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> Apple already shipped Metal version 1 a full year before Vulkan was even an idea. That doesn't stop them from implementing two APIs at once, like every singl
by talldayo 2y ago
> Apple already shipped Metal version 1 a full year before Vulkan was even an idea.
That doesn't stop them from implementing two APIs at once, like every single GPU hardware vendor in existence. But given their avoidance of OpenGL and OpenCL, we should have always assumed Apple's goal was to usurp Open interfaces and replace them with only proprietary options. What else could they intend to signal?
> Windows and Xbox is DirectX
Yes. DirectX is covered almost in it's entirety by DXVK. It's harder to find a DirectX game that isn't playable with Vulkan than one that is.
https://www.protondb.com/explore?sort=playerCount https://www.protondb.com/explore?sort=playerCount
> Playstation is their own thing (keep forgetting what it's called)
Yeah, and it keeps biting them in the ass when they have to then backport Playstation-native titles to PC with DirectX. It's a notoriously redundant process.
> That leaves Android (mostly underpowered and fractured to even run games properly) and Switch who really support Vulkan.
Well also Windows, Linux, BSD, HaikuOS, Google Fuchsia, QNX, Stadia and Tizen.
And hardware wise you can't forget that Intel, AMD, Nvidia, ARM, Qualcomm and Broadcomm all support it in their GPUs.
- robertoandred 2y agoApple created OpenCL. It was nvidia who made everyone else avoid it.
- talldayo 2y agoWhat does that prove, though? Apple gave up. Ironically, now Nvidia is one of the only remaining companies that supports OpenCL anymore. Apple is experiencing firsthand what the lack of a CUDA analog does to a company. Whether or not they care is up to them, but clearly the laser-focus on high-performance GPU compute is not doing Apple Silicon any favors in the server space or in the desktop.
- robertoandred 2y agoIt proves that the idea that Apple avoided OpenCL is ludicrous.
- talldayo 2y agoWhere does Apple support OpenCL today then?
- robertoandred 2y agoIt still works on Apple Silicon
- pjmlp 2y agoSure, sure, like Google, Intel and AMD aren't to blame for having made a mess out of OpenCL on their products.
- talldayo 2y agoGo ahead, blame literally every single person except the lead maintainer and developer of the project.
- pjmlp 2y agoThe reality is that Google, AMD and Intel have more than enough time since 2009, to provide a developer experience, and drivers, that would make people actually use OpenCL instead of CUDA. Instead, Google created the proprietary Renderscript for Android, while AMD and Intel kept delivering broken drivers, partial implementations of OpenCL, never delivered a proper OpenCL 2.x implemenation with mature C++ support, IDE and GPGPU graphical debuggers.
- talldayo 2y agoIt wasn't Google, AMD and Intel's job to improve the developer experience. You can chew them out for bad drivers, but they did improve and now AMD and Intel's OpenCL implementations are the reference-quality ones. Again, you can blame everyone else for doing their own thing but the project only has one father that could estrange it. Apple's blindness killing OpenCL makes everything in Microsoft and Google's graveyard look reasonable by comparison. If Apple wants a repeat of the Metal for gaming situation in AI, they are more than welcome to self-sabotage themselves until they run out of energy.
- pjmlp 2y agoSure little dreamer, blame NVidia and Apple for Intel, Google and AMD incompetency.
- troupo 2y ago> That doesn't stop them from implementing two APIs at once, like every single GPU hardware vendor in existence. Apple is not a GPU vendor. > Yes. DirectX is covered almost in it's entirety by DXVK. You mean a non-official non-supported wrapper. No one is stopping you to create such a wrapper for Metal/VK. Oh wait, it exists > Yeah, and it keeps biting them in the ass when they have to Has nothing to do with the reality of Vulkan support > Well also Windows, Linux, BSD, HaikuOS, Google Fuchsia, QNX, Stadia and Tizen. The only API Windows supports natively is DirectX. It's up to the whims of the GPU vendors to provide support for Vulkan. Stadia is a very major player, true. Considering it's dead. TVs as gaming platforms (that's what Tizen is) are non-existent in the grand scheme of things. Neither is Fuchsia. Or HaikuOS. The only winner here is Linux, but that really only works through the thankless work of maintaining the DX->Vulkan wrappers. Again, nothing is stopping you from doing the same work for Metal.