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Aren't most of the games on MacOS running on OpenGL? This is going to kill all the older titles that are not maintained anymore. Terrible move just to push Met

Aren't most of the games on MacOS running on OpenGL? This is going to kill all the older titles that are not maintained anymore. Terrible move just to push Metal down people throats. As if MacOS gaming wasn't dead enough.

dgellow 8y ago
That’s a really worrying point, yes. Mac users can say goodbye to the majority of our steam library.
- rbanffy 8y ago
  It will take a couple more releases for it to stop working.
  - adamredwoods 8y ago
    Apple releases about once a year, so two years before I am forced to switch to a PC?
    - Jach 8y ago
      At least you'll have the option with the games being part of steam. How many games are unplayable and never will be playable again on any phone that upgraded to iOS 11?
      - rbanffy 8y ago
        I'd assume it'd only be removed on iOS 14 or beyond.
  - sparky_ 8y ago
    I would be surprised if it disappears entirely. More likely some third-party hero (or perhaps Apple themselves) will spin off their GL implementation as a separate package - see XQuartz.
snarfy 8y ago
To be fair, PC gaming is a small fraction of the overall gaming market. All the consoles have their own proprietary graphics apis. It's ok if apple's api is proprietary too. Consoles support opengl, but it's not optimal. If they all strictly adhere to standard graphics apis, how do they differentiate themselves? Why make custom silicon with their apple 'bionic' chip? It's going to need an api to go with it.
- mastax 8y ago
  PC Gaming is about the same market size as console: https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/global-games-market-reaches-137-9-billion-in-2018-mobile-games-take-half/ https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/global-games-market-rea...
kilon 8y ago
Nope most of them use some sort of game Engine, unreal and Unity dominate. MacOS gaming is not only not dead it’s flourishing rapidly. Take a trip to Steam shop. You will find a massive amount of games are made for MacOS and the numbers are growing rapidly since Apple lost interest into OpenGL. But then MacOS has reached a 10% of the desktop market making it much harder to ignore than in the past when it barely reached 3%. With iOS dominating mobile revenue , Appple is the undisputed king of gaming for over a decade now.
- SwellJoe 8y ago
  "Nope most of them use some sort of game Engine, unreal and Unity dominate." But, don't those engines use OpenGL on the backend? They need some sort of interface to the GPU, and AFAIK, OpenGL is it for both Mac OS and Linux. Edit: Yes, at least Unity does. I can't find an authoritative source on Unreal. https://forum.unity.com/threads/opengl-core-backend-default-change-for-osx-and-linux.359225/ https://forum.unity.com/threads/opengl-core-backend-default-... Edit2: Found Unreal info...they switched to Metal in 4.14. So, you're OK if you develop games for Mac with Unreal. I guess it's plausible that Unity will do the same going forward.
  - bananaboy 8y ago
    Unity already supports Metal on OSX and iOS. See "Enabling Metal" here: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UsingDX11GL3Features.html https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UsingDX11GL3Features.html
  - yAak 8y ago
    Unity supports Metal, it was shown on stage during the keynote: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/06/05/wwdc18-book-of-the-dead-debuts-on-macbook-pro-arkit-2-0-available-for-unity-devs/ https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/06/05/wwdc18-book-of-the-dead...
  - kilon 8y ago
    The backend plays a minor role, as I repeatedly say and I am repeatedly downvoted by ignorant people. Unreal supports on MacOS not one but 3 technologies. OpenGL, Vulkan and Metal and that is just for graphics. There is also CUDA, OpenCL, PhysicsX and much more that go far beyond the scope of 3d graphics. A well designed graphics engine never ties itself to a platform however popular that platform may be. Whether that platform may be a OS , a graphics API or any kind of SDK. At least Unreal is neither a game engine nor a graphics engine , its an entire ecosystem of tools , APIs. Unreal even extends C++ to facilitate for GC and some rudimentary reflective abilities. So there are a ton of things go on, from low level to very high level. Overall MacOS develpers have been very quick into embracing Metal for new projects and so did Unreal. Which is no big suprise because Metal gives access to both MacOS and iOS which is a variant/fork of MacOS.

dgellow 8y ago

That’s a really worrying point, yes. Mac users can say goodbye to the majority of our steam library.

rbanffy 8y ago
It will take a couple more releases for it to stop working.
- adamredwoods 8y ago
  Apple releases about once a year, so two years before I am forced to switch to a PC?
  - Jach 8y ago
    At least you'll have the option with the games being part of steam. How many games are unplayable and never will be playable again on any phone that upgraded to iOS 11?
    - rbanffy 8y ago
      I'd assume it'd only be removed on iOS 14 or beyond.
- sparky_ 8y ago
  I would be surprised if it disappears entirely. More likely some third-party hero (or perhaps Apple themselves) will spin off their GL implementation as a separate package - see XQuartz.

snarfy 8y ago

To be fair, PC gaming is a small fraction of the overall gaming market. All the consoles have their own proprietary graphics apis. It's ok if apple's api is proprietary too. Consoles support opengl, but it's not optimal. If they all strictly adhere to standard graphics apis, how do they differentiate themselves? Why make custom silicon with their apple 'bionic' chip? It's going to need an api to go with it.

mastax 8y ago
PC Gaming is about the same market size as console: https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/global-games-market-reaches-137-9-billion-in-2018-mobile-games-take-half/ https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/global-games-market-rea...

kilon 8y ago

Nope most of them use some sort of game Engine, unreal and Unity dominate. MacOS gaming is not only not dead it’s flourishing rapidly. Take a trip to Steam shop. You will find a massive amount of games are made for MacOS and the numbers are growing rapidly since Apple lost interest into OpenGL. But then MacOS has reached a 10% of the desktop market making it much harder to ignore than in the past when it barely reached 3%. With iOS dominating mobile revenue , Appple is the undisputed king of gaming for over a decade now.

SwellJoe 8y ago
"Nope most of them use some sort of game Engine, unreal and Unity dominate." But, don't those engines use OpenGL on the backend? They need some sort of interface to the GPU, and AFAIK, OpenGL is it for both Mac OS and Linux. Edit: Yes, at least Unity does. I can't find an authoritative source on Unreal. https://forum.unity.com/threads/opengl-core-backend-default-change-for-osx-and-linux.359225/ https://forum.unity.com/threads/opengl-core-backend-default-... Edit2: Found Unreal info...they switched to Metal in 4.14. So, you're OK if you develop games for Mac with Unreal. I guess it's plausible that Unity will do the same going forward.
- bananaboy 8y ago
  Unity already supports Metal on OSX and iOS. See "Enabling Metal" here: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UsingDX11GL3Features.html https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UsingDX11GL3Features.html
- yAak 8y ago
  Unity supports Metal, it was shown on stage during the keynote: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/06/05/wwdc18-book-of-the-dead-debuts-on-macbook-pro-arkit-2-0-available-for-unity-devs/ https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/06/05/wwdc18-book-of-the-dead...
- kilon 8y ago
  The backend plays a minor role, as I repeatedly say and I am repeatedly downvoted by ignorant people. Unreal supports on MacOS not one but 3 technologies. OpenGL, Vulkan and Metal and that is just for graphics. There is also CUDA, OpenCL, PhysicsX and much more that go far beyond the scope of 3d graphics. A well designed graphics engine never ties itself to a platform however popular that platform may be. Whether that platform may be a OS , a graphics API or any kind of SDK. At least Unreal is neither a game engine nor a graphics engine , its an entire ecosystem of tools , APIs. Unreal even extends C++ to facilitate for GC and some rudimentary reflective abilities. So there are a ton of things go on, from low level to very high level. Overall MacOS develpers have been very quick into embracing Metal for new projects and so did Unreal. Which is no big suprise because Metal gives access to both MacOS and iOS which is a variant/fork of MacOS.