavericks, a beach, and 10.10 was Yosemite.adamgoodman - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
For those that don't know: El Capitan is a summit in Yosemite. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Capitan)adamgoodman - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Capitan ... poor website formatting lead to the end paren being included on the URL. Sorry.06GTOSC - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
I would love to see El Guapo.trparky - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
They ran out of cats?Stuka87 - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Apple has been using locations in California for a few years now.The worst one was Maverick's. Why you would name an OS after the possessive version of a name is beyond me.
Adding-Color - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
They get there from Yosemite - the big mountain you see on the desktop background image is called "El Capitan", it's famous for rock climbing.For more info Look for "el Capitan Yosemite" on Wikipedia/google
tipoo - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
I wonder how much improvement in performance non-Metal compatible Macs will see, since most of the improvements seem directly tied to Metal. It requires an Intel HD 4000 and up, GT 400 and up, or Radeon HD 7000 and up. So with those requirements, a few macs compatible with El Capitan are not compatible with Metal.Sadly the same ones that could use the improvement the most, Yosemite is pretty chunky on a 320M for instance. Same with iOS on A5 chips, which don't get metal either, nor do A6 chips.
tipoo - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
I really hope they adopt Vulkan later too, with Metal being adopted now just to bring the speed improvements to the OS, and Vulkan for easier cross platform game porting later when it's out. Metal would also bring easier iOS Metal to OSX Metal game porting.id4andrei - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Just because Metal is a low level API doesn't make it an equal to DX both in capability and efficiency. Metal is good for fringe cases that involve CPU bottlenecks and OSX' atrocious GUI lags.blazeoptimus - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Your of course correct, there's no guarantee that it will be better (or worse for that matter) than DirectX 12. DirectX 12 has the benefit of years of graphics API coding experience behind it. That being said, this is the first time in OS X history that there has been a reasonable chance at possibly matching Windows Graphics performance. Thats no small thing for OS X users. I'm personally hoping to see better performance parity with windows. Anytime I've ran games on a Mac, I usually load bootcamp to get a 30% frame rate boost.id4andrei - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Apple introducing Metal to OSX means nothing right now. You do realize that games must be coded with metal in mind. DX12 availability means nothing without DX12 games and DX12 hardware. Current GPU hardware is DX12 compliant but not fully. Hardware design around the spec is paramount.Usually games are either DX or OGL. On the top of my head I can only imagine Blizzard targeting Metal. I doubt Valve's(or any other) going to do OSX exclusive games at the detriment of OpenGL - they are big pushers of Vulkan.
bernstein - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
FYI : essentially all games using unity & unreal engine will be targeting Metal...taigebu - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
In their slide they did announce Blizzard as supporting Metal on the Mac. But Unity, Unreal engine, Aspyr, Feral and Campo Santo as well. See slide here: http://weblogit.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/wbi...dusk007 - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Those, the 1.4x app launch, 2x app swtiching and so on optimizations they brought up in the keynote before they talked about Metal. Those are just optimizations they did in OSX and are not related to Metal at all.You mixed up something there.
The only thing they said about Metal is the 40% reduction in CPU overhead and the up to 50% rendering performance, which really could mean anything. Likely just some inefficient OpenGL implementation that got fixed and maybe no changes about most things. The 40% cpu overhead reduction is the only really worthwhile hint at benefits.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, June 11, 2015 - link
"Those, the 1.4x app launch, 2x app swtiching and so on optimizations they brought up in the keynote before they talked about Metal. Those are just optimizations they did in OSX and are not related to Metal at all.You mixed up something there."
You're right. I uploaded the wrong screenshot. It has been corrected.
WorldWithoutMadness - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
I think this is also one of the reason why they went with AMD GPU.So they have a working model of low level API. I think they might still use AMD for next several generation until they completely mastered Metal before going to another GPU maker.
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
I wonder who will be developing the drivers for Metal on OS X? Is Apple going to do the drivers themselves or did they manage to convince the GPU vendors to do it?And will Ivy Bridge be supported since Apple is still selling MacBook Pros with them? I don't believe Ivy Bridge supports DX12 or Vulkan, but that might be more because Intel only releases bugfix drivers for Ivy Bridge on Windows now that Haswell and Broadwell are out rather than the hardware not actually being compatible.
taigebu - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Apple is developing all of the drivers themselves. They already do with the OpenGL drivers and they will likely do that for the Metal drivers.ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/view.php?ID...Apple does not currently write all the OpenGL drivers themselves. It's a plugin architecture system where Apple writes the top level that accepts the OpenGL code and produces an intermediate representation and GPU vendors write the low level code that takes that intermediate representation and runs it on each specific GPU.
tuxRoller - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
If that's the case then they could support vulkan as the ir has been finalized.hulu - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
Multiple graphics APIs on various platforms will just mean that middleware (game engines etc.) will be even more important. They will allow developers to develop once (for the engine), then have the engine produce code for each individual platform with any compatible API. Some tweaking will be required, but nowhere near as much if you developed for each platform individually.GruenSein - Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - link
I think, there are two points to consider when discussing the issue of extra development effort and fragmentation of developer resources when trying to place metal in the general 3D/GPU-API landscape.For one, many major engines and middleware are targeting mobile devices these days. Since iOS makes up a huge chunk of the (especially money spending) user base, most of them will at least consider Metal. As mentioned above, the Unreal Engine already provides Metal support. It makes sense for mobile software and the desktop benefits presumably come with no or hardly any additional effort.
Also, since all low level GPU APIs claim to be very close to actual hardware functionality and that is the same no matter what OS you choose to run on it, I am wondering if those APIs are fairly similar at least when it comes to programming concepts. This is not true for DX (pre 12) and OpenGL and still lots of engines have supported both over the years. Syntax is another issue, of course. It might not be too much effort to add functionality of one a second/third low level API once the first one has been implemented...
stingerman - Friday, June 12, 2015 - link
Metal for iOS and OS X is virtually identical. All the development resources going into iOS game development engines, benefit OS X. Every Mac since 2012 is compatible with Metal. Besides games, Metal will underly may of the UI and vector math libraries. Metal also replaces OpenCL, so it's great for Apple's professional and scientific markets, which they are also popular in.Metal, additionally manages OS X memory transfers between a GPU's private memory and shared RAM thus reducing overhead. Of course, Macs with shared memory between the CPU and GPU will see no overhead at all. It's a very nice upgrade for OS X system wide, in addition to gaming.
loguerto - Thursday, June 11, 2015 - link
Thank you apple but we really don't need a new low level api. There is vulkan that will be efficient and multiplatform and that's all developers want, a new standard to focus on. Do your stuff but don't force us to use it.techconc - Thursday, June 11, 2015 - link
I don't really get the negative responses to Metal. Vulkan isn't here yet. Metal is. It makes sense for Apple to invest in Metal and control it's own destiny. Just because Apple's internal graphics are based on Metal doesn't mean it won't also support Vulkan when the time comes. Apple still supports OpenGL, right? This was a good move for Apple that allows them to be competitive with Microsoft, etc.loguerto - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
"Do your stuff but don't force us to use it."I am not negative with apple tech, most of the times i am negative with apple politics... if vulkan will be fully supported i don't have nothing to blame.
stingerman - Friday, June 12, 2015 - link
OS X 10.11 Metal compatible Macs includes every Mac since 2012 according to the publicly available 2015 WWDC metal Part 1 video.MZimb - Wednesday, June 17, 2015 - link
I hope Apple Metal will lead to better 3D performance with virtualization products like Parallels and Fusion.