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It feels unlikely. Much smaller companies (Broadcom, Qualcomm) have no trouble writing compliant Vulkan drivers (let alone singular people), so I find it hard t

It feels unlikely. Much smaller companies (Broadcom, Qualcomm) have no trouble writing compliant Vulkan drivers (let alone singular people), so I find it hard to give Apple the pass here. Assuming good faith on their part, Vulkan should be available; or at least some kind of cross-platform API target. Otherwise people are just going to ignore Mac and keep focusing on DirectX, like the status quo. Vulkan is everyone's ticket out of that mess. Not only does it provide Apple an industry-standard API for third-parties to develop on, it flips the DirectX problem on it's head. Because you support Vulkan 1.3 you get DXVK support alongside DX9, DX11 and DX12 support. Now it doesn't matter what third parties do, because you win every time; Steam Deck politics. The status-quo is simply detracting from the value of using MacOS; the only feasible explanation is that Apple is hoping to somehow force developers into using Metal natively. Outside Tomb Raider and Resident Evil, I just don't see it happening. > The Apple Metal platform surely is customized to the needs of Apple That clearly doesn't stop anyone from writing Vulkan drivers for the hardware, though. OP appears to be blatant evidence of this. For example; CUDA is well-customized to Nvidia's specific hardware, but their hardware also supports Vulkan drivers. Same goes for Intel with oneAPI and AMD's ROCm; all of them still support Vulkan. Apple is quite literally one of the only mainstream manufacturers that does not support it.

ttoinou 2y ago
Your example of taking games that dare go the full Metal route makes me wonder : to which projects was adding 100% native Vulkan compatibility / support worth the resources spent on this and not something else ? What’s the full Vulkan platform having a dedicated OS running solely Vulkan with a Vulkan based GPU and for which real life uses ?
- talldayo 2y ago
  > What’s the full Vulkan platform having a dedicated OS running solely Vulkan with a Vulkan based GPU and for which real life uses ? Steam Deck handles it just fine, alongside OpenGL. You use Vulkan to run DirectX games, OpenGL to accelerate the desktop and browser (can soon be replaced with Vulkan too) and fall back to OpenGL for everything else. I'm not aware of any desktop stuff the Steam Deck can't do; it edits video, it runs Blender, it can browse the web and compile apps. Granted, Vulkan of course isn't a panacea here. But without it, stuff like the Steam Deck simply wouldn't exist. Vulkan is valuable because it provides a preservation layer for Windows software that Apple is unwilling to support themselves.
pcwalton 2y ago
> the only feasible explanation is that Apple is hoping to somehow force developers into using Metal natively I'm told the problem is some legal spat between Apple and Khronos that has led to a "no Khronos standards anywhere at Apple" policy. I don't know the details beyond that.
- talldayo 2y ago
  Sigh, sadly that sounds in-character. Pour one out for the users that didn't get their feature because a C-suite needed to make a point with their temper-tantrum.
inDigiNeous 2y ago
Metal allows Apple to squeeze that extra performance out of their devices. They have full control over, and can implement whatever they need to deliver Apple Vision Pro for example. With Vulkan, they would have to wait for a committee to approve required changes, and still they could not probably optimize it to match their GPU an CPU hardware profiles in such an efficient way. And not least at all, to optimize the developer experience and tools. Apple GPU debugging tools are probably the best tools you get for graphics development debugging, and you get that only on macOS. IMO Metal is a nicer API than Vulkan. At the same time, you can ask, why should Microsoft get to keep DirectX, and not just write a Vulkan driver ?
- DeathArrow 2y ago
  >Metal allows Apple to squeeze that extra performance out of their devices. They have full control over, and can implement whatever they need to deliver Apple Vision Pro for example. That doesn't stop them from implementing both Metal and Vulkan.
  - inDigiNeous 2y ago
    Sure, but a lot of extra work for something like that. Also, Apple Walled Garden..
- IsTom 2y ago
  > they would have to wait for a committee to approve required changes Or just make proprietary extensions?
- talldayo 2y ago
  > why should Microsoft get to keep DirectX, and not just write a Vulkan driver ? They support both. And sometimes the Vulkan driver is faster than their native DirectX one too.
pjmlp 2y ago
Like in the OpenGL days, Vulkan keeps playing catch up with the games consoles, and DirectX APIs, and it is already a extension mess just like OpenGL, an achievment in a quarter of OpenGL's lifetime.

ttoinou 2y ago

Your example of taking games that dare go the full Metal route makes me wonder : to which projects was adding 100% native Vulkan compatibility / support worth the resources spent on this and not something else ? What’s the full Vulkan platform having a dedicated OS running solely Vulkan with a Vulkan based GPU and for which real life uses ?

talldayo 2y ago
> What’s the full Vulkan platform having a dedicated OS running solely Vulkan with a Vulkan based GPU and for which real life uses ? Steam Deck handles it just fine, alongside OpenGL. You use Vulkan to run DirectX games, OpenGL to accelerate the desktop and browser (can soon be replaced with Vulkan too) and fall back to OpenGL for everything else. I'm not aware of any desktop stuff the Steam Deck can't do; it edits video, it runs Blender, it can browse the web and compile apps. Granted, Vulkan of course isn't a panacea here. But without it, stuff like the Steam Deck simply wouldn't exist. Vulkan is valuable because it provides a preservation layer for Windows software that Apple is unwilling to support themselves.

pcwalton 2y ago

> the only feasible explanation is that Apple is hoping to somehow force developers into using Metal natively I'm told the problem is some legal spat between Apple and Khronos that has led to a "no Khronos standards anywhere at Apple" policy. I don't know the details beyond that.

talldayo 2y ago
Sigh, sadly that sounds in-character. Pour one out for the users that didn't get their feature because a C-suite needed to make a point with their temper-tantrum.

inDigiNeous 2y ago

Metal allows Apple to squeeze that extra performance out of their devices. They have full control over, and can implement whatever they need to deliver Apple Vision Pro for example. With Vulkan, they would have to wait for a committee to approve required changes, and still they could not probably optimize it to match their GPU an CPU hardware profiles in such an efficient way. And not least at all, to optimize the developer experience and tools. Apple GPU debugging tools are probably the best tools you get for graphics development debugging, and you get that only on macOS. IMO Metal is a nicer API than Vulkan. At the same time, you can ask, why should Microsoft get to keep DirectX, and not just write a Vulkan driver ?

DeathArrow 2y ago
>Metal allows Apple to squeeze that extra performance out of their devices. They have full control over, and can implement whatever they need to deliver Apple Vision Pro for example. That doesn't stop them from implementing both Metal and Vulkan.
- inDigiNeous 2y ago
  Sure, but a lot of extra work for something like that. Also, Apple Walled Garden..
IsTom 2y ago
> they would have to wait for a committee to approve required changes Or just make proprietary extensions?
talldayo 2y ago
> why should Microsoft get to keep DirectX, and not just write a Vulkan driver ? They support both. And sometimes the Vulkan driver is faster than their native DirectX one too.

pjmlp 2y ago

Like in the OpenGL days, Vulkan keeps playing catch up with the games consoles, and DirectX APIs, and it is already a extension mess just like OpenGL, an achievment in a quarter of OpenGL's lifetime.