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No mention of Vulkan? Is Apple determined to avoid supporting it?

by tapoxi 9y ago

T-zex 9y ago
Yes, they've announced Metal2 with VR support.
pjmlp 9y ago
Vulkan might become the next OpenCL, with the focus being Android (7% devices as of today) and GNU/Linux thing. All major game engines already support Metal, DX 12, NVN (the actual Switch main GX API) and LibGCM. Middleware is what counts, switching the graphics API on a compilation switch. Apple just announced on the Keynote, Metal 2, Metal VR and updated Metal Compute, with the Window Manger being ported from OpenGL to Metal. Also how ILM is now using Metal on their production pipelines. It remains to be seen what will be shown later on the technical sessions.
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  Except OpenCL was more like Metal - designed by Apple, pushed by Apple, used by nobody. The major game engines already support Vulkan, too, and Vulkan is getting far more game developer support than Metal is. A few of the major engines, like Source 2 & ID Tech 6, also chose to only support Vulkan and not DX12. Largely because DX12 requires Win10 which means out the gate you've eliminated half of your Windows gaming population compared to Vulkan. Currently all signs point towards Vulkan edging out DX12 in the Windows gaming market. That could change, of course, but Microsoft making DX12 win10-only as well as the closed access preview thing have so far put it at a pretty large disadvantage vs. Vulkan in these early days. Which matters as otherwise the APIs are pretty much the same, so why go with the Win10-exclusive when you can have the exact same thing but everywhere? Then for your content creation apps where unity/unreal middleware isn't really an option, that's going to be extra painful. Or they just ignore the problem and run OpenGL 4.1 on OSX and OpenGL 4.5+/Vulkan on Windows, and say "suck to all you pro consumers on mac, you should have bought a windows workstation instead"?
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    > Except OpenCL was more like Metal - designed by Apple, pushed by Apple, used by nobody. Because Apple could not stand Khronos politics. Also Apple isn't to blame Khronos could not make something as usable as CUDA. Really. only now they start to care about C alternatives for GPGPU?! > Currently all signs point towards Vulkan edging out DX12 in the Windows gaming market. Vulkan and OpenGL don't work in UWP, which is the future of Windows application model, nor on XBox.
    - kllrnohj 9y ago
      > Also Apple isn't to blame Khronos could not make something as usable as CUDA. Apple is the one that developed OpenCL. Apple submitted OpenCL to Khronos. So if Apple isn't to blame then who is? > Vulkan and OpenGL don't work in UWP, which is the future of Windows application model It's only the future if applications adopt it. Which since it's win10 only there's no real chance of that happening anytime soon. Keep in mind Steam is the dominate marketplace for gaming on Windows, not the Microsoft app store (followed by a few other stores - Origin, Battle.net, etc...). So what Microsoft wants to happen is pretty irrelevant to what will actually happen since nobody really cares about Microsoft's store. > Vulkan and OpenGL don't work [...] on XBox. Neither does DX12. Console devs aren't writing for UWP nor for Direct3D. UWP on xbox sounds like that old XNA thing - something for maybe indie devs but since indie devs now have a choice of engines to pick from they probably will care even less now than they did back when XNA was a thing.
      - pjmlp 9y ago
        > Apple is the one that developed OpenCL. Apple submitted OpenCL to Khronos. So if Apple isn't to blame then who is? The Khronos group that wanted OpenCL to look something else than what Apple cared about. When one is in minority, better leave. > Which since it's win10 only there's no real chance of that happening anytime soon. I remember hearing the same about DX 10/Vista, DX 11/Windows 7 and how GNU/Linux would save the world of gaming with SteamOS and here we are. > Neither does DX12. I guess you don't follow XBox SDK news, UWP is irrelevant in XBox context.
netheril96 9y ago
Apple's style has always been controlling everything from the lowest level to the highest level. They won't support other people's standards unless without a choice.

No mention of Vulkan? Is Apple determined to avoid supporting it?

by tapoxi 9y ago

No mention of Vulkan? Is Apple determined to avoid supporting it?

T-zex 9y ago

Yes, they've announced Metal2 with VR support.

pjmlp 9y ago

Vulkan might become the next OpenCL, with the focus being Android (7% devices as of today) and GNU/Linux thing. All major game engines already support Metal, DX 12, NVN (the actual Switch main GX API) and LibGCM. Middleware is what counts, switching the graphics API on a compilation switch. Apple just announced on the Keynote, Metal 2, Metal VR and updated Metal Compute, with the Window Manger being ported from OpenGL to Metal. Also how ILM is now using Metal on their production pipelines. It remains to be seen what will be shown later on the technical sessions.

kllrnohj 9y ago
Except OpenCL was more like Metal - designed by Apple, pushed by Apple, used by nobody. The major game engines already support Vulkan, too, and Vulkan is getting far more game developer support than Metal is. A few of the major engines, like Source 2 & ID Tech 6, also chose to only support Vulkan and not DX12. Largely because DX12 requires Win10 which means out the gate you've eliminated half of your Windows gaming population compared to Vulkan. Currently all signs point towards Vulkan edging out DX12 in the Windows gaming market. That could change, of course, but Microsoft making DX12 win10-only as well as the closed access preview thing have so far put it at a pretty large disadvantage vs. Vulkan in these early days. Which matters as otherwise the APIs are pretty much the same, so why go with the Win10-exclusive when you can have the exact same thing but everywhere? Then for your content creation apps where unity/unreal middleware isn't really an option, that's going to be extra painful. Or they just ignore the problem and run OpenGL 4.1 on OSX and OpenGL 4.5+/Vulkan on Windows, and say "suck to all you pro consumers on mac, you should have bought a windows workstation instead"?
- pjmlp 9y ago
  > Except OpenCL was more like Metal - designed by Apple, pushed by Apple, used by nobody. Because Apple could not stand Khronos politics. Also Apple isn't to blame Khronos could not make something as usable as CUDA. Really. only now they start to care about C alternatives for GPGPU?! > Currently all signs point towards Vulkan edging out DX12 in the Windows gaming market. Vulkan and OpenGL don't work in UWP, which is the future of Windows application model, nor on XBox.
  - kllrnohj 9y ago
    > Also Apple isn't to blame Khronos could not make something as usable as CUDA. Apple is the one that developed OpenCL. Apple submitted OpenCL to Khronos. So if Apple isn't to blame then who is? > Vulkan and OpenGL don't work in UWP, which is the future of Windows application model It's only the future if applications adopt it. Which since it's win10 only there's no real chance of that happening anytime soon. Keep in mind Steam is the dominate marketplace for gaming on Windows, not the Microsoft app store (followed by a few other stores - Origin, Battle.net, etc...). So what Microsoft wants to happen is pretty irrelevant to what will actually happen since nobody really cares about Microsoft's store. > Vulkan and OpenGL don't work [...] on XBox. Neither does DX12. Console devs aren't writing for UWP nor for Direct3D. UWP on xbox sounds like that old XNA thing - something for maybe indie devs but since indie devs now have a choice of engines to pick from they probably will care even less now than they did back when XNA was a thing.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      > Apple is the one that developed OpenCL. Apple submitted OpenCL to Khronos. So if Apple isn't to blame then who is? The Khronos group that wanted OpenCL to look something else than what Apple cared about. When one is in minority, better leave. > Which since it's win10 only there's no real chance of that happening anytime soon. I remember hearing the same about DX 10/Vista, DX 11/Windows 7 and how GNU/Linux would save the world of gaming with SteamOS and here we are. > Neither does DX12. I guess you don't follow XBox SDK news, UWP is irrelevant in XBox context.

netheril96 9y ago

Apple's style has always been controlling everything from the lowest level to the highest level. They won't support other people's standards unless without a choice.