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What's funny and sad is that Vulkan may be the one in the long run that helps make macOS (and Linux) relevant longer for games. Imagine if Apple did support Vu

What's funny and sad is that Vulkan may be the one in the long run that helps make macOS (and Linux) relevant longer for games. Imagine if Apple did support Vulkan natively, all Windows games via Steam Play Beta can be run on macOS easily and with support of eGPU, it would help a lot to make them run better. All I can realistically hope for is that Apple continues to close the gap between Metal and Vulkan, so projects like Metal on Vulkan (MoltanVK), Proton (Steam Play + dxvk + Wine) can benefit with less work to do. It'll be interesting to see what Apple does with Metal 3 in the next few years. If they're smart (they haven't been in the last few years with Mac Pro, rMBP keyboard+touchbar, etc), they'd work with the Kronos group.

kvark 8y ago
> projects like Metal on Vulkan (MoltanVK) It's not Metal on Vulkan, it's the other way around. Also, kind of strange to bring this up when the topic is about gfx-portability progress (which is competing with MoltenVK).
- mikhailt 8y ago
  That is correct, my morning brain mixed it up because of writing of MoltanVK started me off on Metal on Vulkan. I bought it up because of the general topic of Vulkan and Metal, not because of gfx-rs itself. MoltanVK deserves a mention due to Khronos Group sponsoring it.
  - kvark 8y ago
    This is sadly a common misconception, partly due to Khronos messaging. MoltenVK is sponsored by Valve, not Khronos. Both gfx-rs and MoltenVK are working in Vulkan Portability TSG, and both are promoted by the slides/talks if you read carefully. MoltenVK just gets more attention because it's packed by LunarG and used in Dota2.
    - mikhailt 8y ago
      I saw MoltenVK under KhronosGroup control here, which led to my confusion once more: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK And yea, the messaging is confusing because of this line on their site: > As a first deliverable from the Vulkan Portability Initiative, Khronos members Valve, LunarG, and The Brenwill Workshop have released a collection of free and open source set of tools, SDKs, and runtime libraries to enable Vulkan development on macOS and deployment on macOS and iOS platforms Source: https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/portability-initiative https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/portability-initiative That led me to think they’re sponsoring it. It looks like MoltenVK was created by The Brenwill Workshop.
      - kvark 8y ago
        KhronosGroup github organization may be hosting projects of Khronos members that align with Khronos mission, but they aren't necessary the deliverables of any working groups and thus can't be official/sponsored. > Khronos members Valve, LunarG, and The Brenwill Workshop have released It's like saying "W3C members Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp have released ..." :D Basically, Valve released something that they want to look like it's supported by Khronos. And this trick worked - now everybody believes it to be a Khronos product.
        mikhailt 8y ago
        Cool, thanks for the details.
phaedrus 8y ago
This is exactly what Casey Muratori was ranting about in his "Thirty Million Line Problem" video. My interpretation (or extension) of the point he was making: if the same hardware (CPU + GPU) can boot Mac OSX or Windows, why can't the same game binary run on both? If hardware vendors created a good "ISA" and stuck to it, it should be possible to write one binary that talks to the hardware directly and runs the same anywhere as long as the hardware ISA is compatible.

kvark 8y ago

> projects like Metal on Vulkan (MoltanVK) It's not Metal on Vulkan, it's the other way around. Also, kind of strange to bring this up when the topic is about gfx-portability progress (which is competing with MoltenVK).

mikhailt 8y ago
That is correct, my morning brain mixed it up because of writing of MoltanVK started me off on Metal on Vulkan. I bought it up because of the general topic of Vulkan and Metal, not because of gfx-rs itself. MoltanVK deserves a mention due to Khronos Group sponsoring it.
- kvark 8y ago
  This is sadly a common misconception, partly due to Khronos messaging. MoltenVK is sponsored by Valve, not Khronos. Both gfx-rs and MoltenVK are working in Vulkan Portability TSG, and both are promoted by the slides/talks if you read carefully. MoltenVK just gets more attention because it's packed by LunarG and used in Dota2.
  - mikhailt 8y ago
    I saw MoltenVK under KhronosGroup control here, which led to my confusion once more: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK And yea, the messaging is confusing because of this line on their site: > As a first deliverable from the Vulkan Portability Initiative, Khronos members Valve, LunarG, and The Brenwill Workshop have released a collection of free and open source set of tools, SDKs, and runtime libraries to enable Vulkan development on macOS and deployment on macOS and iOS platforms Source: https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/portability-initiative https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/portability-initiative That led me to think they’re sponsoring it. It looks like MoltenVK was created by The Brenwill Workshop.
    - kvark 8y ago
      KhronosGroup github organization may be hosting projects of Khronos members that align with Khronos mission, but they aren't necessary the deliverables of any working groups and thus can't be official/sponsored. > Khronos members Valve, LunarG, and The Brenwill Workshop have released It's like saying "W3C members Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp have released ..." :D Basically, Valve released something that they want to look like it's supported by Khronos. And this trick worked - now everybody believes it to be a Khronos product.
      - mikhailt 8y ago
        Cool, thanks for the details.

phaedrus 8y ago

This is exactly what Casey Muratori was ranting about in his "Thirty Million Line Problem" video. My interpretation (or extension) of the point he was making: if the same hardware (CPU + GPU) can boot Mac OSX or Windows, why can't the same game binary run on both? If hardware vendors created a good "ISA" and stuck to it, it should be possible to write one binary that talks to the hardware directly and runs the same anywhere as long as the hardware ISA is compatible.