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> From what I understand, Apple decided to force Metal upon everyone instead of using Vulkan like the rest of the industry Metal came out in 2014, Vulkan in 20

> From what I understand, Apple decided to force Metal upon everyone instead of using Vulkan like the rest of the industry Metal came out in 2014, Vulkan in 2016.

smoldesu 4y ago
That doesn't really change anything. If Apple uses a bad API because they thought of it first, they're still using a bad API.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  Metal is generally a nicer API to use than Vulkan.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    It could cook my breakfast for me, and it would still be useless if it exclusively targets Apple products. People use Vulkan because it targets multiple platforms. There's nothing stopping Apple from providing both APIs, and if Apple's API is truly nicer to use than Vulkan, then Apple has nothing to worry about.
    - jmull 4y ago
      Vulkan is counter to Apple's vertical integration approach. It would be a foundational API, sitting between their graphics hardware and their OS, yet one they don't control. Better for someone else to build a Vulkan API on top of Metal, which is what has happened. It's not perfect, but it's the only thing that can work. The pressure on Apple should be for Metal to better support Vulkan by providing APIs it needs to work optimally. Beyond that, Apple might want to contribute to the Vulkan-on-Metal implementation... though they're only going to do that if it makes strategic sense, which I don't see. For cross-platform, what makes more sense is to encourage games to use a higher-level engine that supports metal among its platforms, like Unity and Unreal.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        Well, thus-far it has failed. We have Factorio, Tomb Raider and one of the Resident Evil games running on MacOS - most of which had to implement Metal by hand. If you're right, Apple's strategy needs to change.
        acdha 4y ago
        And a ton of other games because things like Unity make that easy. If you aren’t focused on AAA, you should have no problems finding more games than most of us have time for.
        yisonPylkita 4y ago
        I want to mention here that Factorio doesn't use Apple Metal API. They use OpenGL and Apple dropped OpenGL in favour of Metal
        jmull 4y ago
        The thing is, you need a whole game to work on macos, not just the graphics. Vulkan is just a cross-platform graphics API, not a cross-platform framework. Typically, if a game maker wants to make cross-platform a priority, they wouldn't target just Vulkan, they'd target a cross-platform framework. That would be true whether Vulkan was supported by Apple or not. And if they don't make cross-platform a priority, the chances of a mac port go down regardless. So... We're looking at the incremental gain of Apple providing first-party support for Vulkan vs the existing third-party support. Looks like a lot of work for Apple for little gain. Just doesn't seem worth it to me. Also, the Vulkan version would always be out-of-date since Apple would pin the supported version to an OS release, and would need to be conservative about it, since they aren't going to hold an OS release for Vulkan. Really, Vulkan on macOS is much better done by the interested third parties, and the focus on Apple should be to get them to better support a Vulcan API on top of Metal.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  This seems disingenuous. The previous claim was that Apple ignored an existing emerging standard, so it is relevant. Your new claim is that Metal is a bad API, which I haven't heard anyone else say. What makes it bad?
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    My larger point is that Apple can obviously support both APIs. It doesn't matter if Metal is good, bad or even awful, Vulkan is what people are using and Vulkan can translate from DirectX. Apple is shutting themselves off from the rest of the industry with this move, which I would argue (judging by how many Mac users wish they could game) is a bad thing.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      > It doesn't matter if Metal is good, bad or even awful I'm confused. Your previous statement was saying the main point is that Apple have kept a bad API. > Vulkan is what people are using and Vulkan can translate from DirectX. Apple is shutting themselves off from the rest of the industry with this move, which I would argue (judging by how many Mac users wish they could game) is a bad thing. Possibly, FSVO translate, but I don't think anyone was commenting on this new point. More with the previous points.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- gernb 4y ago
  Can't devs who want to target Vulkan just use MoltenVK? https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK

> From what I understand, Apple decided to force Metal upon everyone instead of using Vulkan like the rest of the industry Metal came out in 2014, Vulkan in 2016.

smoldesu 4y ago

That doesn't really change anything. If Apple uses a bad API because they thought of it first, they're still using a bad API.

saagarjha 4y ago
Metal is generally a nicer API to use than Vulkan.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  It could cook my breakfast for me, and it would still be useless if it exclusively targets Apple products. People use Vulkan because it targets multiple platforms. There's nothing stopping Apple from providing both APIs, and if Apple's API is truly nicer to use than Vulkan, then Apple has nothing to worry about.
  - jmull 4y ago
    Vulkan is counter to Apple's vertical integration approach. It would be a foundational API, sitting between their graphics hardware and their OS, yet one they don't control. Better for someone else to build a Vulkan API on top of Metal, which is what has happened. It's not perfect, but it's the only thing that can work. The pressure on Apple should be for Metal to better support Vulkan by providing APIs it needs to work optimally. Beyond that, Apple might want to contribute to the Vulkan-on-Metal implementation... though they're only going to do that if it makes strategic sense, which I don't see. For cross-platform, what makes more sense is to encourage games to use a higher-level engine that supports metal among its platforms, like Unity and Unreal.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      Well, thus-far it has failed. We have Factorio, Tomb Raider and one of the Resident Evil games running on MacOS - most of which had to implement Metal by hand. If you're right, Apple's strategy needs to change.
      - acdha 4y ago
        And a ton of other games because things like Unity make that easy. If you aren’t focused on AAA, you should have no problems finding more games than most of us have time for.
      - yisonPylkita 4y ago
        I want to mention here that Factorio doesn't use Apple Metal API. They use OpenGL and Apple dropped OpenGL in favour of Metal
      - jmull 4y ago
        The thing is, you need a whole game to work on macos, not just the graphics. Vulkan is just a cross-platform graphics API, not a cross-platform framework. Typically, if a game maker wants to make cross-platform a priority, they wouldn't target just Vulkan, they'd target a cross-platform framework. That would be true whether Vulkan was supported by Apple or not. And if they don't make cross-platform a priority, the chances of a mac port go down regardless. So... We're looking at the incremental gain of Apple providing first-party support for Vulkan vs the existing third-party support. Looks like a lot of work for Apple for little gain. Just doesn't seem worth it to me. Also, the Vulkan version would always be out-of-date since Apple would pin the supported version to an OS release, and would need to be conservative about it, since they aren't going to hold an OS release for Vulkan. Really, Vulkan on macOS is much better done by the interested third parties, and the focus on Apple should be to get them to better support a Vulcan API on top of Metal.
robertlagrant 4y ago
This seems disingenuous. The previous claim was that Apple ignored an existing emerging standard, so it is relevant. Your new claim is that Metal is a bad API, which I haven't heard anyone else say. What makes it bad?
- smoldesu 4y ago
  My larger point is that Apple can obviously support both APIs. It doesn't matter if Metal is good, bad or even awful, Vulkan is what people are using and Vulkan can translate from DirectX. Apple is shutting themselves off from the rest of the industry with this move, which I would argue (judging by how many Mac users wish they could game) is a bad thing.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    > It doesn't matter if Metal is good, bad or even awful I'm confused. Your previous statement was saying the main point is that Apple have kept a bad API. > Vulkan is what people are using and Vulkan can translate from DirectX. Apple is shutting themselves off from the rest of the industry with this move, which I would argue (judging by how many Mac users wish they could game) is a bad thing. Possibly, FSVO translate, but I don't think anyone was commenting on this new point. More with the previous points.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
gernb 4y ago
Can't devs who want to target Vulkan just use MoltenVK? https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK