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You can implement an OpenGL driver on top of Metal. But why bother dedicating so many resources for the sake of a suboptimal legacy API?

• smoldesu 3y ago
  Because it's a cross-platform framework that thousands of programs (including Mac exclusives) rely on? There's so much OpenGL-only software that it should be Apple's moral imperative to support it anyways. I don't think anyone can honestly say that the graphics situation on Mac has improved in the absence of cross-platform APIs. Even Apple admits it with the Game Porting Toolkit.
  • ribit 3y ago
    And any of those Mac programs need anything more recent than 4.1? GL is legacy tech and Apple does offer legacy support. I just don’t see any reason to invest more work into this area. We should encourage people to stop using GL, not use it more. It’s bad technology.
    • smoldesu 3y ago
      Ideally we encourage people to port to Vulkan instead of Metal and DirectX, so porting is easier and more people can run common software. Unfortunately, certain vendors have a reputation against third party Open standards.
    • mort96 3y ago
      Legacy or not, OpenGL is the best cross platform graphics API we have that's actually practical for people to write directly. Metal is reasonable to write directly but not cross platform, Vulkan is cross platform but you need thousands of LoC to put a triangle on the screen.