Autodesk Drops Support For Alias, VRED In macOS Mojave Over OpenGL Deprecation (appleinsider.com)

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Autodesk Drops Support For Alias, VRED In macOS Mojave Over OpenGL Deprecation (appleinsider.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Sunday July 29, 2018 @12:30PM from the stop-drop-and-roll dept.

"Autodesk has published a support document announcing that it is stopping development of its Alias and VRED vertical market packages, and that older versions will not work on Mojave due to Apple's OpenGL deprecation," writes Stephen Silver for Apple Insider. Alias is software predominantly used in automotive design and industrial design, while VRED is 3D visualization software. From the report: According to a note posted on Autodesk's support website, while older Alias versions can run on High Sierra or earlier, "no versions of VRED will run on that operating system due to the OpenGL deprecation." The change, according to the Autodesk note, "allows Autodesk development teams to focus on bringing innovations to market faster, and allows for more frequent software updates." "In the end, the entire Alias and VRED community will benefit from this streamlined approach," wrote the company.

This follows the announcement by Apple in June at WWDC that Mojave will require graphics hardware to support Metal, and that active development has ceased for OpenGL and OpenCL on the Mac. It isn't clear why Autodesk made the declaration that OpenGL's deprecation was responsible for the applications not working in Mojave. Deprecation does not mean removed, and the existing OpenGL implementation in High Sierra remains in Mojave. The move at present does not appear to affect the core AutoDesk product.

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Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 12:44 · Score: 0

Can't they just use Vulkan? Fuck Metal, anyway. It's like DirectX but nobody worth a damn fucking uses it.
1. Re:Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 13:00 · Score: 2
  
  Can't they just use Vulkan?
  The most logical reason is that Apple doesn't want to put the development of a crucial part of their OS in someone else's hands. It's why they don't use gcc anymore. And why they developed their own web browser.
  
  Fuck Metal, anyway. It's like DirectX but nobody worth a damn fucking uses it.
  Nobody but the millions of Mac and iOS users.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
2. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 13:05 · Score: 0
  
  You mean Apple? Yes of course they could but they don't allow it. Developers can't develop for Vulkan on macOS because there is no support for it outside of the incomplete moltenVK that sits atop Metal as an attempt to provide the Vulkan SDK on Mac.
3. Re:Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 13:50 · Score: 1
  
  The most logical reason is that Apple doesn't want to put the development of a crucial part of their OS in someone else's hands.
  It's not a crucial part of Apple's OS, it's just a library. The most logical reason is that Tim Cook is a crack addict.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
4. Re:Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 13:52 · Score: 1
  
  millions of Mac and iOS users wah wah wah
  Reality: those millions of Mac and IOS users don't know or care what Metal or Vulkan are. Single button minds.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
5. Re:Vulkan? by LynnwoodRooster · 2018-07-29 13:54 · Score: 1
  
  Nobody but the millions of Mac and iOS users.
  It's just single-digit market share, so might as well just ignore them for now...
  
  --
  Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
6. Re: Vulkan? by guruevi · 2018-07-29 14:06 · Score: 2
  
  Ever tried to use Vulkan? Even Carmack is calling for an API on top of the Vulkan API. Not sure who is moving to direct Vulkan but most likely it'll end up being a buggy mess (manual memory management in large projects?) and the same reason OpenGL "lost" to DX in the early 2000s.
  
  --
  Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
7. Re:Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 14:21 · Score: 1
  
  It's not a crucial part of Apple's OS, it's just a library. The most logical reason is that Tim Cook is a crack addict.
  Maybe we have different definitions of crucial but I consider the graphics API a crucial part of the OS.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
8. Re:Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 14:22 · Score: 1
  
  So you're going to ignore millions of users because . . .
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
9. Re:Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 14:26 · Score: 2
  
  No they don't but the developers who write software for them care. Have you talked to any of them? My conversations with them lead me to the following conclusions. The good thing about OpenGL is that it's not going anywhere (stable). The bad thing about OpenGL is that it's not going anywhere (stagnant). The good thing about Metal is that it is what Vulkan should be in terms of ease of use and function. The bad thing about Metal is that it is only macOS/iOS. The good thing about Vulkan is that it is cross-platform. The bad thing is that it's very finicky to use.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
10. Re: Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:27 · Score: 0
  
  You donâ(TM)t have to know the mechanical details of how a car engine works to benefit from the performance improvements of a Porsche over a Ford, say. Same with this...users donâ(TM)t have to know about Metal, they can still get the benefits.
11. Re:Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 14:36 · Score: 1
  
  We have different definitions of "OS". What you call OS, I call platform. At least we don't disagree about Tim Cook's crack habit.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
12. Re: Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:37 · Score: 0
  
  Well he is gay... I mean happy...
13. Re:Vulkan? by exomondo · 2018-07-29 14:41 · Score: 1
  
  The bad thing about OpenGL is that it's not going anywhere (stagnant).
  Certainly in an Apple-centric world it might appear that way, the latest version of OpenGL that Apple supports is 4.1 which was released in 2010. Apple's support of OpenGL stagnated long before Metal came about, back then OpenGL didn't even have compute shaders and as a result you can't run OpenGL compute shaders on any Mac despite them being introduced 6 years ago.
14. Re:Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 14:55 · Score: 1
  
  I never agreed or disagreed about Tim Cook so don't use a strawman tactic. But to be clear you don't think the graphics API is important enough for Apple to develop on it's own?
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
15. Re:Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 14:58 · Score: 1
  
  The good thing about Vulkan is that it is cross-platform. The bad thing is that it's very finicky to use.
  That's far from the only good thing about Vulkan. It also succeeds dramatically at killing off CPU load and removing the CPU as a render bottleneck. It was designed to suit highly skilled 3D developers for building engines and libraries. Anybody not capable of coding a 3D engine themselves should program to the engine or library API. That's the way everybody wants it except Apple, who wants a dumbed down API that doesn't excel at anything and instantly shoves Apple to the back of the crossport list. If you can see the point of that then you have more imagination than me.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
16. Re: Vulkan? by exomondo · 2018-07-29 14:59 · Score: 2
  
  Not sure who is moving to direct Vulkan but most likely it'll end up being a buggy mess
  Unity, Unreal, IdTech6 are some pretty big names that have Vulkan support just fine. Unity even has it for its Android version.
  
  manual memory management in large projects?
  Yes, where do you get the idea that memory is just magically managed for you in OpenGL (or Metal)? You realize you still need to allocate and deallocate buffers in OpenGL and check whether the allocation does indeed succeed, the basics of memory management. In OpenGL the default behaviour for the driver is to shuffle memory in and out of vram and system ram in oversubscription cases, if you're fine with that performance loss and want OpenGL-like behaviour you can store your resources in host-local type buffers in Vulkan or MTLStorageModeShared in Metal but having control of this at the engine/middleware level (maybe not so much the application level) rather than leaving it purely to the driver is a good thing. Drivers are bloating out with application-specific optimizations simply because the developers know what they want but aren't afforded that level of control in OpenGL.
17. Re:Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 15:00 · Score: 1
  
  They were not talking about Apple's implementation of OpenGL. They were talking about OpenGL in general. What major changes have happened to OpenGL in years? From what I can tell, not a lot. They've made some optimizations in recent years but they haven't really advanced it. That's why Vulkan was developed. I think Khronos knew that they couldn't advance OpenGL without fundamental changes so that it would be OpenGL in name only.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
18. Re: Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 15:03 · Score: 1
  
  users donâ(TM)t have to know about Metal, they can still get the benefits.
  Huh? That is actually an argument for not using metal. Since users don't know about Metal they dion't give a flying fuck about it, and can get more benefit from Vulkan, which is lower level and more efficient, and which developers actually do care about.
  (Thanks for the car analogy. Not.)
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
19. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 15:05 · Score: 0
  
  Wow, you've really contributed something useful to the discussion, like always. If there was a Nobel prize for witless one-line insults, you might have actually achieved something with your life.
  Reality: you don't really know enough about anything to discuss it in detail, but you'd like people to think you do, so you only make shallow snarky remarks to preserve the delusion in your head that other people think you're smart.
20. Re:Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 15:09 · Score: 1
  
  That's the way everybody wants it except Apple, who wants a dumbed down API that doesn't excel at anything and instantly shoves Apple to the back of the crossport list. If you can see the point of that then you have more imagination than me.
  And your evidence for that is what? You seem to assert that you know exactly what Apple wants. Unless you work in the upper echelons of Apple, you're merely asserting what you think Apple wants based on your own bias.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
21. Re:Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 15:28 · Score: 1
  
  to be clear you don't think the graphics API is important enough for Apple to develop on it's[sic] own?
  Apple should develop its own implementation of Vulkan. But I don't really give a crap whether they do or not, it's your funeral.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
22. Re: Vulkan? by phantomfive · 2018-07-29 15:29 · Score: 1
  
  That makes sense, if you use a third party library, they might make some backwards incompatible changes, and then what are you going to do? All your users are up a creek. :/
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
23. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 15:37 · Score: 0
  
  So, a little bit of history... Vulkan is designed by the Khronos Group, the same people who gave us OpenGL. And the same people who put off actually modernizing OpenGL for literally decades. OpenGL 3 was *supposed* to be a massive rewrite of the spec, but the CAD manufacturers (read: Autodesk) flipped their shit about it. So Khronos canned it and instead just gave us half of DX10's featureset in GL3, plus a really stupid way for graphics manufacturers to eventually deprecate GL1 era garbage. Aside from complicating GL context acquisition on certain platforms, it also guaranteed that GL documentation remained atrocious, nobody knew where the 'fast paths' were, and certain assumptions about how GL worked could never be worked around.
  Yes, Vulkan *is* that most desperately needed modernization of OpenGL; but I imagine it's too-little-too-late for Apple, at this point. Apple wants to be able to kill their APIs when necessary, and Khronos wouldn't pull the trigger.
24. Re:Vulkan? by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-29 15:39 · Score: 1
  
  Can't they just use Vulkan?
  The most logical reason is that Apple doesn't want to put the development of a crucial part of their OS in someone else's hands. It's why they don't use gcc anymore. And why they developed their own web browser.
  
  Fuck Metal, anyway. It's like DirectX but nobody worth a damn fucking uses it.
  Nobody but the millions of Mac and iOS users.
  Hundreds of millions, actually. Close to 600 million if you combine macOS (which is over 100 million by itself) and iOS, which both use Metal.
25. Re: Vulkan? by reanjr · 2018-07-29 15:41 · Score: 1
  
  Because the OS vendor has made it more expensive to support their users.
26. Re:Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 15:51 · Score: 1
  
  As I alluded to before, Apple management seems to be smoking crap in the back room, how else could they keep coming up with such braindamaged ideas.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
27. Re: Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 15:59 · Score: 1
  
  So you have no evidence other than your silly and somewhat juvenile insults? In others words, you don't have a point.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
28. Re:Vulkan? by LynnwoodRooster · 2018-07-29 16:01 · Score: 1
  
  They are less than 10% of your potential user base, and now you need to create a completely new code base to support them. And there are thousands of Alias users, not millions - meaning that macOS probably has mid-to-high 3 figure number of users. No longer really compelling, when you think of that number of users...
  
  --
  Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
29. Re: Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 16:02 · Score: 1
  
  So Apple should be beholden to someone else for a crucial part of their OS according to you. That's a terrible idea.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
30. Re:Vulkan? by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-29 16:04 · Score: 1
  
  Nobody but the millions of Mac and iOS users.
  It's just single-digit market share, so might as well just ignore them for now...
  It's nearly 600 Million users across macOS and iOS.
  Sorry, that's enough.
31. Re: Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:05 · Score: 0
  
  > Even Carmack is calling for an API on top of the Vulkan API.
  Apple should adopt Vulkan and wrap it in their own metal-compatible API... or go back to QuickDraw 3D. ^_^
32. Re: Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 16:07 · Score: 2
  
  Which part of your fevered imagination makes you think that supporting standards amounts to being beholden?
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
33. Re: Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 16:08 · Score: 1
  
  Your point is?
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
34. Re: Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 16:10 · Score: 1
  
  If Apple develops it's own implementation of Vulkan, they have to rely on . . . Vulkan. They have to rely on the Khronos Group which controls the standard.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
35. Re: Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 16:11 · Score: 1
  
  That you don't have a point other to insult people.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
36. Re:Vulkan? by jonwil · 2018-07-29 16:16 · Score: 2
  
  The main reason Apple dropped GCC was because of the GPL3. Both the patent clauses and the anti-DRM clauses in it are bad for Apple (they need to be able to lock down the iOS devices and they need to be able to enforce their patents)
37. Re:Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 16:20 · Score: 1
  
  They are less than 10% of your potential user base, and now you need to create a completely new code base to support them. And there are thousands of Alias users, not millions - meaning that macOS probably has mid-to-high 3 figure number of users. No longer really compelling, when you think of that number of users...
  Apple has never had high number for decades now but you're saying that now you should abandon them because they don't have high number of users. . .
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
38. Re:Vulkan? by drinkypoo · 2018-07-29 16:32 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  When vendors develop their own 3D graphics implementations, the result is always horrible. For example, 3fdx created glide. It sucked, so only a few companies added support for it to their engines. iD didn't bother. Instead, 3dfx wound up having to support the parts of opengl used by iD, and they called it minigl. Sadly, this came too late... Because Microsoft had time in the interim to create direct3d. As we all know, d3d went through many revisions before it was worth one tenth of one shit. Up until 7, IIRC, you could not even plot a pixel on top of a d3d window without resorting to GDI. Now Apple wants to have their own 3d API and apple users are in for a world of hurt, as this announcement demonstrates. Instead of simply continuing to use opengl until vulkan meets their standards, they've created yet another incompatible standard. Opengl permits vendor customization via vendor extensions, like e.g. multitexture used to be (SGIS_MULTITEXTURE, anyone?) But there was no good reason for Apple to rush to a new standard while developers were still happily using the old one. They did it anyway, and now their customers have to suffer — as do developers. If they are developing a cross-platform application, they now have no choice but to support multiple APIs... Or they can keep using opengl, which is still available on Windows and Linux, and simply drop Macintosh... Like what's being discussed here. And except for a tiny minority of developers who have more than a diminutive handful of Apple users to worry about, that's going to make a whole lot more sense. It's hard enough to find opengl developers with more than a little experience, but it's literally impossible to find any with much experience with Metal since it's new.
  Microsoft was able to use its dominant market position and its game console to force adoption of d3d. Apple has no such advantage. Get ready to have even less available software, Apple users. You should be used to it by now...
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
39. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:33 · Score: 0
  
  Try half that, and ioS doesn't count, and that drops your user base to insignificant numbers (~21 million out of around 3 billion world wide 1%).
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
40. Re: Vulkan? by guruevi · 2018-07-29 16:39 · Score: 1
  
  The question is why.
  Apple made Metal because Vulkan wasn't being released and the work done on it became a big mess. Metal is a lot simpler to use and works directly on the hardware, there is no need for Vulkan if you have Metal. If Apple wants to conquer the world, they could release Metal implementations for Windows/Linux and quickly take over both DX and Vulkan, but Apple isn't in that game.
  
  --
  Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
41. Re: Vulkan? by drinkypoo · 2018-07-29 16:40 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You're complaining about insults so that you don't have to discuss the actual issue, which is that only a total moron would think that boning developers in this fashion for no good reason is a good idea. Microsoft was able to push direct3d on an audience which didn't want it first because of their dominant position in the market, and second (and later) because of their game console. Apple has neither of those things, so this is a true idiot move. You can now proceed to cry about Apple management being called idiots, or consider the strength of the argument, but either way, Apple is off its nut and you're engaging in a diversionary tactic to prevent yourself from having to realize it.
  The idea that Apple can push their own 3d API is a fever dream. What was good about OSX is that it was standards-based. Now Apple is moving away from that, and there is nothing good or intelligent about it. Rather, it is a delusional decision, and you are being equally delusional — and defensive.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
42. Re:Vulkan? by exomondo · 2018-07-29 17:00 · Score: 1
  
  I just pointed out a really significant one to you, OpenGL compute shaders, along with atomics and other buffer types. Vulkan was developed to allow for lower level access to GPU functionality so optimizations that were usually restricted to the driver could be done by application developers rather than the current state of large drivers containing a lot of application-specific optimization code.
  
  They've made some optimizations in recent years but they haven't really advanced it.
  Optimization is the whole reason for lower-level APIs like DX12, Vulkan and Metal, I don't know what you mean by "advanced it" but can you explain how Vulkan and/or Metal have done that other than optimization?
43. Re: Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:05 · Score: 0
  
  Vulcan is a dead standard. Nobody uses it.
44. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:06 · Score: 0
  
  Sorry ; not sorry. Autodesk does not seem to think so. macos is a rounding error in numbers.
45. Re: Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 17:18 · Score: 1
  
  Apple can and should participate in the group that develops the standard. To do otherwise would make Apple seem like a bunch of assholes. Oh wait, I'm starting to understand. You are from Apple right? You certainly are an asshole, so that would fit.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
46. Re: Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:22 · Score: 0
  
  Apple is a Promoter (highest level) member of the Khronos Group. You're really saying they should be worried about an industry consortium of which they are one of the highest ranking members controlling an open specification and doing so so much that they should create their own closed, proprietary version instead?
47. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:37 · Score: 1
  
  This is obviously their path, whether or not it is their intention.
  Standard old-school Apple, you know, when shooting yourself, aim for the head...
  Kinda like when they decided to actively discourage games for the original Mac.
48. Re: Vulkan? by DontBeAMoran · 2018-07-29 17:43 · Score: 1
  
  Well of course it's a dead standard. You can thank Nero for that. Fucking Romulan.
  
  --
  #DeleteFacebook
49. Re: Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:52 · Score: 0
  
  Khronos has been fine so far, a great deal of software relies on OpenGL for truly cross-platform graphics.
  Fuck metal - stupid ugly piece of shit, just like Tim Cock.
50. Re: Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:53 · Score: 0
  
  You are an idiot, faggot.
51. Re: Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:57 · Score: 0
  
  Agreed. MacBook Amateur are a piece of shit anyway now.
52. Re: Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 18:00 · Score: 2
  
  Vulcan is a dead standard. Nobody uses it.
  Bullshit. Vulkan is now available on over 40% of Android devices, which by itself makes it the second most widely distributed graphics API in the universe, second only to OpenGL ES, available on 100% of Android devices. Vulkan is supported by numerous PC titles. Most AAA game engines support Vulkan, the others have it on the way. Unity Engine supports Vulkan on Android, Linux and Windows. Likewise Unreal. ID tech 6 was the AAA engine to support Vulkan and is widely licensed. Steam's Source2 engine supports Vulkan. Nintendo Switch supports Vulkan (and OpenGL 4.5). Looks like not dead.
  Here is an Android Vulkan demo of Unreal Engine from two years ago. That is 100% real time on a Galaxy S7. You can see why it got traction.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
53. Re: Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 18:01 · Score: 0
  
  Compute shaders are fucking stupid. Use regular shaders for compute tasks, don't be a fucking pussy.
54. Re: Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 18:03 · Score: 0
  
  Look in the mirror.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
55. Re: Vulkan? by kurkosdr · 2018-07-29 18:13 · Score: 1
  
  They can, but there is a monetary cost involved because programmers don't work for AutoDesk for free. Generally, there is a cost with every API migration, it's time for FOSS projects and money for proprietary software. It's the reason VLC didn't work right on PulseAudio Linux distros for quite a while. So AutoDesk decided the cost isn't worth it for the amount of Mac OS X customers they have. Most people who really need AutoDesk software don't spend the majority of their time lubricating their guts with lattes and flat whites at Starbucks, so they have no reason to own a Mac anyway.
56. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 18:28 · Score: 0
  
  This is a big message for customers saying that MACs are not meant to be used for industrial design, or are not good enough to be used in the visual design industry, since most design software uses 3D acceleration.
  OpenGL is not perfect but is the industry standard but is like the English language for computer graphics.
  Despite being poisoned several times and some companies tried to hijacking it, it has survived without compromising compatibility, openGL 1 code can run still today in every OpenGL compliant system.
57. Re: Vulkan? by BronsCon · 2018-07-29 18:28 · Score: 1
  
  only a total moron would think that boning developers in this fashion for no good reason is a good idea
  I wouldn't put it past ol' Timmy.
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
58. Re:Vulkan? by BronsCon · 2018-07-29 18:32 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, because all of your logic and graphics stack could easily port previously; it was relatively cheap to support those users. Now, supporting Mac users requires maintaining an additional graphics stack and the supporting logic for that. Much more expensive.
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
59. Re: Vulkan? by BronsCon · 2018-07-29 18:35 · Score: 1
  
  but Apple isn't in that game
  To the detriment and ultimate demise of Metal, along with their viability as a CAD, graphics, and video editing workstation vendor.
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
60. Re: Vulkan? by Pseudonym · 2018-07-29 19:40 · Score: 1
  
  Relying on The Open Group didn't seem to be a problem. Unlike Linux, OSX actually is Unix.
  
  --
  sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
61. Re: Vulkan? by Bert64 · 2018-07-29 19:40 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It doesn't matter wether it's better...
  Apple are a niche vendor, the more they can do to ease porting of applications to their platform the better... If developers have to port all their code to a completely new graphics api then the effort requires increases significantly. This is going to directly result in less software being ported to apple platforms.
  
  --
  http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
62. Re:Vulkan? by mccalli · 2018-07-29 21:08 · Score: 1
  
  True, but I'll give 3DFX a break here because they were first. They essentially created a market, it wasn't clear at the time that interoperability for consumer PCs was going to be necessary.
63. Re: Vulkan? by sosume · 2018-07-29 22:58 · Score: 1
  
  "Vulkan is now available on over 40% of Android devices, which by itself makes it the second most widely distributed graphics API in the universe"
  Available != widely distributed and supports != runs. The fact that there are bindings to support the engine does not mean that Vulkan is actually used on PC (DirectX). If I look at the list with "numerous PC titles" I see a grand total of 37 games - many of which are based on the same base game (such as Doom/Wolfenstein/Quake and the Serious Sam series), and a lot of very old games (Doom or Quake anyone?). Only 7 games on that list were released during the last 12 months.
  This month alone, more games were released than in total on this list, so practically - yes, Vulkan is a dead end.
64. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 23:31 · Score: 0
  
  You are a liar! If you actually had conversations with devs, you'd point something specific (specific features comparison, per version, with example for graphics/game engines, etc), but instead in this topic you always pointed something in general (stable, stagnant, etc).
65. Re:Vulkan? by Tom · 2018-07-29 23:33 · Score: 1
  
  It's not like OpenGL is much of a standard. A large number of apps and games on Windows don't use OpenGL anyway, so if you want cross-platform, you used to do DirectX + OpenGL and now you'll do DirectX + Metal ( + OpenGL if you care about Linux).
  
  --
  Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
66. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 23:40 · Score: 0
  
  They've made some optimizations in recent years but they haven't really advanced it.
  Optimization is the whole reason for lower-level APIs like DX12, Vulkan and Metal, I don't know what you mean by "advanced it" but can you explain how Vulkan and/or Metal have done that other than optimization?
  He obviously can't, he is just apple fanboy, who pretends to have knowledge about 3D graphics (API). If you read his comments on this topic, he talked about something in general, shallow.
  Don't waste your time.
67. Re: Vulkan? by AmiMoJo · 2018-07-29 23:43 · Score: 1
  
  What about iOS? That is a games platform that is pretty popular now.
  Don't get me wrong, I still think they will fail miserably, but from the perspective of making MacOS more like iOS and locking in developers it kinda makes sense. They probably dislike the idea that you can write OpenGL games/apps and have them run on both iOS and Android and Windows and console.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
68. Re:Vulkan? by Tokerat · 2018-07-30 00:09 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah you're absolutely right - Apple is a large company, and this whole "no one owns a Macintosh" meme is about as obviously outdated as my wide-leg JNCO jeans. It won't happen overnight (codebases need to shift, developers need training/experience etc) but in the end I'd chalk this up to a net-loss for desktop Linux.
  
  --
  CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
69. Re: Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 00:26 · Score: 0
  
  > It's the reason VLC didn't work right on PulseAudio Linux distros for quite a while.
  Not sure if what issues you are thinking of, but most of that was not due to API changes (those sure also were some effort) but due to piss-poor quality of PulseAudio and Ubuntu deciding to essentially ship a pre-Alpha product.
  As a particularly grating example the PulseAudio developer broke the "pause stream" feature in such a way it caused a complete application hang 3 times in a row, over a period of over on year!
  Things like these were why many developers didn't even bother to take bugreports involving PulseAudio but instead told people to either uninstall PulseAudio or have the PulseAudio developers debug it themselves.
  I Apple plans to "outsource" debug of Metal that way it will fail really hard (but I think they do have a BIT higher software quality standards).
70. Re:Vulkan? by Austerity+Empowers · 2018-07-30 00:26 · Score: 1
  
  OpenGL has been dead for the sorts of uses that most people commenting in this thread care about. It's still pretty much complete and robust as a basic graphics library for applications that just need 3D visualization. As a game 3D API, it's pretty much obsolete.
  Vulkan's main benefit is obviously that it's a cross platform industry standard. However it's not very capable yet, and no one involved has the motivation to make it a priority. The major players are all pushing proprietary features, and so many game developers are on Unity or Unreal, who have the resources to support all the things, that it has become (temporarily) irrelevant.
  Metal supports everything Apple wants for their agenda, and gives them control of their own destiny. It supports the features they feel are essential to the market, and they are in a position to evolve it quickly. However, to me, the bonehead choice was wrapping it up in Swift. If it were just a C API, all the noise would fade away, as you could once again create cross platform apps with relatively less headache. Unfortunately C is too hard for the sorts of people doing computer programming these days, so they had to make a new language...
  The major takeaway should be that quite a lot of people see opportunity and activity in the 3D graphics world, and that has fragmented the programming APIs. There is a lot going on that hasn't seen much light, but is driving a lot of this flux.
71. Re: Vulkan? by pezezin · 2018-07-30 01:53 · Score: 1
  
  Is Carmack still developing 3D engines? I think the last one he worked for was idTech 5. Don't get me wrong, he is a legend and a well deserved one, but nowadays there are many 3D programmers as good as him who don't have any problem using Vulkan.
72. Re:Vulkan? by drinkypoo · 2018-07-30 01:55 · Score: 1
  
  "It's not like OpenGL is much of a standard"
  Yeah, I know, it's only available PRACTICALLY EVERYWHERE. Except, now, on Apple.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
73. Re:Vulkan? by gnasher719 · 2018-07-30 01:57 · Score: 1
  
  It's why they don't use gcc anymore.
  The reason why they are not using gcc is that gcc's license explicitly forbids Apple to do things they want to to. Mostly "just in time" compilation of shader software or OpenCL, or using it to compile JavaScript.
74. Re:Vulkan? by gnasher719 · 2018-07-30 02:06 · Score: 1
  
  It's just single-digit market share, so might as well just ignore them for now...
  Single digit market share of users who are willing to pay actual money for things. If A has a $100 Android phone, and B has a $1000 iPhone X, who is going to spend money on your software?
  
  If I remember correctly, Apple has 90% market share of laptops over $1000, and a huge share of all phones over $500.
75. Re:Vulkan? by drinkypoo · 2018-07-30 02:11 · Score: 1
  
  There were several 3d accelerators for PCs before 3dfx came along, like oxygen and permedia. They all supported opengl. Every single Unix system with 3d acceleration also supported opengl. Yet 3dfx decided they could own the graphics market forever and ever by creating a proprietary API. It was senseless hubris, and it was an attempt to create lock-in, and they deserve no such charitableness.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
76. Re:Vulkan? by Targon · 2018-07-30 02:27 · Score: 1
  
  Before 3Dfx, 3D acceleration was so new, there was no standard. Glide was actually better than anything else out there at the time. Standards only show up once there is more than a single player. OpenGL and DirectX showed up because there was a need for standardization.
  Apple basically decided, "We know there are standards out there, but we want to force some proprietary graphics API on an industry so we can control it", and you are seeing that not every company out there is going to automatically cave in to what Apple demands. You require a massive overhaul so you can't reuse code between platforms, you risk driving developers away.
77. Re:Vulkan? by mccalli · 2018-07-30 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed (and I'm not really arguing with you either - I think you're right). The break I'll give them is for consumer gaming - previous cards were pro cards, the Voodoo was the first that I can recall at least that was aimed directly at gaming.
78. Re: Vulkan? by drinkypoo · 2018-07-30 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  What about iOS? That is a games platform that is pretty popular now.
  It's far in the minority, though. If Apple were to bring out a game console or something to add numbers of device it might make some sense, but they've already failed to launch that idea a couple of times. That was probably because there were so few games on Apple platforms at the time, though, and it's conceivable that they could make it happen now if they tried again. They're sitting on mountains of cash, so they could certainly pull a Microsoft and run such a division at a loss for some time to build inertia.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
79. Re:Vulkan? by LynnwoodRooster · 2018-07-30 03:09 · Score: 1
  
  So then, based upon your "claim" and the data I posted, that would make the Windows/Android world around 6 billion. Again, tell me why you would focus on a single-digit segment of the market?
  
  --
  Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
80. Re:Vulkan? by drinkypoo · 2018-07-30 03:10 · Score: 1
  
  Before 3Dfx, 3D acceleration was so new, there was no standard. Glide was actually better than anything else out there at the time.
  Wrong. There were at least two companies making OpenGL-compatible 3d accelerator cards for PCs before 3dfx was even founded... one of them, for some years.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
81. Re:Vulkan? by LynnwoodRooster · 2018-07-30 03:11 · Score: 1
  
  And yet it's a small enough segment that Autodesk just decided the costs to support dual graphics stacks outweighs the number of users. Companies are slowly dropping Apple support because in the end - there isn't enough profit in it for them. Who cares how much profit Apple makes; in this case, Autodesk ran the numbers and decided it's a better financial decision to just drop the few hundred macOS users rather than keep extra engineers around to support dual graphics stacks.
  
  --
  Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
82. Re:Vulkan? by LynnwoodRooster · 2018-07-30 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  If the cost of continuing to support those users (because, for example, you need to rewrite an entirely new graphics subsystem) is higher than the revenue from those users - then you drop them. Simple math. If I can support a small segment of the market with essentially a recompile or less, then sure - if I have to dedicate resources to internal rewrites, config management, QA, integration, deployment, etc. and those costs are higher than the profit potential - then no. They're gone.
  
  --
  Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
83. Re:Vulkan? by DigiShaman · 2018-07-30 03:42 · Score: 1
  
  There's a lot of game developers for Metal if they're coding for iOS. If anything, this makes it easier to code for OSX too, no?
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
84. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 03:51 · Score: 0
  
  Wrong. There were at least two companies making OpenGL-compatible 3d accelerator cards for PCs before 3dfx was even founded... one of them, for some years.
  Who? They may have made products for workstations, but not for PCs. 3dfx was founded in 1994 and shipped their Voodoo card in 1996.
  John Carmack made this comment in his plan file, 12/23/96:
  "I am hoping that the vendors shipping second generation cards in the coming year can be convinced to support OpenGL. If this doesn't happen early on and there are capable cards that glquake does not run on, then I apologize, but I am taking a little stand in my little corner of the world with the hope of having some small influence on things that are going to effect us for many years to come.
  "Because I am expecting the 3D accelerator market to be fairly fragmented for the forseeable future, I need an API to write to, with individual drivers for each brand of hardware. OpenGL has been maturing in the workstation market for many years now, allways with a hardware focus. We have exisiting proof that it scales just great from a $300 permedia card all the way to a $250,000 loaded infinite reality system.
  "All of the game oriented PC 3D hardware basically came into existance in the last year. Because of the frantic nature of the PC world, we may be getting stuck with a first guess API and driver model which isn't all that good."
85. Re:Vulkan? by drinkypoo · 2018-07-30 04:16 · Score: 1
  
  Who? They may have made products for workstations, but not for PCs.
  The biggest one was Oxygen, which had several such cards under its belt at the time.
  
  "All of the game oriented PC 3D hardware basically came into existance in the last year.
  We call that moving the goalposts. I didn't say it was game oriented. I said it existed and used opengl.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
86. Re:Vulkan? by drinkypoo · 2018-07-30 04:18 · Score: 1
  
  There's a lot of game developers for Metal if they're coding for iOS. If anything, this makes it easier to code for OSX too, no?
  So what, you get some ports of mobile games? Whoopee. However, OpenGL is about a lot more than just gaming. It was being used for professional applications for years before there were more than a couple of games using it. The message Apple is sending here is that they are not interested in professional applications, and the market is already responding.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
87. Re:Vulkan? by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-30 04:27 · Score: 1
  
  So then, based upon your "claim" and the data I posted, that would make the Windows/Android world around 6 billion. Again, tell me why you would focus on a single-digit segment of the market?
  So NOW you want to conflate Windows (who pushes DirectX) and ANDROID (which is just a Clusterfuck, to the point where even its Mommy (Google) wants to do a retroactive Abortion on it). By and large, Windows Devs. that are performance-conscious don't use Vulkan; so it really IS only down to Android and Linux (and we all know what kind of miniscule marketshare Linux has...) that are keeping Vulkan alive.
  Sorry, not impressed.
  Oh, and it is MY "Claim", it is Credit Suisse's. And that is 588 Million unique Apple USERS, spread over MORE THAN A BILLION Apple Devices:
  https://www.businessinsider.co...
  Besides, it seems like MoltenVK is a pretty viable alternative to having to (re)code against multiple graphics APIs:
  https://arstechnica.com/gadget...
  But Metal (not even considering Metal 2) is over twice as efficient as Vulkan; so why would Apple Devs. want to give up all that extra performance, just to use a VASTLY inferior API?
  https://www.reddit.com/r/Andro...
88. Re: Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 04:34 · Score: 0
  
  First accelerator card yes. There were other consumer cards that did both 2d and a bit of 3D acceleration that were consumer oriented. Like the Matrox Mystique which actually came with a game or two bundles together. Nowhere as good as the voodoo but Iâ(TM)d let it count.
89. Re: Vulkan? by Zuriel · 2018-07-30 04:43 · Score: 1
  
  There's also DXVK, implementing DirectX 11 in Vulkan to run DX11 games on Linux. So even non-Vulkan games are using Vulkan.
90. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 04:53 · Score: 0
  
  > The biggest one was Oxygen, which had several such cards under its belt at the time.
  You must be misremembering, because the first Oxygen cards (from Dynamic Pictures) shipped in 1997. Voodoo shipped at the end of 1996.
  Also, the first Permedia card (natively supporting OpenGL) didn't ship until 1998.
  > We call that moving the goalposts. I didn't say it was game oriented. I said it existed and used opengl.
  Like I said, the previous 3D hardware was workstation-oriented and hugely expensive. 3D didn't really arrive on the PC until Voodoo and Quake, and Carmack's comments make it clear that OpenGL, while it was an existing standard, was not the standard on PC graphics cards at the time of Voodoo, not even close.
91. Re:Vulkan? by DigiShaman · 2018-07-30 05:14 · Score: 1
  
  Apple is designing their own CPU as a replacement for Intel/AMD for the OSX platform. I'd go so far as to say at some point OSX is a dead-end only to be superseded by a fork in iOS for desktop. My point is that it's trivial to find a head-hunter to nab an iOS game dev to code Metal for AutoDesk or some other professional product. Again, big enterprise software vendors will not suffer a financial dent paying a higher salary dev that can code Metal. The numbers are there to make the effort a net gain in profit.
  Bitch and moan all you want about standards, but if the market can support 1000+ API standards, well, a 1000+ API standard we will have. How long they last is another argument entirely.
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
92. Re: Vulkan? by Anubis350 · 2018-07-30 05:27 · Score: 1
  
  Bullshit. Vulkan is now available on over 40% of Android devices, which by itself makes it the second most widely distributed graphics API in the universe
  I don't know about *that*, maybe there's a massive galactic federation of aliens out there that have a single graphics standard :p
  
  --
  "goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
93. Re:Vulkan? by LynnwoodRooster · 2018-07-30 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  So NOW you want to conflate Windows (who pushes DirectX) and ANDROID
  
  No, I was pointing out the FACT that macOS is a bit player, with less than 9% market share. And now that it is no longer supporting a cross-platform graphics interface, software companies are logically dropping support from it. YOU got all offended by that. Take your indignation up with Autodesk - not me. They're the ones clearly deciding that the macOS install base is simply too small and inconsequential to support.
  
  --
  Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
94. Re: Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-30 06:14 · Score: 1
  
  Look in the mirror.
  All Apple cultists should do that. Oh wait, it's a iMirror, that shows you only what you want to see!
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
95. Re: Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-30 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  "Vulkan is now available on over 40% of Android devices, which by itself makes it the second most widely distributed graphics API in the universe"
  Available != widely distributed and supports != runs.
  In all the cases I listed it does make that. Vulkan is here to stay whether a random slashdot weenie buries their head in the sand or not.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
96. Re: Vulkan? by Tough+Love · 2018-07-30 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  Bullshit. Vulkan is now available on over 40% of Android devices, which by itself makes it the second most widely distributed graphics API in the universe
  I don't know about *that*
  You do know about that. Vulkan ships on Nougat and later, which is over 40% of active Android devices. So, more than all the Windows PCs in the world. Only OpenGL ES is more widely available than that, available on 100% of Android devices.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
97. Re:Vulkan? by Orrin+Bloquy · 2018-07-30 09:14 · Score: 1
  
  The good thing is it comes with a free frogurt.
  
  --
  "Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on /. and I must look smart."
98. Re:Vulkan? by exomondo · 2018-07-30 11:35 · Score: 1
  
  Vulkan's main benefit is obviously that it's a cross platform industry standard. However it's not very capable yet
  Can you be more specific about that?
99. Re:Vulkan? by exomondo · 2018-07-30 11:41 · Score: 1
  
  It's not like OpenGL is much of a standard.
  How do you figure?
  
  A large number of apps and games on Windows don't use OpenGL anyway
  And a large number of the do, the point is that because OpenGL is a standard even the ones that don't use it can use it.
100. Re:Vulkan? by drinkypoo · 2018-07-30 11:54 · Score: 1
  
  "My point is that it's trivial to find a head-hunter to nab an iOS game dev to code Metal for AutoDesk or some other professional product."
  Yeah, and surely that guy will fit right into the corporate culture at Autodesk! Tell me, how many users of that software are actually on Mac now? And follow-up, how many of them will refuse to switch to Windows? I'm guessing not very many, and virtually none, respectively. Clearly they've come to the same conclusion, since they're dropping the platform instead of hiring some phone game developer.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
101. Re:Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-30 21:24 · Score: 1
  
  Can't they just use Vulkan?
  
  Hell, can't they use OpenGL? It's still in Mojave, unchanged from High Sierra. It's almost as if they need to find an excuse why people chose to use better products on Mac.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
102. Re:Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-30 21:45 · Score: 1
  
  to be clear you don't think the graphics API is important enough for Apple to develop on it's[sic] own?
  Apple should develop its own implementation of Vulkan. But I don't really give a crap whether they do or not, it's your funeral.
  They may do that - but they were shipping Metal before Vulkan was even announced. Stop repeating that "Apple should have used the standard from 5 years in the future" spiel.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
103. Re:Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-30 22:00 · Score: 1
  
  millions of Mac and iOS users wah wah wah
  Reality: those millions of Mac and IOS users don't know or care what Metal or Vulkan are. Single button minds.
  Now there's a convincing argument why Apple should use Vulkan. Are you on crack.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
104. Re: Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-30 22:11 · Score: 1
  
  users donâ(TM)t have to know about Metal, they can still get the benefits.
  Huh? That is actually an argument for not using metal. Since users don't know about Metal they dion't give a flying fuck about it, and can get more benefit from Vulkan, which is lower level and more efficient, and which developers actually do care about.
  (Thanks for the car analogy. Not.)
  Vulkan is years behind Metal in development - how exactly would somebody benefit from Vulkan, which is neither of what you crack smoker claim.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
105. Re:Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-30 22:13 · Score: 1
  
  They are less than 10% of your potential user base,
  
  They are more than 50% of people who are willing to pay for things.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
106. Re:Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-30 22:17 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry ; not sorry. Autodesk does not seem to think so. macos is a rounding error in numbers.
  Fact is that Autodesk is a rounding error in the huge Mac software market.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
107. Re: Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-30 22:26 · Score: 1
  
  The question is why.
  Apple made Metal because Vulkan wasn't being released
  
  Actually they made Metal because Vulkan wasn't even announced before they were finished.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
108. Re:Vulkan? by delt0r · 2018-07-31 00:42 · Score: 1
  
  Yea cus candy crush experience is right up there with state of the art CAD software.
  
  Oh wait. No its not.
  
  Apple, overpriced laptops for shitty mobiles games. Yet some dumb arse is still bound to buy it.
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
109. Re:Vulkan? by delt0r · 2018-07-31 00:44 · Score: 1
  
  The bad thing about OpenGL is that it's not going anywhere (stagnant).
  What the fuck are you talking about. Spot the gamer who knows NOTHING about the APIs.
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
110. Re:Vulkan? by delt0r · 2018-07-31 00:48 · Score: 1
  
  OpenGL has been dead for the sorts of uses that most people commenting in this thread care about. It's still pretty much complete and robust as a basic graphics library for applications that just need 3D visualization. As a game 3D API, it's pretty much obsolete.
  Again what the fuck are you talking about. Another gamer thinks they know whats going on. OpenGL is far from dead or obsolete.
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
111. Re: Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-31 01:16 · Score: 1
  
  In all the cases I listed it does make that. Vulkan is here to stay whether a random slashdot weenie buries their head in the sand or not.
  So is Metal, Mr. ass sticking out if the sand.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
112. Re:Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-31 01:26 · Score: 1
  
  "It's not like OpenGL is much of a standard"
  Yeah, I know, it's only available PRACTICALLY EVERYWHERE. Except, now, on Apple.
  Except, now, it's actually still on Apple. Are you as stupid or as deceitful as Autodesk?
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
113. Re:Vulkan? by drinkypoo · 2018-07-31 01:59 · Score: 1
  
  Except, now, it's actually still on Apple. Are you as stupid or as deceitful as Autodesk?
  It's there, but it's not going to be maintained. Using an unmaintained API is an idiot's game. Are you an idiot? Autodesk is not idiotic. They made the correct decision. They cannot have many Mac users anyway, and expending more effort to support them would be insensible.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
114. Re:Vulkan? by DigiShaman · 2018-07-31 02:22 · Score: 1
  
  https://www.macgamerhq.com/gui...
  Scroll down the list.
  Now, you were saying?!
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
115. Re: Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-31 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  Look in the mirror.
  All Apple cultists should do that. Oh wait, it's a iMirror, that shows you only what you want to see!
  So you are the only one here who has one.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
116. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-31 10:39 · Score: 0
  
  to be clear you don't think the graphics API is important enough for Apple to develop on it's[sic] own?
  Apple should develop its own implementation of Vulkan. But I don't really give a crap whether they do or not, it's your funeral.
  They may do that - but they were shipping Metal before Vulkan was even announced. Stop repeating that "Apple should have used the standard from 5 years in the future" spiel.
  As a promoter member of Khronos they should have contributed Metal as an open standard, instead AMD (also a promoter member) ended up doing that with Mantle.
117. Re:Vulkan? by exomondo · 2018-07-31 10:42 · Score: 1
  
  "It's not like OpenGL is much of a standard"
  Yeah, I know, it's only available PRACTICALLY EVERYWHERE. Except, now, on Apple.
  Except, now, it's actually still on Apple. Are you as stupid or as deceitful as Autodesk?
  That's a bit disingenuous, the latest version available on Apple is version 4.1 from 8 years ago. So if you want to use any modern features of OpenGL (compute shaders, atomics, SSBOs, etc) you can't do that on Apple's platform, though the hardware does actually support it so if you install Windows or Linux on your Mac you can use the later versions or even Vulkan.
118. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-31 10:46 · Score: 0
  
  Sorry ; not sorry. Autodesk does not seem to think so. macos is a rounding error in numbers.
  Fact is that Autodesk is a rounding error in the huge Mac software market.
  What company isn't a rounding error in any major software market?
119. Re:Vulkan? by exomondo · 2018-07-31 10:57 · Score: 1
  
  But Metal (not even considering Metal 2) is over twice as efficient as Vulkan; so why would Apple Devs. want to give up all that extra performance, just to use a VASTLY inferior API?
  https://www.reddit.com/r/Andro...
  I can't find any benchmarks to back up that claim at all, well not even any benchmarks, just any information at all that backs up that claim. Also in that post there seems to be a comparison of some broad term of "efficiency" to something with a more specific term "draw call" (draw calls being just one bit of what you do with a graphics API).
  Whatever it is that those terms are actually referring to when you look at what it translates to in terms of performance in the real world it's not that much: Metal vs OpenGL.
  Suggesting it's a vastly inferior API based on comparison of two different things with no numbers, evidence, benchmarks or justification at all is a bit of a stretch.
120. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-31 12:36 · Score: 0
  
  What company isn't a rounding error in any major software market?
  Um, Microsoft? Adobe? Oracle?
121. Re:Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-31 21:23 · Score: 1
  
  "It's not like OpenGL is much of a standard"
  Yeah, I know, it's only available PRACTICALLY EVERYWHERE. Except, now, on Apple.
  Except, now, it's actually still on Apple. Are you as stupid or as deceitful as Autodesk?
  That's a bit disingenuous, the latest version available on Apple is version 4.1 from 8 years ago.
  
  So you admit that nothing has changed as far as OpenGL is concerned between High Sierra and Mojave and thusly that both you and Autodesk are acting deceitful in you claims.
  
  So if you want to use any modern features of OpenGL (compute shaders, atomics, SSBOs, etc) you can't do that on Apple's platform, though the hardware does actually support it so if you install Windows or Linux on your Mac you can use the later versions or even Vulkan.
  And when you use Vulkan, you can use MoltenVK - The End.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
122. Re:Vulkan? by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-31 21:26 · Score: 1
  
  Except, now, it's actually still on Apple. Are you as stupid or as deceitful as Autodesk?
  It's there, but it's not going to be maintained. Using an unmaintained API is an idiot's game.
  
  It hasn't been updated for several OS versions now. So according to you everybody who has been using it until now is already an idiot, everybody who drops it now as if it weren't there any more is an idiot and of course you are an idiot for pretending otherwise.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
123. Re:Vulkan? by Tom · 2018-08-01 02:31 · Score: 1
  
  How do you figure?
  "Sorry, we are using DirectX" is the #1 answer that developers give on why they won't port their game to macOS or Linux.
  Yes, OpenGL is a standard. It just isn't like everyone uses only OpenGL. Sadly. I'd be in favor of having DirectX die, just the reality is otherwise.
  
  --
  Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
124. Re:Vulkan? by samwichse · 2018-08-01 07:31 · Score: 1
  
  Or, to bring this thread full circle, they could just do Vulkan and support all three OSes...
125. Re:Vulkan? by exomondo · 2018-08-01 11:46 · Score: 1
  
  "Sorry, we are using DirectX" is the #1 answer that developers give on why they won't port their game to macOS or Linux.
  Specifically who gives that answer? Porting between platforms by maintaining (among other things) multiple renderers is par for the course in game development, how do you think games get ported between consoles?
126. Re:Vulkan? by exomondo · 2018-08-01 12:01 · Score: 1
  
  So you admit that nothing has changed as far as OpenGL is concerned between High Sierra and Mojave and thusly that both you and Autodesk are acting deceitful in you claims.
  Don't be such a drama queen, they aren't supporting it going forward, probably because updates will utilise modern features of OpenGL that Apple's platforms simply don't have. Moreover in Mojave OpenGL is deprecated, meaning now it could be removed at any time.
  What exactly are you getting so bent out of shape for? This 'deceit' is some grand conspiracy for what exactly? Maybe the software will continue to work, maybe it won't but it's nonsense for a vendor to advertise support for a platform where they depend on a deprecated feature.
  
  So if you want to use any modern features of OpenGL (compute shaders, atomics, SSBOs, etc) you can't do that on Apple's platform, though the hardware does actually support it so if you install Windows or Linux on your Mac you can use the later versions or even Vulkan.
  And when you use Vulkan, you can use MoltenVK - The End.
  Yes if they were to rewrite the renderer in Vulkan it could certainly support macOS via MoltenVK, but what we're talking about here is an OpenGL application, not a Vulkan one.
127. Re:Vulkan? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-08-01 12:25 · Score: 0
  
  It hasn't been updated for several OS versions now. So according to you everybody who has been using it until now is already an idiot, everybody who drops it now as if it weren't there any more is an idiot and of course you are an idiot for pretending otherwise.
  They haven't updated the version for many years now, but their OpenGL implementation is now deprecated which means no more updates. If you look back through the macOS changelogs for version updates you very often find fixes to their OpenGL implementation despite them not updating the version but going forward that will not longer happen, found a bug? Sorry, you using a deprecated API, too bad.
128. Re: Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-08-07 23:48 · Score: 1
  
  I failed to read that Apple said OpenGL would never work again. They said they were no longer supporting it. Just like you can still run X11 today.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
129. Re:Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-08-08 00:09 · Score: 1
  
  If the cost of continuing to support those users (because, for example, you need to rewrite an entirely new graphics subsystem) is higher than the revenue from those users - then you drop them. Simple math. If I can support a small segment of the market with essentially a recompile or less, then sure - if I have to dedicate resources to internal rewrites, config management, QA, integration, deployment, etc. and those costs are higher than the profit potential - then no. They're gone.
  Er what? Apple has never said that OpenGL will never work in the future. They said they are not continuing to support it. That doesn't mean someone will have to write OpenGL from scratch. It means that no new features of OpenGL will work and it will be stuck on the existing version. For example, X11 is no longer supported by Apple. You can still install it and it works but it is frozen on an older version of X11.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
130. Re: Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-08-08 00:27 · Score: 1
  
  Apple can and should participate in the group that develops the standard. To do otherwise would make Apple seem like a bunch of assholes. Oh wait, I'm starting to understand. You are from Apple right? You certainly are an asshole, so that would fit.
  Why does Apple have to participate in a group in a standard they don't have interest in? That's like saying Apple should and can participate in a Microsoft Windows standards group.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
131. Re: Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-08-08 00:31 · Score: 1
  
  No. I'm saying that the history of Vulkan and Metal shows clearly why Apple went their own way. Apple released Metal as a beta in June 2014 and officially released Oct 2014. That means they were working on it maybe years before that. Khronos didn't even start planning for the API known as Vulkan until July 2014. My reading of that is that as a group member, Apple knew Vulkan would be released years later than they wanted a new API and couldn't wait. So they went their own way. This is the problem with decisions by group; sometimes it takes forever to get anything done. If Apple were to go to Vulkan, they'd have to wait for changes by the group which might take years and they may not get priority for their changes as their user base is smaller.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
132. Re: Vulkan? by UnknowingFool · 2018-08-08 00:34 · Score: 1
  
  The Open Group only certifies Unix standards; it does not control Unix so Apple, IBM, HP, etc can develop Unix as they see fit as long as it meets the standards. In the case of Apple they meet the 03 Standards but not the newer ones but I don't know of any that do.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
133. Re: Vulkan? by BronsCon · 2018-08-08 01:52 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, you can still run X11 today... Apple no longer supplies it, it's now a 3rd-party download. OpenGL isn't quite the same thing; it lives at the driver level, while X11 lives in userland. If Apple does to OpenGL what they did to X11, we can't get it back.
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 12:45 · Score: 1

The industry is moving to Vulkan, with the heavy hitter gaming and 3D engines going that way. Apple simply doesn't have the market share to push Metal other than as afterthoughts. Industry moves ot Vulkan because it runs everywhere.... except Apple.
If Apple wants a gaming scene on Macs going forward it's got to (1) preserve OpenGL support which still has the majority of games and (2) offer native Vulkan, which has got the industry momentum.
1. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 12:53 · Score: 0
  
  Apple is not for professionals anyway. Almost nobody will notice this.
2. Re:Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 13:02 · Score: 1
  
  Apple simply doesn't have the market share to push Metal other than as afterthoughts. Industry moves ot Vulkan because it runs everywhere.... except Apple.
  Except that's not exactly what Apple is doing. Apple has never said that everyone else should use Metal. What they've said is they are going to use Metal.
  
  If Apple wants a gaming scene on Macs going forward it's got to (1) preserve OpenGL support which still has the majority of games and (2) offer native Vulkan, which has got the industry momentum.
  And how long has Apple been pushing Macs to be a gaming machine. Almost never. With iOS, if you're not developing on Metal, you're not going to be doing much graphics.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
3. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by phantomfive · 2018-07-29 13:17 · Score: 1
  
  Basically Apple has shown over and over that they only care about 30 percent of the market, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. Here they are doing it again. I'm glad I'm not locked into that crap platform, that doesn't even have an escape key (if only there were another company that made such durable laptop frames).
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
4. Re:Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 13:18 · Score: 0
  
  With iOS, if you're not developing on Metal, you're not going to be doing much graphics.
  Wrong, you don't have to develop on Metal because you can run your Vulkan code on iOS using MoltenVK. Sure using an abstraction layer is going to hit performance a bit but at least you're not tying your rendering code to Apple's platform.
5. Re:Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anubis+IV · 2018-07-29 13:22 · Score: 1
  
  The industry is moving to Vulkan, with the heavy hitter gaming and 3D engines going that way.
  Don’t the big engines already support Metal? Unreal, Unity, etc.? Last I checked they all already support it.
  
  Apple simply doesn't have the market share to push Metal
  They aren’t trying to push it at all, so the point is moot. They’re only trying to control their own platforms. Metal debuted back when Vulkan was still floundering in the market as Mantle and OpenGL was falling behind DirectX in functionality and performance. Vulkan will hopefully receive third-party support on macOS and perhaps iOS eventually, perhaps even first-party support, but while it’s still establishing itself, it makes sense for Apple to push forward with their own thing that actually has quite a bit more traction in their sphere than you give it credit for.
6. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 13:34 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Really, no one is using Apple for high-end CAD anymore because the hardware sucks.
7. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 13:40 · Score: 1
  
  Basically Apple has shown over and over that they only care about 30 percent of the market, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. Here they are doing it again.
  No, Apple in this exact example has shown they want to control their own ecosystem. It's the exact same reason they developed WebKit and switched to LLVM. You want to proscribe more to their intentions, then that's your call.
  
  I'm glad I'm not locked into that crap platform
  So if I understand you correctly, you're not remotely affected by this decision yet you feel extremely slighted by it?
  
  that doesn't even have an escape key (if only there were another company that made such durable laptop frames).
  And when was the last time you actually looked at a Mac keyboard because all the ones I see have Escape keys.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
8. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 13:53 · Score: 0
  
  Look at anything with 'touchbar'.
  I put that I quotes because it should be called the 'crapbar'.
9. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 13:54 · Score: 2
  
  Apple is not for professionals anyway.
  Soon it won't be for amateurs either.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
10. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by LynnwoodRooster · 2018-07-29 13:58 · Score: 1
  
  I think your 30% is overrated; 9% is closer to the truth... In actuality, anything other than iOS is irrelevant to Apple, with iOS and related services/products comprising about 88% of all Apple revenue.
  
  --
  Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
11. Re:Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by exomondo · 2018-07-29 14:05 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Don’t the big engines already support Metal? Unreal, Unity, etc.? Last I checked they all already support it.
  Yep they do.
  
  Vulkan will hopefully receive third-party support on macOS and perhaps iOS eventually
  It's already there. Instead of just breaking from Khronos and going off and doing their own thing it would have made sense to contribute Metal to Khronos as an industry standard, or at least make it an open spec.
12. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by mSparks43 · 2018-07-29 14:06 · Score: 1
  
  vr isnt just about gaming, in fact there is probably more "professional" in vr than games.
13. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 14:18 · Score: 0
  
  You mean the touchbar that allows you the user a variable number of keys but doesn't permanently remove the Escape key. I take it that if you didn't know that, you've probably not used a touchbar.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
14. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 14:25 · Score: 1
  
  Apple in this exact example has shown they want to control their own ecosystem. It's the exact same reason they developed WebKit and switched to LLVM.
  Apple failed at controlling Webkit because Google got fed up with Apple's governance and forked it (Blink) and rapidly made Webkit irrelevant, now used by Safari and nobody else. Apple will eventually give up backporting Blink improvements and repurpose their engineers officially as Blink contributors. Apple has to play nice with LLVM or that history will play out again the same way.
  Unlike HTML and Compiler tech, Apple has no credible business case for a bespoke 3D library. In fact there is a strong case to the contrary, as proved by the Autodesk pullout.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
15. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 14:35 · Score: 1
  
  Apple failed at controlling Webkit because Google got fed up with Apple's governance and forked it (Blink)
  Reading that statement it seems you don't understand what open source is. Apple developed WebKit from a fork of KHTML. As open source, Google wanted to fork it and make Blink. So when you said Apple "failed" to control WebKit, that sentence is nonsensical.
  
  rapidly made Webkit irrelevant, now used by Safari and nobody else
  That is rather factually untrue in two regards. First, there are browsers that use WebKit still and second, what proof do you have that WebKit was "rapidly made" irrelevant.
  
  Apple will eventually give up backporting Blink improvements and repurpose their engineers officially as Blink contributors,
  Do you have proof of that or that your assertion without evidence?
  
  Apple has to play nice with LLVM or that history will play out again the same way.
  Again your assertion or do you have evidence?
  
  Unlike HTML and Compiler tech, Apple has no credible business case for a bespoke 3D library. In fact there is a strong case to the contrary, as proved by the Autodesk pullout.
  You mean beside Metal? Autodesk doesn't want to code in Metal, that's their choice, but it's factually untrue that Apple has no 3D library.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
16. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:58 · Score: 0
  
  You mean beside Metal? Autodesk doesn't want to code in Metal, that's their choice, but it's factually untrue that Apple has no 3D library.
  That's not what he said. Read it again moving your lips this time of necessary. There was no business case for Apple to get into the 3D API business.
  Yet they did, and now they expect everyone else to jump through the resulting flaming hoop of dogshit.
17. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 15:05 · Score: 1
  
  That's not what he said. Read it again moving your lips this time of necessary. There was no business case for Apple to get into the 3D API business.
  Do you know how many games use Metal? That alone says that there is a business case for Apple to get into the 3D API business; however, their API is only for them and they don't want to release it for every one. Other software they have released like OpenCL when it suited them.
  
  Yet they did, and now they expect everyone else to jump through the resulting flaming hoop of dogshit.
  No they don't. Apple doesn't expect "everyone" to jump through hoops. Certainly Apple isn't expecting Linux and Microsoft user to do anything.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
18. Re:Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anubis+IV · 2018-07-29 15:08 · Score: 1
  
  No disagreement from me. I’d love to see Vulkan adopted as an industry standard, including on Apple platforms.
19. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 15:24 · Score: 1
  
  As open source, Google wanted to fork it and make Blink.
  Well governed open source projects don't get forked. Apple wasn't sufficiently responsive to Google's needs so Google forked it, simple.
  
  That is rather factually untrue...
  
  Read your own link. Count the number of discontinueds. It's basically down to just Apple and Adobe. That happened really fast.
  
  Apple will eventually give up backporting Blink improvements and repurpose their engineers officially as Blink contributors,
  Do you have proof of that or that your assertion
  My assertion. Mark it down. I said the same about Metal, mark that down too. Do LLVM too while you're at it, though I think that of the three it has the best chance of avoiding a fork for now.
  
  Apple has no credible business case for a bespoke 3D library...
  You mean beside Metal?
  Apple has no credible business case for Metal, which is a bespoke 3D API. I thought that was clear.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
20. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by angel'o'sphere · 2018-07-29 15:25 · Score: 2
  
  A Mac Book with touch bar has no ESC key.
  Which you clearly can see on the article you linked ...
  It might have an "ESC - area" on the touchbar, though.
  As a 'vi' user: that is out of the question.
  Having no F-keys is out of the question as well for heavy game play.
  Yes: I have a Mac, and yes, I play games on it, and yes, I map commands to function keys.
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
21. Re:Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 15:26 · Score: 0
  
  When Apple, who provides the GPU drivers, announces that OpenGL is dead on the Mac and that the only available 3D API going forward is Metal that is Apple telling everyone on the iOS/macOS ecosystem to switch to Metal.
22. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 16:17 · Score: 1
  
  Well governed open source projects don't get forked.
  
  BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Wow you certainly don't know anything of open source. There are whole operating systems that have been forked. For example BSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc.
  
  Apple wasn't sufficiently responsive to Google's needs so Google forked it, simple.
  HAHAHAHAHA. [Citation Needed]
  
  Read your own link. Count the number of discontinueds. It's basically down to just Apple and Adobe. That happened really fast.
  You said " now used by Safari and nobody else." That is factually untrue. Certainly not every browser is currently being used but you are either ignoring all of them or are delusional.
  
  My assertion. Mark it down. I said the same about Metal, mark that down too. Do LLVM too while you're at it, though I think that of the three it has the best chance of avoiding a fork for now.
  So you have no evidence for anything that you've said then. Then I can discount your posting as mere imagination.
  
  Apple has no credible business case for Metal, which is a bespoke 3D API. I thought that was clear.
  No you are merely wrong.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
23. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-29 16:17 · Score: 1
  
  Unlike HTML and Compiler tech, Apple has no credible business case for a bespoke 3D library.
  *Cough* ARKit *Cough* ...to name one that immediately comes to mind...
24. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:22 · Score: 0
  
  Animoji don't run OpenGL!
25. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-29 16:27 · Score: 1
  
  You mean beside Metal? Autodesk doesn't want to code in Metal, that's their choice, but it's factually untrue that Apple has no 3D library.
  That's not what he said. Read it again moving your lips this time of necessary. There was no business case for Apple to get into the 3D API business.
  Yet they did, and now they expect everyone else to jump through the resulting flaming hoop of dogshit.
  Hmmm. Seems to be no problem for legions of iOS Devs.
  Perhaps you are just too tired or stupid to learn a new API that generates the displays for Application software with hundreds of millions of users.
26. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:44 · Score: 0
  
  I think you're looking at the wrong 30%. You want to look at profit share, where apple has been knocking it out of the park for the last 20 years.
27. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:13 · Score: 0
  
  Vi users are retards.
28. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:18 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Apple doesn't want devs to be able to easily port apps between platforms. They're hoping that devs making mobile apps will spend their efforts just on iDevices.
  All it will really do is push Apple further out of the gaming and graphics design markets.
29. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:34 · Score: 0
  
  Hmmm. Seems to be no problem for legions of iOS Devs.
  That's the same moronic logic that would lead you to the conclusion that Windows is the best operating system.
30. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:55 · Score: 0
  
  There isn’t a single thing in Blink that has been back ported to WebKit since blink is absolute shit.
31. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 18:01 · Score: 0
  
  Basically Apple has shown over and over that they only care about 30 percent of the market, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. Here they are doing it again.
  Yes. To be more specific, Apple as a technology company does not play well with others. It's like Microsoft, but with a noob friendly OS and lower marketshare.
  
  I'm glad I'm not locked into that crap platform
  So if I understand you correctly, you're not remotely affected by this decision yet you feel extremely slighted by it?
  I'm not locked into that crap platform either, but here's the problem:
  I'm a software engineer. I might end up in a position where I have to support that platform for whatever software I make. If that software involves any tech where I have to choose an industry standard or some vendor specific shit, I'm going with the industry standard. If I'm forced to support their platform, I'm now forced to keep using the industry standard AND ALSO have to waste my time writing another module to support Apple instead of just using the standard. This applies to MS as well but their platform is large enough for them to be able to make DirectX development an option if you want to reach nearly everyone on PC.
  Fuck vendor lock in.
32. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by BronsCon · 2018-07-29 18:40 · Score: 1
  
  it's factually untrue that Apple has no 3D library
  It's also factually untrue that anyone here claimed otherwise. What was claimed, which you even quoted, is that Apple has no credible business case for their own 3D library.
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
33. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by BronsCon · 2018-07-29 18:43 · Score: 2
  
  That's all well and good on iDevices, where having a different graphic API for every platform is, and has always been, the norm. On the desktop, we've long been able to support all major platforms with a single graphics stack; Apple is breaking that for Mac OS, and it is not going to end well for them.
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
34. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 19:26 · Score: 0
  
  Nobody wants to make the same thing thing more than necessary, that is why we try to keep shared code base and fancy frameworks, having a fork for Windows and another for MAC is a drag , duplicates the effort needed to make the same thing on both platforms; OpenGL implementations are less than ideal but at least sharing code is easier; Now, metal2 is... interesting but still requires more time to port current functional, bug-free and highly optimized code, currently I'm starting to adopt Vulkan but I can't drop OpenGL until most customers get the new hardware and that can take more than 2 years.
  I think that with the current state of Safari, replacing webkit is not a bad idea, but they won't do it, they are allergic to standards.
35. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 19:33 · Score: 1
  
  Well governed open source projects don't get forked.
  There are whole operating systems that have been forked. For example BSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc.
  You know nothing of FreeBSD. For example DragonflyBSD started after a food fight that ended up with revoking one of the core dev's commit access.
  
  Apple wasn't sufficiently responsive to Google's needs so Google forked it, simple.
  HAHAHAHAHA. [Citation Needed]
  Sweet, your concept of intelligent discourse marks you as an Apple employee. Then you criticize other people's posts like an asshole. Again, how Apple of you. Chrome's multiprocess architecture was awkward to develop in Webkit. Apple could have moved Safari in the same direction but chose not to. So bam, fork.
  
  You said " now used by Safari and nobody else." That is factually untrue.
  You niggle. Close enough to describe the reality. Would you prefer I said "mass migration away from Webkit"? There, said it.
  
  My assertion. Mark it down. I said the same about Metal, mark that down too. Do LLVM too while you're at it, though I think that of the three it has the best chance of avoiding a fork for now.
  So you have no evidence for anything that you've said then. Then I can discount your posting as mere imagination.
  How imaginative of you, feel free to paste a gold star on your nose.
  
  Apple has no credible business case for Metal, which is a bespoke 3D API. I thought that was clear.
  No you are merely wrong.
  The same results or better (geometry shaders!) could have been accomplished with Vulkan. There was no business case for introducing Metal instead of going with Vulkan, which can do the same but with less flexibility and no standarization. You can tattoo that on your Apple ass.
  Apple will never get back the community karma it lost by rolling its own Vulkan-like API and will eventually be forced to support Vulkan anyway to avoid more developer defections. Enjoy.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
36. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 19:56 · Score: 1
  
  Could have used Vulkan, did not need to create a home rolled API to do the same thing less flexibly, leaving out important features, and not used by anybody outside of Apple.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
37. Re:Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 20:53 · Score: 0
  
  It actually does run on Macs now, they implemented Vulkan over Metal some time ago.
  Open source project.
38. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 22:02 · Score: 0
  
  They expect their user base to decrease considerably because of their active refusal to implement open source standards which work everywhere. Oh wait, no... But guess what, exodus probably already started.
39. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by phantomfive · 2018-07-29 23:12 · Score: 1
  
  And when was the last time you actually looked at a Mac keyboard because all the ones I see have Escape keys.
  Now you're just trolling.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
40. Re:Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by beelsebob · 2018-07-30 03:07 · Score: 1
  
  The problem with industry standards in this regard is that there's a lot of assholes out there.
  Want to know why it took so long for Vulkan to appear and catch up with D3D? It's because of Autodesk. Autodesk litterally fought tooth and nail to make sure that graphics APIs never advanced to where Metal and D3D 12 are.
41. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by LynnwoodRooster · 2018-07-30 03:07 · Score: 1
  
  Apparently not for Autodesk, hence the reason they are dropping macOS support. Not enough potential profit from that user base. Apple's profits are irrelevant to this story; Autodesk's profits are.
  
  --
  Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
42. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-30 03:49 · Score: 1
  
  That's all well and good on iDevices, where having a different graphic API for every platform is, and has always been, the norm. On the desktop, we've long been able to support all major platforms with a single graphics stack; Apple is breaking that for Mac OS, and it is not going to end well for them.
  Oh, you mean like Windows has done for DECADES with DirectX?
  Lazy Developers, that don't know how to code using a standard Model-View-Controller method, are the ones that will continue to have "porting" problems, you mean...
  Anyone who follows that paradigm should have no problem converting some PUD Application like AutoCAD or Inventor to use whatever graphics rendering API a particular platform requires. Afterall, most CAD applications are nothing more than a graphical database editor coupled with a graphical database renderer. At least until you get to high-end matrix math operations like in Finite Element Analysis.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
  Let's see what Siemens PLM does with its NX CAD suite for Mac...
43. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-30 03:58 · Score: 1
  
  Could have used Vulkan, did not need to create a home rolled API to do the same thing less flexibly, leaving out important features, and not used by anybody outside of Apple.
  They COULD have used Vulkan, IF it had Existed; but it wasn't even a Final SPECIFICATION until a year and a half after Metal was first RELEASED. So, actually, they COULDN'T have used Vulkan back when they had that "decision" to make.
  And Metal "Not used by anybody outside of Apple" STILL gives you nearly 600 Million unique Users and over 1 BEELION Devices, nearly ALL of them running Metal every single day. That many users and products "make their own weather", sorry.
  https://www.businessinsider.co...
  So Now what?
44. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by BronsCon · 2018-07-30 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, you mean like Windows has done for DECADES with DirectX?
  No, nothing at all like that, actually. Windows has always given you a choice of graphics APIs, for as long as multiple APIs have existed on the platform. If you chose DirectX and vendor lock-in, that was entirely your choice; OpenGL has always been an option for as long as it's existed and, because MS is obsessed with backward compatibility[1], it's all but guaranteed to remain a choice for as long as Windows exists. What Apple is doing is forcing people's hand; they deprecated OpenGL on their platform. To a developer, deprecated means "not suitable for new projects", for a multitude of reasons. First of all, there's the impending lack of vendor support[2], followed by complete removal of the feature.
  
  Unlike Apple, Microsoft recognizes that there are a multitude of older games that people play on their platform, and that there are other platforms[3] people can switch to for their retro gaming needs. Because of this, Microsoft wouldn't do something so stupid as break those older games, some of which people have invested a lot of time and money into. Apple, on the other hand, is going to break games as recent as Sims 4 (2014), which is probably the most popular AAA game on the platform and still has new official expansions being released by EA to this very day. That's going to make a lot of users switch to Windows. That, and WoW, of course.
  
  Lazy Developers, that don't know how to code using a standard Model-View-Controller method, are the ones that will continue to have "porting" problems, you mean...
  Really? That's the argument you're going to make with regard to a very performance-oriented segment of the industry? Each layer of abstraction has a performance cost, and wrapping your graphics stack sufficiently enough such that completely ripping it out and replacing it with something else doesn't incur any maintenance cost loses you more than a handful of FPS.
  
  While that might be acceptable for something like a CAD application, you're almost guaranteed to not see it in games; and not due to laziness. Even where it is done -- and there are a number of games that support multiple graphics engines, take Fortnite as an example -- each graphics stack still needs to be maintained as new versions of the API are released.
  
  In case you haven't noticed, graphics APIs are not small simple widgets, they're vastly complex machines, and each version of a graphics API has its own quirks[4], which you have to account for for each version of the API you support. Another thing you may have missed is that not everyone updates at the same time; you may have a number of users on a version of their OS that only supports v2.1 of an API, while everyone else is on a version of their OS that supports v4.4, and your graphics stack needs to handle that, and every version in between. I chose v2.1 and v4.4 for a reason, by the way; can you figure out why?
  
  Let's see what Siemens PLM does with its NX CAD suite for Mac...
  Yes. Let's.
  
  [1] Yes, you'll find examples where they've broken things in the past. It's literally impossible for them to not have broken something while making sweeping API changes, but they've historically put in the effort to break as little as possible while still progressing. Now, I praise MS about as often as I praise Apple, they're both fuck-ups after all, but MS has done a damn good job with backward compatibility.
  
  [2] Which really isn't impending when we're talking about Apple, as they're stuck on v2.1, which was
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
45. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Tough+Love · 2018-07-30 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  Could have used Vulkan, did not need to create a home rolled API to do the same thing less flexibly, leaving out important features, and not used by anybody outside of Apple.
  They COULD have used Vulkan, IF it had Existed; but it wasn't even a Final SPECIFICATION
  Neither was Metal. You speak with forked tongue.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
46. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by tepples · 2018-07-30 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  During the month before Metal was released, what should Apple have used?
47. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Tough+Love · 2018-07-30 07:20 · Score: 1
  
  Whatever they were already using, nobody was screaming for a change, especially not a proprietary lock-in change. Lets not make stupid mistakes because of being in a rush over a fictitious deadline. But you know perfectly well that Apple concocted the Metal scheme in hopes of creating lock in, and not because of any timing thing. Instead, they succeeded at creating a lock-out scheme as any fool could have predicted.
  I note that IOS game revenue is now behind Android, just one more number that Apple cultists used to love trotting out and can't any more. What's the next fallback? Apple makes more profit on games than anybody? Until that isn't true either.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
48. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-30 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  Whatever they were already using, nobody was screaming for a change
  IIRC, Devs. were QUITE whining about the state of OpenGL on Apple's platforms.
49. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-30 09:13 · Score: 1
  
  Whatever they were already using, nobody was screaming for a change, especially not a proprietary lock-in change. Lets not make stupid mistakes because of being in a rush over a fictitious deadline. But you know perfectly well that Apple concocted the Metal scheme in hopes of creating lock in, and not because of any timing thing. Instead, they succeeded at creating a lock-out scheme as any fool could have predicted.
  I note that IOS game revenue is now behind Android, just one more number that Apple cultists used to love trotting out and can't any more. What's the next fallback? Apple makes more profit on games than anybody? Until that isn't true either.
  Give it a rest, willya?
50. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Tough+Love · 2018-07-30 09:30 · Score: 1
  
  IIRC, Devs. were QUITE whining about the state of OpenGL on Apple's platforms.
  Entirely Apple's doing, a transparently obvious of the whole sleazy plan. Apparently, Apple's intentionally broken OpenGL support will be fixed by MoltenVK. MoltenVK is the new reality that means no developer needs to waste resources on Metal to target Mac. Initial Vulkan Performance On macOS With Dota 2 Is Looking Very Good
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
51. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Tough+Love · 2018-07-30 09:32 · Score: 1
  
  Whatever they were already using, nobody was screaming for a change, especially not a proprietary lock-in change. Lets not make stupid mistakes because of being in a rush over a fictitious deadline. But you know perfectly well that Apple concocted the Metal scheme in hopes of creating lock in, and not because of any timing thing. Instead, they succeeded at creating a lock-out scheme as any fool could have predicted.
  I note that IOS game revenue is now behind Android, just one more number that Apple cultists used to love trotting out and can't any more. What's the next fallback? Apple makes more profit on games than anybody? Until that isn't true either.
  Give it a rest, willya?
  Stop being sleazy, willya?
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
52. Re:Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by exomondo · 2018-07-30 11:36 · Score: 1
  
  Autodesk isn't even a member of the Khronos Group...at any level at all, they have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it.
53. Re:Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-30 22:36 · Score: 1
  
  The industry is moving to Vulkan, with the heavy hitter gaming and 3D engines going that way. Apple simply doesn't have the market share to push Metal other than as afterthoughts
  Bwahaha. People have been shipping Metal games and 3D engines for four years, since before Vulkan was even demoed, let alone finalised.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
54. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-30 22:51 · Score: 1
  
  As open source, Google wanted to fork it and make Blink.
  Well governed open source projects don't get forked. Apple wasn't sufficiently responsive to Google's needs so Google forked it, simple.
  Bwahaha. You smoke your own shit - and I don't mean home-grown pot. Hardly any open source project hasn't been forked. Google forked WebKit because they wanted to make their own services faster on Chrome than on competing browsers.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
55. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Gr8Apes · 2018-07-31 06:39 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, you mean like Windows has done for DECADES with DirectX?
  No, nothing at all like that, actually. Windows has always given you a choice of graphics APIs, for as long as multiple APIs have existed on the platform. If you chose DirectX and vendor lock-in, that was entirely your choice; OpenGL has always been an option for as long as it's existed and, because MS is obsessed with backward compatibility[1], it's all but guaranteed to remain a choice for as long as Windows exists.
  
  OpenGL hasn't been a choice on Windows for anything with performance needs since NT 4.0. XP came with DirectX 8 IIRC, which was the end of OpenGL gaming on Windows. I'm not sure that you even can run OpenGL on Windows without installing extra drivers these days. A quick search and it appears Windows 10 had some issues with OpenGL. Then again, Windows 10 had all sorts of issues, OpenGL support would be far far down the list.
  
  Lazy Developers, that don't know how to code using a standard Model-View-Controller method, are the ones that will continue to have "porting" problems, you mean...
  Really? That's the argument you're going to make with regard to a very performance-oriented segment of the industry?
  I wouldn't use "standard" MVC for games either. Too much lag just typing that in.
  
  [1] Yes, you'll find examples where they've broken things in the past. It's literally impossible for them to not have broken something while making sweeping API changes, but they've historically put in the effort to break as little as possible while still progressing. Now, I praise MS about as often as I praise Apple, they're both fuck-ups after all, but MS has done a damn good job with backward compatibility.
  I'd respectfully disagree on backwards compatibility - they promoted an entire set of programming practices using sets of frameworks that are all unsupported or gone, at this point. I also have a collection of software for Win95 and XP that won't run on W7 even. And then there's also the question of an entire set of APIs they purposefully broke, under the guise of adding security. The effect was exactly the opposite - less security. I agree MS is the poster boy for fuck ups in software architecture. Backwards compatibility? Not so much.
  
  [2] Which really isn't impending when we're talking about Apple, as they're stuck on v2.1, which was released 12 years ago. OpenGL 3.0 has been with us for a decade, now.
  
  You do realize that OSX 10.7 supports 3.1, and 10.9 supports 4.1? Just asking.
  But besides OpenGL support, Apple still has the best overall GUI of any *nix I've seen. and it's much more consistent in overall experience as compared to Windows, which last time I looked still had NT 3.1/3.5 and 4.0 based fixed size non-scaleable dialogs for some of its system controls. You can tell the differences between OS versions by how horrifically ugly they look on a 4K screen. Speaking of 4K screens, at least as of the pre-Creators release of Win10, the damn thing still wouldn't scale various artificats properly for hi-res monitors.
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
56. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by BronsCon · 2018-07-31 09:22 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not sure that you even can run OpenGL on Windows without installing extra drivers these days.
  Okay, so you admit you have no clue what you're talking about, then?
  
  I'd respectfully disagree on backwards compatibility
  I'll grant you they're not perfect in that regard, but the actual win32 API has been more or less stable over the years. It was a design goal and they've don a damn good job of sticking to it. Regarding some of the libraries you're referring to (I'm guessing MFC is one of them), that's not really an issue at the OS level, and you actually still can find those libraries, though I'll admit it's a bit of a pain in the ass to do so.
  
  You do realize that OSX 10.7 supports 3.1, and 10.9 supports 4.1?
  An oversight on my part. On further review, perhaps I should have scrolled down a few more pages.
  
  But besides OpenGL support, Apple still has the best overall GUI of any *nix I've seen.
  Ill grant you that; there's a reason I'm replying on a MacBook Pro right now.
  
  and it's much more consistent in overall experience as compared to Windows
  Here's where we disagree. Windows has consistently been shit since 1995, while Mac OS only started its decline about 7 years ago. ;)
  
  which last time I looked still had NT 3.1/3.5 and 4.0 based fixed size non-scaleable dialogs for some of its system controls
  There's really nothing wrong with that, provided the whole thing fits on the screen. Since you mention both "fixed size" and "non-scaleable", I'm not sure if you're meaning to say the same thing two different ways, or you're referring to the lack of DPI scaling for hi-res displays (as you then go on to talk about that), but you might want to look again. I don't know when they added it, as I was without access to my Windows PC for a couple of months, but there is now an option to force scaling of non-DPI-aware apps, windows, and controls.
  
  That said, if your 4K monitor is small enough that you need scaling, and it's not a laptop display, you're doing it wrong. ;)
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
57. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-31 12:08 · Score: 1
  
  IIRC, Devs. were QUITE whining about the state of OpenGL on Apple's platforms.
  Entirely Apple's doing, a transparently obvious of the whole sleazy plan.
  Yeah, they had this plan in motion for YEARS. Riiiight.
  
  Apparently, Apple's intentionally broken OpenGL support
  you'd better wrap another layer on that tinfoil hat.
  You do realize you are an idiot, right?
  
  will be fixed by MoltenVK. MoltenVK is the new reality that means no developer needs to waste resources on Metal to target Mac. Initial Vulkan Performance On macOS With Dota 2 Is Looking Very Good
  For once we agree!
  So everyone needs to just STFU.
58. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Tough+Love · 2018-07-31 17:17 · Score: 1
  
  As an alpha asshole, you are a great ambassador for Apple. And like a typical Apple camp follower you are a barefaced liar. Apple freeloaded on the Vulkan working group to build its own incompatible API, as any fool can see. Yes it was a plan, however idiotic. Doesn't change the slimy intent. Doesn't matter how a lying fucktard like you tries to spin it. Apple stays on the Vulkan working group to freeload on more of their great work. Just the kind of thing we have come to expect from Apple. Sweet that Autodesk rubbed your face in it, looking forward to more of that.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
59. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Gr8Apes · 2018-08-01 01:57 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not sure that you even can run OpenGL on Windows without installing extra drivers these days.
  Okay, so you admit you have no clue what you're talking about, then?
  Nice dig.... I can't say if that still exists on Win10 creators edition, or even Win10, as I haven't run OpenGL on Windows since... Hmm, it might be XP. :)
  
  the actual win32 API has been more or less stable over the years. It was a design goal and they've don a damn good job of sticking to it.
  
  The win32 API has been relatively stable regarding general app calls. For system calls, ie, calls into the OS to interact with various system components, such as security tokens, has been broken at least 2 times that I'm aware of.
  
  and [OSX GUI is] much more consistent in overall experience as compared to Windows
  Here's where we disagree. Windows has consistently been shit since 1995, while Mac OS only started its decline about 7 years ago. ;)
  If you're referring to 10.6 as the last good version of OSX, it certainly was the last most stable version. But, I get why GCD was added in 10.7, and moving an entire OS to a message passing paradigm, even when it was built on top of a language that fundamentally supports the concept, is not a minor undertaking. 10.10 was relatively stable, and 10.12 is as well. In fact, I've had both running for upwards of 4 months before an update I wanted forced a reboot.
  
  which last time I looked still had NT 3.1/3.5 and 4.0 based fixed size non-scaleable dialogs for some of its system controls
  There's really nothing wrong with that, provided the whole thing fits on the screen. Since you mention both "fixed size" and "non-scaleable", I'm not sure if you're meaning to say the same thing two different ways, or you're referring to the lack of DPI scaling for hi-res displays (as you then go on to talk about that), but you might want to look again. I don't know when they added it, as I was without access to my Windows PC for a couple of months, but there is now an option to force scaling of non-DPI-aware apps, windows, and controls.
  There are differences in the two - fixed size means specifically not being able to resize the window to contain the contents. Note that these are system provided details, and the original windows appear to be scaled for 640x400 screens. Data held since then means you now have this window that shows maybe half the data you're looking for, and requires you to scroll, if possible. I don't recall which specific window it was, but at least one required a copy and paste to read the contents.
  The second, non-scaleable, refers as you correctly surmised to the inability of the window to scale with resolution. This was a problem with even 1280x800 screens, much less 2K or 4K screens. Here's this huge piece of real estate, and you can only use 3% of it for this dialog and the font is 4pt, because that can't be changed either (well, it can in most cases, but then you run into the previous issue even more quickly)
  If they finally fixed at least #2, then that would be a major improvement. It only took 20 years.
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
60. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by BronsCon · 2018-08-01 02:14 · Score: 1
  
  I don't recall which specific window it was, but at least one required a copy and paste to read the contents.
  It sounds like you're talking about something different than I am. I'm curious to know which dialog this is, so I can take a look.
  
  This was a problem with even 1280x800 screens
  Huh... You know, I ran a 13" CRT at 1280x1024 for years with no issues, so I'm not sure I agree with you on that. It didn't really become an issue for most people until inappropriately-sized >2K displays became widely available (even if still not common at the time) and people actually started trying to use the scaling options, only to find that they didn't work as expected. I wouldn't say it took them 20 years to fix it, either; people didn't care until 5 years ago or so, so they had no reason to even consider fixing it until then.
  
  Also, are you saying you've never had scaling issues on a Mac? Trust me, they're a thing. Not as prevalent as on Windows, I'll grant, but that's all the more reason to believe that Apple will never fix them, while Microsoft is actually being responsive to their users now.
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
61. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Gr8Apes · 2018-08-01 04:13 · Score: 1
  
  It sounds like you're talking about something different than I am. I'm curious to know which dialog this is, so I can take a look.
  If I could recall, I would have posted it. I rarely start windows anymore. It's unimportant in the general scope of things in my set of specialties.
  
  Huh... You know, I ran a 13" CRT at 1280x1024 for years with no issues, so I'm not sure I agree with you on that. It didn't really become an issue for most people until inappropriately-sized >2K displays became widely available (even if still not common at the time) and people actually started trying to use the scaling options, only to find that they didn't work as expected. I wouldn't say it took them 20 years to fix it, either; people didn't care until 5 years ago or so, so they had no reason to even consider fixing it until then.
  I ran a 21" monitor as far back as 91, and a 17" 1600x1200 in 96. Both NEC monitors IIRC and cost more than most computers. I did a quick scan to see if I could get model numbers and specs, but that stuff is far too old for a quick google. Let's just say those particular dialogs were a major eyesore all the way back in 91. Yes, that means in the days of NT 3.5. It was a known problem then, so yes, it is a 20+ year old problem. I just dated it from when these monitors became more common in the late 90s.
  
  Also, are you saying you've never had scaling issues on a Mac? Trust me, they're a thing. Not as prevalent as on Windows, I'll grant, but that's all the more reason to believe that Apple will never fix them, while Microsoft is actually being responsive to their users now.
  I'd like to see where there is a scaling issue on the mac. I have yet to run across one, at least in anything modern that I've run in the last 10 years. Certainly no system software or dialogs. But, perhaps there's one in there, I can't say such a thing doesn't exist.
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
62. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-08-01 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  As an alpha asshole, you are a great ambassador for Apple. And like a typical Apple camp follower you are a barefaced liar. Apple freeloaded on the Vulkan working group to build its own incompatible API, as any fool can see. Yes it was a plan, however idiotic. Doesn't change the slimy intent. Doesn't matter how a lying fucktard like you tries to spin it. Apple stays on the Vulkan working group to freeload on more of their great work. Just the kind of thing we have come to expect from Apple. Sweet that Autodesk rubbed your face in it, looking forward to more of that.
  Metal was RELEASED nearly 2 YEARS before the Vulkan final SPEC was even announced. NOW who copied from whom?
  And considering the Metal API is SIGNIFICANTLY different from the much harder to use Vulkan API, plus is more than twice as efficient, I don't see how you can support a claim of "Freeloading" on Kronos' weak-ass, second-rate solution.
  BTW, Apple is a "Promoter"-level member of the Kronos group.So I assume they know what is the good, and the bad, in Vulkan:
  https://www.khronos.org/member...
  And if Apple is "Freeloading" from Kronos, then WTF are AMD, ARM, Google, Samsung, Qualcomm, Intel, NVidia, Sony and Valve (among SCORES of others) doing?
  Now, do I think Apple should Open Source Metal 2? Yes I do. But it's their ball, and their game; just like DirectX is MS' ball and their game.
  And with the lightweight MoltenVK translation-layer, there simply isn't an argument to whine about Metal 2 being proprietary; because a Vulkan-based Application simply doesn't have to suffer any significant rework to support Metal 2 through MoltenVK Dota 2, which even YOU noted has "Very Good" performance...
  Your Hater argument is simply pathetic. Like you.
63. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Tough+Love · 2018-08-01 07:08 · Score: 1
  
  Metal was RELEASED nearly 2 YEARS before the Vulkan final SPEC was even announced. NOW who copied from whom?
  Apple copied. Both Metal and Vulkan are derived AMD Mantle, as you know, but you're an asshole so you're trying to bluster your way past that. Afterwards, Apple leached off the Vulkan working group until they felt they were ready to pull off their Rambus-esque backstab. Apple is still leaching off the Vulkan working group today, which makes it especially funny when Autodesk kicks you in the teeth. May you lose many more teeth over that vile act of treachery.
  
  And considering the Metal API is SIGNIFICANTLY different from the much harder to use Vulkan API
  You lie again. Metal is vastly more similar to Vulkan than it is different, except for missing some key functionality like Geometry shaders and adding in adding in some memory management sugar that does not belong there, it should be a separate library in case somebody wants to implement their own memory management that suits their specific application better.
  
  plus is more than twice as efficient
  And you lie yet again. What an asshole.
  
  I don't see how you can support a claim of "Freeloading"
  Maybe because that is exactly what Apple did. And don't take it from me, everybody except you (aka asshole) thinks this. And you don't actually think it, you know what the truth is, but you are an asshole, so...
  
  Apple is a "Promoter"-level member of the Kronos group.
  So they can keep freeloading off the work of others.
  
  if Apple is "Freeloading" from Kronos, then WTF are AMD, ARM, Google, Samsung, Qualcomm, Intel, NVidia, Sony and Valve (among SCORES of others) doing?
  Supporting and improving the standard, unlike freeloader Apple. You know that, but you're too much of an asshole to admit it. Sucks to be you.
  
  Now, do I think Apple should Open Source Metal 2?
  Nobody wants it. Maybe, open source the memory management part of it as a library to be used with Vulkan. There isn't anything else of value in Metal that Vulkan doesn't already provide. Sure, open source the memory management as a library called "Metal" that sits on top of Vulkan. That would earn some karma. But trying to push Metal as a Vulkan alternative would just be a stupid disservice and Apple would get called on it.
  
  with the lightweight MoltenVK translation-layer...
  Which Valve had to force down Apple's throat because of Apple's bad acting, making Apple look like the petulant baby it actually is.
  Apple looks really bad over this whole fiasco, and an asshole like you wading in and farting out talking points without any actual technical knowledge doesn't help. You're a salesman not a dev right? It shows. And you're a lying asshole.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
64. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by Anonymous Coward · 2018-08-07 23:52 · Score: 0
  
  Bahahaha. It's funny that you completely ignored the examples I provided and tried to strawman your own argument. But you can't admit a simple fact that in open source forks happen for all sorts of reasons and "well managed" may not have anything to do with it. Again. NetBSD and OpenBSD. Care to comment on that?
65. Re: Apple doesn't have market share to push Metal by UnknowingFool · 2018-08-08 00:19 · Score: 1
  
  You know nothing of FreeBSD. For example DragonflyBSD started after a food fight that ended up with revoking one of the core dev's commit access.
  I never said anything about FreeBSD. I specifically mentioned OpenBSD and NetBSD. But continue with your tangent.
  
  Sweet, your concept of intelligent discourse marks you as an Apple employee. Then you criticize other people's posts like an asshole. Again, how Apple of you. Chrome's multiprocess architecture was awkward to develop in Webkit. Apple could have moved Safari in the same direction but chose not to. So bam, fork.
  No you made the assertion: "Apple wasn't sufficiently responsive to Google's needs so Google forked it, simple.". All I said is that you have to prove what you say. At this point it's another one of your assertions not grounded in evidence.
  
  You niggle. Close enough to describe the reality. Would you prefer I said "mass migration away from Webkit"? There, said it.
  I guess this means that you don't like it when people point out that you were not being entirely truthful?
  
  There was no business case for introducing Metal instead of going with Vulkan, which can do the same but with less flexibility and no standarization. You can tattoo that on your Apple ass.
  Apple released Metal beta in June 2014 and official release Oct 2014.. Vulkan wasn't released as a spec until Feb 2016. My business case is that the fact that Apple does not own a time machine and cannot have gone with Vulkan years before it was released. Remember Apple didn't release the spec in 2014; they released the beta which means they were developing it long before that time. But please go on with your unsubstantiated and uninformed opinions not grounded in facts.
  
  Apple will never get back the community karma it lost by rolling its own Vulkan-like API and will eventually be forced to support Vulkan anyway to avoid more developer defections. Enjoy.
  How can Apple roll out it's "Vulkan-like API" when Metal predates Vulkan by years? That's like saying Apple rolled out it's "Microsoft Windows like" OS in the original Macintosh.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Meanwhile in Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 12:46 · Score: 0

...still playing old ass games that use OpenGL.
1. Re: Meanwhile in Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 18:12 · Score: 0
  
  I love OpenGL, out of the other crappy options for cross-platform graphics, OpenGL is unsurpassed.
2. Re:Meanwhile in Windows... by beelsebob · 2018-07-30 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  And so are macOS users. They didn't remove the library. They didn't even remove the headers. All they did was add __attribute__((deprecated("use Metal instead"))) to the headers.
God forbid by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 12:46 · Score: 3, Informative

Apple should have some sort of a system where the GPU drivers can install their own OpenGL stack, similar to the ICD in Windows.
It boggles my mind how much money that company has and how poorly written OS X seems to not be able to do the things Windows has been able to do for a decade or more. I'm surprised Autodesk didn't just drop support for OS X entirely and tell Apple to piss off. They actually deserve it this time, especially considering what a clusterfuck Metal 2 is (and it still doesn't support everything OpenGL 4.5 does- nor will it ever, according to Apple- nice mobile API you back ported to the desktop there).
1. Re:God forbid by bill_mcgonigle · 2018-07-29 13:31 · Score: 0
  
  nice mobile API you back ported to the desktop there
  Precisely. If it won't work natively on mobile it doesn't belong in MacOS as the two won't remain separate for long.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
2. Re:God forbid by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-29 16:37 · Score: 1
  
  nice mobile API you back ported to the desktop there
  Precisely. If it won't work natively on mobile it doesn't belong in MacOS as the two won't remain separate for long.
  People have been predicting this since OS X 10.7 (Lion).
  Hasn't happened. Never will.
3. Re:God forbid by beelsebob · 2018-07-30 03:09 · Score: 1
  
  Why would they need to do that? OpenGL still works on macOS. The library didn't get removed. The headers didn't even get removed! The only thing that changed was that they added __attribute__((deprecated("use Metal instead"))) to the headers.
4. Re:God forbid by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 03:29 · Score: 0
  
  fucking true! have +1
5. Re:God forbid by exomondo · 2018-07-30 12:17 · Score: 1
  
  Why would they need to do that? OpenGL still works on macOS. The library didn't get removed. The headers didn't even get removed! The only thing that changed was that they added __attribute__((deprecated("use Metal instead"))) to the headers.
  Because OpenGL on macOS hasn't been updated since the version released in 2010. You cannot use any of the features introduced in the past 7 years in OpenGL on a Mac because there is no ICD mechanism and Apple are not updating their implementation. Want to use atomics, compute shaders, SSBOs, etc... in your product? Well it won't run on macOS.
  What has been highlighted though is that you can use BootCamp because the hardware is actually capable, macOS just doesn't expose those OpenGL features where Windows and Linux do.
Deprecation may not mean "removed" by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · 2018-07-29 12:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

But it sure as fuck means the OS publisher isn't supporting it. If I"m making a product that requires support from the publisher for bugs, security issues, or what have you for a given module, and they drop it on the floor, I drop them on the floor. I'm not going on the hook for something that isn't supported. Not worth the fucking time.

--
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
1. Re: Deprecation may not mean "removed" by phantomfive · 2018-07-29 13:00 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, Apple has never been good at supporting games and graphics, but by deprecating OpenGL they went into full-on retard mode, that's for sure.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
2. Re: Deprecation may not mean "removed" by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 13:27 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  From what I understand about OpenGL, I don't think Khronos is really advancing it either. They are mainly focused in developing Vulkan. From what I can see OpenGL has been getting minor tweaks for years. I would say it is telling Khronos could have made OpenGL more advanced but opted to write an entire API from scratch instead. So why didn't Apple use Vulkan instead? The main reason I think was that Apple couldn't wait for Vulkan as Metal was released 18 months before Khronos released the Vulkan spec much less a working implementation.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
3. Re:Deprecation may not mean "removed" by SpaceDave · 2018-07-29 14:33 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, surely for a forward-thinking developer "deprecated" has pretty much the same effect on your decision-making as "removed".
4. Re:Deprecation may not mean "removed" by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:56 · Score: 0
  
  Nope -- it absolutely does NOT sure as fuck mean that. Microsoft will officially support any and all deprecated features because even deprecated features should comply with specification. They are just announcing that at some point, the feature will move to "unsupported" and then to "removed".
  "If I'm making a product that requires support from the publisher for bugs, security issues, or what have you for a given module, and they drop it on the floor, I drop them on the floor."
  Yeah, but other companies will still security-support deprecated features. In fact, Apple almost certainly will too while they support macOS 10.14 - although unlike Microsoft, they're rather vague about the timeline for that.
  The strange thing is AutoDESK is saying the product won't RUN because it relies on present, supported, deprecated, OpenGL. That makes no sense. Apps built using OpenGL and OpenCL will continue to run in macOS 10.14, but these legacy technologies are deprecated in macOS 10.14.. They WILL run unless something else blocks it. But a future edition of MacOS will not let them run.
  Yes, Autodesk are right to halt development (or migrate to Metal or Vulkan+MoltenVK which runs on Metal; obviously a lot more work); but saying it won't run implies they're actively doing something to block it. (Could also be some minor incompatibility with the new OS stops it running and they cannot be bothered updating the application at all; given OpenGL's deprecated status.)
5. Re: Deprecation may not mean "removed" by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 15:05 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Yeah so what. AutoCAD is a mature product. It just needs to keep working on the existing API.
6. Re: Deprecation may not mean "removed" by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:11 · Score: 0
  
  > ...but by deprecating OpenGL they went into full-on retard mode, that's for sure.
  You NEVER go full retard!
7. Re: Deprecation may not mean "removed" by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:44 · Score: 0
  
  I like the way you think!
8. Re: Deprecation may not mean "removed" by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 18:58 · Score: 0
  
  Khronos didn't write entire Vulkan API from scratch, it's built upon AMD's Mantle API. You talked about many things in this topic, but somehow you forgot/didn't know that fact, really?
9. Re: Deprecation may not mean "removed" by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 20:19 · Score: 1
  
  I hope you understand your own comment is the whole reason why Autodesk decided to stop.
  Depreciated APIs can be removed at the drop of a hat. Can you imagine developing a multi million dollar product that can instantly break in the next version?
  It doesn't matter what they "likely" do. Autodesk does not want to be held hostage. Opengl, for all it's faults, continues to be stable on every other platform.
10. Re: Deprecation may not mean "removed" by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 23:19 · Score: 0
  
  They don't need to advance OpenGL, it's like ISO standard, once it's there it does not need to change each yer, in fact it's best its not changing!!!
  And no, if you knew WHY Vulkan was created you wouldn't suggest OpenGL improvments. Look why Vulkan was created online and limitation of OpenGL. In a nutshell, OpenGL is NOT multi thread aware environment and it does NOT work well on modern processors for that specific reason, which is overcome with Vulkan, as it's much closer to the actual hardware 'metal'.(no pun intended)
11. Re: Deprecation may not mean "removed" by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 07:06 · Score: 0
  
  > So why didn't Apple use Vulkan instead?
  I think its more likely they rolled their own so they would have full control of the API - in the typical Apple fashion.
12. Re: Deprecation may not mean "removed" by exomondo · 2018-07-30 12:21 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah so what. AutoCAD is a mature product. It just needs to keep working on the existing API.
  But the point is it isn't really the existing API, it's the API from 2010. Apple went 5 years with no updates to 3D graphics APIs on their platform before they even introduced Metal on the desktop.
13. Re: Deprecation may not mean "removed" by exomondo · 2018-07-30 12:22 · Score: 1
  
  Khronos didn't write entire Vulkan API from scratch, it's built upon AMD's Mantle API. You talked about many things in this topic, but somehow you forgot/didn't know that fact, really?
  Why are you talking as though AMD and Khronos are separate things? AMD is a promoter member of the Khronos Group...Apple is also a promoter member of the Khronos Group.
what happend to pro market apple ? by johnjones · 2018-07-29 12:57 · Score: 1

so apple came out and said they wanted professional software then "deprecated" OpenGL
Apple can reverse this course and sort it out but they need to do it now !
1. Re:what happend to pro market apple ? by bill_mcgonigle · 2018-07-29 13:28 · Score: 0
  
  Apple deprecated the Pro market. Getting ready for "Mac Mode" that supports KVM on the iPhone 12 or whatever.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
2. Re:what happend to pro market apple ? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:52 · Score: 0
  
  I think apple meant the ipad "Pro". Thats the pro they are pushing.
The Customer is Always Right (original meaning) by LaughingRadish · 2018-07-29 13:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

The original meaning of "The Customer is Always Right" stems from demand for a product, not the parades of boorish people so often seen quoting this adage. More specifically, if customers demand a certain product, then that's the product that should be made. Apple is attempting to cram down the throats of the users something the users don't want.
1. Re:The Customer is Always Right (original meaning) by JustNiz · 2018-07-29 13:09 · Score: 1
  
  This is hardly surprising behavior for Apple, and far from the first time. They have already discovered that they can do the most amazingly abusive shit and still the sheeplike fanbois/girls will bend over and religiously continue to overpay for Apple hardware.
2. Re:The Customer is Always Right (original meaning) by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:51 · Score: 0
  
  Well you checked all the boxes. "Fanboi", religion, sheep, Apple is "abusive", hardware is overpriced.
  I wonder if you really can think for yourself. You just repeated things other people said before you. Without proof.
  That would make you the sheep. But it's a common problem with Android, Windows and Linux nerds. Arrogance and self-righteousness without much intelligence or thought. If I challenge you in person you guys always back down. The word is chickenshit.
3. Re:The Customer is Always Right (original meaning) by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:55 · Score: 0
  
  Exactly this. Stay with apple at your own peril. One by one other companies will drop support for them. Why support a company that only cares about themselves.
4. Re:The Customer is Always Right (original meaning) by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 15:20 · Score: 0
  
  apple doesn't give a fuck about pro users because most users aren't "pros."
  Thing is, if the "pros" can't use Macs it means that the whole installation can't use Macs. It's like having an airline that doesn't fly to LA or New York.
5. Re:The Customer is Always Right (original meaning) by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 15:37 · Score: 0
  
  Wow. Someone cant face facts.
6. Re:The Customer is Always Right (original meaning) by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:48 · Score: 0
  
  Mod up if I could. The press announcement should say 'We are dropping support for x and y because we save money by not having to support older stuff'.
  Original customers paid a helluva lot, that made the company valuable, and now they are being shit upon, and having their investment depreciated or terminated to zero. Adding salt to the would, pay even more, retrain, convert, yadda yadda. Old loyal paying customers will not be getting free upgrades - their is no upside - their strings are being pulled. Its like a car dealer saying we no longer support that engine - you are going to have to buy a new car now - but with software some can actually play that Jedi mind trick.
  A company that big - *could* add their own binaries. The product could have a compatibility flag and work from that list.
7. Re:The Customer is Always Right (original meaning) by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-31 00:16 · Score: 1
  
  Apple is attempting to cram down the throats of the users something the users don't want.
  If this is so: why do so many people still buy Apple products? Maybe Apple knows more about what the customer wants than you do.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
8. Re:The Customer is Always Right (original meaning) by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-31 04:12 · Score: 0
  
  Apple is attempting to cram down the throats of the users something the users don't want.
  If this is so: why do so many people still buy Apple products?
  The traditional /. reply is "they're stupid sheep and they don't know any better."
apple does not give a dam about the pro market! by Joe_Dragon · 2018-07-29 13:16 · Score: 0

apple does not give a dam about the pro market!
If they did you thing the Imac pro would of been not so thin with an way to clean it? or that the MB was not sold only with CPU and RAM as an repair part?
That the mac pro would of been out in 2017 or before
LLVM by JBMcB · 2018-07-29 13:23 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's why they don't use gcc anymore.
No, now they use LLVM/CLANG, which they also don't develop, though they contribute quite a bit to it's development.

--
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
1. Re:LLVM by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 13:33 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  No, now they use LLVM/CLANG, which they also don't develop, though they contribute quite a bit to it's development.
  No Apple didn't initially develop LLVM but they have contributed significantly to it as you've noted. The main reason Apple doesn't use gcc anymore is that they felt there were not getting enough support from the GNU Project. Since Objective-C has much smaller base than C or C++, many of the changes and optimizations Apple wanted for their languages wasn't being done as quickly as they wanted. I suspect also that making those kinds of changes would have broken many things for other languages. So Apple went with another compiler. Same story with WebKit.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
2. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 13:39 · Score: 0
  
  Oh right the giant buggy piece of shit used to make toy languages for fags & weirdos.
3. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 13:47 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The reason they abandoned gcc is because of the GPL. Intellisense-like features required the code parser from the compiler to be integrated into the IDE, the GPL didn't allow that without making XCode free software which Apple didn't want to do so having a modern closed-source IDE required a compatible (licensed) compiler.
4. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:12 · Score: 1
  
  The GCC community doesn't even allow this for emacs.
5. Re:LLVM by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 14:14 · Score: 1
  
  The reason they abandoned gcc is because of the GPL. Intellisense-like features required the code parser from the compiler to be integrated into the IDE, the GPL didn't allow that without making XCode free software which Apple didn't want to do so having a modern closed-source IDE required a compatible (licensed) compiler.
  Considering that until 2011 (XCode 4.1), gcc was the compiler, I find that hard to believe. Also before 4.1, XCode cost $4.99 to the general public and free for paid Apple Developers ($99 yearly). After 4.1, XCode was free to the general public. That seems to go against your narrative because Apple made XCode free after it dropped gcc.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
6. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:30 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Not yet anyway. It will eventually become part of emacs. Then ultimately rolled into systemd, along with the kernel.
7. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:36 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I thought the distinction between 'free of charge' and 'free of restriction' in the use of the term 'free software' in this context was obvious since the GPL does not stipulate that GPL-licensed software or derivative works must be free of charge. I guess that distinction was lost on you so to clarify: "...the GPL didn't allow that without making XCode free software...".
8. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 15:03 · Score: 1
  
  lolwut - it had nothing to do with gcc/clang. The reason they had to charge $5 was for revenue recognition purposes. If they were charging for Mac OS but delivering the SDK later for free they were not allowed to recognize all the revenue in the OS up front.
9. Re:LLVM by UnknowingFool · 2018-07-29 15:12 · Score: 0
  
  There are two meanings of "free software". Free software as in the open source movement and generic meaning. But perhaps you missed the part where up until 2011 and XCode 4.1, gcc was the compiler seems to counter your point that Apple didn't use gcc because of the GPL. I don't recall the GNU Project sending Apple a cease and desist.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
10. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 15:29 · Score: 1
  
  I seem to recall that while the GPL and things like intellisense were an issue the big driver for the change was the GPL3 and the additional restrictions it placed (the TIVO clause).
11. Re:LLVM by EmeraldBot · 2018-07-29 15:32 · Score: 2
  
  It didn't send it to them because Apple wasn't integrating GCC's code parser within Xcode. That's the point of what he's trying to say; Apple couldn't do so under GCC without having to potentially open up part of or all of the source code for Xcode, since the GPL requires that any GPL source integrated into another product requires that product to also comply with the GPL. LLVM's BSD license is much more permissive, so they switched away, so they could then implement their intellisense feature. He's saying if they had tried to implement the intellisense feature, then they would be in violation of the GPL.
  Although honestly, I think the technical reasons far outshadowed the legal ones. GCC is a massive and quite complex project, and it was intentionally designed to be very monolithic and hard to isolate, because RMS feared it would become a component in proprietary systems like what Apple is trying to do here. LLVM's creators had no such qualms and designed their product to be modular from the get go, so Apple could easily repurpose their existing code parser and integrate it into Xcode. In this case, the effort to switch to LLVM was less then hacking and then having to maintain a fork of GCC - to say nothing of the fact that LLVM is, in some ways, an objectively better compiler then GCC is.
  
  --
  "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
12. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:05 · Score: 0
  
  It wasn't specifically because of the GPL. The GNU project (specifically RMS) went out of their way to ensure any avenue they could think of to integrate the compiler with other software was as difficult as possible due to the "risk" of it being used in non-free software. Things like not wanting closed frontends hooked up to GPL backends, or IDEs using GCC to generate syntax trees for highlighting while running as a process server (keeping the pieces separate). The teams trying to modernise and modularise GCC were preventing from doing so effectively.
  Basically they chose the worst possible software design to make it difficult to contribute or integrate the product, rather than making it as open as possible, enjoying increased participation and relying on the license to keep things free. Since Clang came into being the GCC team has had a lot of restrictions raised so newer versions are a lot more modular and easier to work with.
  Apple got bored of the foot dragging and active attempts to prevent them doing what they wanted, so they shrugged and wrote their own open source compiler frontend effectively from scratch.
13. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:08 · Score: 0
  
  You're thinking of Java or Dalvik/ART. We're talking about LLVM.
14. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:46 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The reason they abandoned gcc is because of the GPL.
  The reason they abandoned gcc (and other GNU programs) is GPLv3, most likely because of the anti-Tivoization clause. Notice how GNU programs in OSX (if there are still any) are all very old versions, right before they switch to GPLv3.
  Apple would rather give their customers ancient software than loosen their grip on the iThings.
15. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 17:13 · Score: 1
  
  There are two meanings of "free software". Free software as in the open source movement and generic meaning.
  Yes and in the context of GPL licensing it should be pretty obvious to anybody that knows the subject that the former is the definition that is important here. Obviously not to you but now it should be clear.
  
  perhaps you missed the part where up until 2011 and XCode 4.1, gcc was the compiler seems to counter your point that Apple didn't use gcc because of the GPL.
  No. As I said they abandoned gcc (they used to use it, now they dont) because of the GPL and i gave a very specific example that the code parser would require integration of GPL code within the inherently non-free (free software, free of restriction) XCode. Seriously I don't think it's that difficult to understand if you take the time to read.
16. Re:LLVM by DontBeAMoran · 2018-07-29 17:41 · Score: 1
  
  And then that kernel will get integrated by The Turtle.
  
  --
  #DeleteFacebook
17. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 18:11 · Score: 0
  
  Considering that until 2011 (XCode 4.1), gcc was the compiler, I find that hard to believe.
  I think the issue is that they couldn't use gcc to implement intelisense, parts of its architecture is intentionally unwieldy to keep data away from proprietary software. We even had Stalman shut down an attempt to integrate gcc based refactoring in emacs, since the required API change would have allowed proprietary IDEs to use the same data. As a result of this defensiveness all IDEs, including free software ones, had to either implement their own or use some existing library that gave an awfully incomplete view of source code. With clang/llvm we finally get refactoring and intelisense in Linux IDEs that has full access to a compilers AST and with that actually understands what it is touching in a way that simple plain text search and replace never could (the "solution" RMS advocated for emacs).
18. Re: LLVM by sg_oneill · 2018-07-29 18:12 · Score: 1
  
  I'd badly call llvm ancient in the scheme of GCC. It's significantly younger in fact
  
  --
  Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
19. Re: LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 19:23 · Score: 0
  
  Thank you for being the voice of truth. The amount of stupidity asserted on these threads is mind-blowing.
20. Re: LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 19:55 · Score: 0
  
  We were actually taking about your mom. Old and used
21. Re:LLVM by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 06:40 · Score: 0
  
  No, now they use LLVM/CLANG, which they also don't develop, though they contribute quite a bit to it's development.
  No Apple didn't initially develop LLVM but they have contributed significantly to it as you've noted. The main reason Apple doesn't use gcc anymore is that they felt there were not getting enough support from the GNU Project.
  That could be part of the reason, but GCC also had a license switch to GPCv3:
  * https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/49906/why-is-freebsd-deprecating-gcc-in-favor-of-clang-llvm
22. Re:LLVM by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-30 21:29 · Score: 1
  
  There are two meanings of "free software". Free software as in the open source movement and in the "it's not free if you don't cheer when ESR eats his toenails in public" fringe.
  FTFY
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
23. Re:LLVM by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-07-30 21:33 · Score: 1
  
  Although honestly, I think the technical reasons far outshadowed the legal ones. GCC is a massive and quite complex project, and it was intentionally designed to be very monolithic and hard to isolate, because RMS feared it would become a component in proprietary systems like what Apple is trying to do here.
  
  IOW RMS turned away from the "lots of small programs" ideal of UNIX for ideological reasons. Yeah, purely technical.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
A vote of zero confidence for Apple by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 13:26 · Score: 0

Ruh roh! Apple is dying.
Time Cook should read Slashdot by Tough+Love · 2018-07-29 13:48 · Score: 1

Time Cook should start reading Slashdot, right? So coulda avoided this embarrassing mistake. Looking forward to the upcoming walkback, how can Apple PR hacks possibly spin that as anything other than ignominious capitulation?

--
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
1. Re: Time Cook should read Slashdot by mSparks43 · 2018-07-29 14:12 · Score: 2
  
  probably not.
  They refused to support java on mobile, and lost virtually all their market share in a decade.
  refusing to support vulkan just means they get shut out of the Vr wave.
  Apple isn't dying, its dead already, just gonna take a bit longer for Goldman Sachs to unwind their positions.
"It isn't clear..." by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:15 · Score: 0

" It isn't clear why Autodesk made the declaration that OpenGL's deprecation was responsible for the applications not working in Mojave."
Because they're fucking clueless idiots, that's why.
Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by rsilvergun · 2018-07-29 14:24 · Score: 1

it was the one thing they had going for them from both a high end app and game standpoint. e.g. that they used a well known library. Who's going to put the work into writing to Apple's custom library? Maybe for iPhone games, but it kind of kills the desktop.

--
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1. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 15:28 · Score: 0
  
  Because it's not a deal breaker for many people and they want to use the engineering resources elsewhere.
  Also, realistically, nobody is writing to OpenGL for state of the art applications. DirectX 12 is very popular, and Vulkan is along those lines. It's simply impossible to get that level of performance from OpenGL. Apple is never going to support DirectX 12 so OpenGL is really for legacy software.
  Unfortunately "legacy software" includes things like AutoCAD. Since Apple is so big now they don't give a fuck about the pros.
2. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:33 · Score: 0
  
  Apple flip-flops on their GPU hardware choices every 12 months making it a pain-in-the-ass to support performant OpenGL drivers. Instead they chose to put out their own (much) simpler (read: lacking in function) API, Metal, about 2 years before Vulkan got ratified - not that they would have picked Vulkan anyway.
3. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 16:50 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  OpenGL is shit and has always been shit. It has a convoluted API that was designed around configuring fixed-function 3D rasterisers and is ill-suited to programmable GPUs, multi-threading and has extremely high overhead for modern graphics pipelines from the multitude of function calls and GPU state validations.
  Metal, Vulkan, D3D12 are all very similar in the way they offer lightweight APIs that are a minimal abstraction of modern programmable GPUs and are designed to work in multi-threaded, multi-process environments.
  In my opinion as a crusty old games developer, all of the new-generation APIs are inspired by Sony/Nvidia's GCM library from the PlayStation 3, which in itself draws upon the PlayStation 2's GS & DMAC libraries.
4. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-29 16:52 · Score: 1
  
  it was the one thing they had going for them from both a high end app and game standpoint. e.g. that they used a well known library. Who's going to put the work into writing to Apple's custom library? Maybe for iPhone games, but it kind of kills the desktop.
  Considering the graphics requirements of the average videogame running on an iOS device running Metal, vs the average Desktop CAD Application, I simply don't see why it would be such an onerous task for AutoDesk to provide Metal API support. After all, they already have iOS Applications that presumably use Metal in the App Store...
5. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by guruevi · 2018-07-29 17:02 · Score: 2
  
  They're not dropping it, simply stopping further internal development. OpenGL is pretty much legacy at this point, the most used implementation is ~10 years old and Khronos has moved on to Vulkan (basically OpenGL 5).
  Khronos initially wanted money for Vulkan so Apple went off on their own and developed Metal, now Khronos is releasing their own Vulkan libraries for Mac and iOS (and made MoltenVK royalty-free, although not patent-free).
  
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6. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by willy_me · 2018-07-29 19:03 · Score: 2
  
  Khronos initially wanted money for Vulkan so Apple went off on their own and developed Metal
  Not quite. Apple created Metal a couple of years before Vulkan was first released. So Apple first released Metal in 2014 and the Khronos Group first announced Vulkan in 2015. The first release of Vulkan was in 2016.
  Who was first does not really matter. Just wanted to note that the motivation for developing Metal was to improve performance / battery life in iOS devices. It was not a vanity project driven by the need to do everything on their own. Well maybe partially, but there were no good alternatives at the time so developing Metal was their only option.
7. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by tlhIngan · 2018-07-29 20:01 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  OpenGL is shit and has always been shit. It has a convoluted API that was designed around configuring fixed-function 3D rasterisers and is ill-suited to programmable GPUs, multi-threading and has extremely high overhead for modern graphics pipelines from the multitude of function calls and GPU state validations.
  Metal, Vulkan, D3D12 are all very similar in the way they offer lightweight APIs that are a minimal abstraction of modern programmable GPUs and are designed to work in multi-threaded, multi-process environments.
  Correct. OpenGL is an antique API - if you have a modern high end video card (like a GTX 1050 or higher) OpenGL will run like crap on it - it just has too much overhead causing most of the power to go underutilized.
  The big problem is what OS X is going to use - Metal, Vulkan and the like all came out around the same time because of the issues of OpenGL One should note when Metal came out, Vulkan was actually AMD's API set - it was donated to Khronos to offer a standardized next-generation API set, and renamed to Vulkan. We are in a huge transition period where legacy apps will need to be ported over to take advantage of modern video card performance.
8. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 20:34 · Score: 0
  
  CAD needs a validated system. There is no validation for Metal, so CAD on Metal is unlikely to ever happen. Even Vulkan will be a long way off I expect.
9. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 20:40 · Score: 0
  
  PS2/PS3/PS4 has only one type of graphics card, low-level is fine, you'll throw all your code away anyway.
  Now with Vulkan you get vendor A who has a very limited implementation of feature X. So the game developers use feature Y instead. Of course, they are kind of misusing it so it's horribly slow on vendor B. But making the code vendor dependent is totally unacceptable to game developers (why the FUCK did you ask for a low-level API if you find it not acceptable to write different code for every GPU?! Are you so clueless you don't even know what low-level means?).
  And thus you end up with games that are shitty and slow when you enable Vulkan, unless you have to happen the one graphics card they developed for.
  Vulkan is likely to work out for a couple for really big engine developers, and those who don't give a shit about performance (no idea why those are using Vulkan though), for everyone else it's worse than OpenGL.
10. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 20:45 · Score: 0
  
  And yet, most games that implement both Vulkan and OpenGL run worse with Vulkan except maybe on AMD graphics cards.
  For most developers, it is simply impossible to get OpenGL level of performance from Vulkan (or DX12).
11. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by Targon · 2018-07-30 02:44 · Score: 1
  
  And yet, the world does not revolve around Apple, so depreciating OpenGL means that developers KNOW they can't count on their software working in the future. Do they spend millions of dollars to make sure their software works on a platform that may very well disappear in the not so distant future? Apple may be dropping x86 as well and switching to ARM on all devices based on some of the rumors, so would it be a good choice of where to spend money, on a platform that may be going away?
12. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 03:15 · Score: 0
  
  Because OpenGL is an unperformant crazy ass mess of an API. The way it's specified means that the driver needs to add all kinds of (usually unnecessary) locking and validation of states into every single call you make. Meanwhile, the Metal API is designed so that all the validation is done up front, and after that it's impossible to use states in a way that's not valid, and moves the burden of multithreading onto the developer, so that they can make informed choices about when they need to lock, just like they do for all other memory access.
  The result is that on a device which becomes CPU bound submitting 200-300 draw calls with OpenGL, a developer can submit 2000-3000 with Metal.
13. Re:Anyone know why Apple's dropping OpenGL by Khyber · 2018-07-30 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  "The way it's specified means that the driver needs to add all kinds of (usually unnecessary) locking and validation of states into every single call you make."
  And VALIDATION is what's so big in CAD, anti-cheating for games, etc.
  "The result is that on a device which becomes CPU bound submitting 200-300 draw calls with OpenGL, a developer can submit 2000-3000 with Metal."
  And you're clearly demonstrating that you're a horrid graphics programmer. The main cost of draw calls only applies if each call submits too little data - that's on your ass, not the API. Learn to fill your data buffers ahead of time and have them filled with an adequate amount of content. Even DirectX figured this shit out back in like version 8 (getting rid of all those context switches and such to allow for more geometry data to flow in each call.)
  
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OpenGL sucks a fat dong, same as Vulkan! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:28 · Score: 0

Thank god Apple has the balls to make a low level graphics API that isn't boilerplate hell! Thank you!
Re: apple does not give a dam about the pro market by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 14:44 · Score: 0

Well Pros do not fix their own PCs not can they wait for days for repairs.... and do not keep important stuff on desktop.
Pros just change their PC because their company pays for it and the IT Dept repairs and recycles it via a vendor.
Obviously that may not apply to freelances..... but any one working for a large company works like that.
You are not a Pro.... stop faking it.
Wtf did people think was going to happen? by reanjr · 2018-07-29 15:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

If you can't seek support from your library vendors, then it's completely understandable to drop support for the platform. This is exactly what anyone with half a mind knew was going to happen when Apple announced they were dropping support for OpenGL.
Meanwhile in MS-DOS... by DontBeAMoran · 2018-07-29 17:46 · Score: 1

... still playing games that call mode 13h.

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Re: apple does not give a dam about the pro market by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-29 20:24 · Score: 0

What kind of large company are you talking about? 3000+? Engineers still switch RAM sticks themselves because waiting for IT would take ages? Getting a replacement machine will probably take a week for IT to get it ready.
You might be thinking of small companies that actually hand afford to piss millions of dollars into the wind for no good reason. Actual large companies prefer to "safe" by having a dysfunctional IT department. Well, if they are even larger they might not have an IT department to handle that kind of thing, and then it just gets completely unpredictable what happens.
Deprecation does not mean removed by Megol · 2018-07-29 21:11 · Score: 1

But it means it is essentially an unsupported part of the system.
Apple: We will not support OpenGL in the future.
Autodesk: Then we will not support macOS in the future.
Summary is misleading by buchanmilne · 2018-07-29 21:53 · Score: 1

"Autodesk has published a support document announcing that it is stopping development of its Alias and VRED vertical market packages,"
No, this is not true, what is true is:
"Autodesk has published a support document announcing that it is stopping development of its Alias and VRED vertical market packages for macOS", or as the support document on their knowledge base says, "Discontinuation of Mac Support for Autodesk Alias and VRED".
In other words, development for other platforms that haven't deprecated OpenGL continues ...
1. Re:Summary is misleading by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 03:19 · Score: 0
  
  What's interesting about this to me is that development for platforms that never supported OpenGL continues. The only way they work on windows is because nVidia and AMD implement OpenGL for them. There's already 3rd party OpenGL implementations for macOS that implement it in terms of Metal, so why on earth wouldn't they just use those?
  Something else is up here - Autodesk had a different reason for dropping support here. Most likely these products didn't make money anyway, that, or they wanted an excuse to make a stink about their beloved shitty graphics API slowly becoming irrelevant because no one else actually wants to use it.
2. Re:Summary is misleading by exomondo · 2018-07-30 12:44 · Score: 1
  
  What's interesting about this to me is that development for platforms that never supported OpenGL continues. The only way they work on windows is because nVidia and AMD implement OpenGL for them.
  No, platform vendors don't have to support the API they just have to allow the hardware vendors to supply the API to drive that hardware. In this case the API is OpenGL and Apple actively prevents vendors from providing an API to interface with their hardware on Apple's platforms.
They have to rely on standards. So? by tepples · 2018-07-30 01:51 · Score: 1

If Apple develops it's own implementation of Vulkan, they have to rely on . . . Vulkan.
If Apple develops its own implementation of HTML, they have to rely on . . . HTML. Big whoop.
1. Re:They have to rely on standards. So? by UnknowingFool · 2018-08-08 00:35 · Score: 1
  
  In what way does Apple develop their own version of HTML?
  
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2. Re:They have to rely on standards. So? by tepples · 2018-08-08 00:56 · Score: 1
  
  Apple's implementation of HTML processing is called WebKit. It's used in the Safari web browser for macOS and iOS.
3. Re: They have to rely on standards. So? by UnknowingFool · 2018-08-08 02:40 · Score: 1
  
  That's not remotely close to developing their own graphics API or relying on a standards body for the graphics API.
  
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4. Re: They have to rely on standards. So? by tepples · 2018-08-08 02:50 · Score: 1
  
  How exactly is relying on W3C for the web API "not remotely close to [...] relying on a standards body for the graphics API"?
5. Re: They have to rely on standards. So? by UnknowingFool · 2018-08-08 04:09 · Score: 1
  
  Okay here's how: HTML is content and there is a standards body to determine how content is formatted. Another example of this is h.264 and h.265. Now Apple might have an interest in how these standards are developed but they follow the standards in their own implementation.
  Vulkan and Metal are graphics API which define not just content but processing and coding of content. For Vulkan they don't use it for the same reason they didn't adopt it from the beginning. Vulkan was years behind and Apple didn't want to wait. If Apple relies on Vulkan they have to rely on others on how their code works. For example, presumably Khronos is working on Vulkan 2.0. If Apple wants something in the new version, the group has to agree to it. What if the change helps Apple products but no others (or harms them)? Certain the group wouldn't approve such a change.
  It's the same situation Apple found themselves with OpenGL. Apple needed lower level APIs to utilize newer mobile chip features but that was never going to happen with OpenGL as they have to maintain wide compatibility.
  
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6. Re: They have to rely on standards. So? by tepples · 2018-08-08 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  Vulkan and Metal are graphics API which define not just content but processing and coding of content.
  So do JavaScript and the DOM API.
  
  If Apple wants something in the new version, the group has to agree to it.
  How isn't the same true of JavaScript and the DOM API?
I like Autodesks new "fuck you" apple policy. by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 02:26 · Score: 0

Cant wait to see other companies develop the same attitude.
How about support for Linux? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 04:38 · Score: 0

Since there is a code base for MacOS, how about a port to Linux? Never mind the .net stuff stuck to WinXX version.... just use the MacOS cordblood!
Fewer users but more paying customers by tepples · 2018-07-30 06:45 · Score: 1

[Apple users] are less than 10% of your potential user base
Though Android has a larger user base than iOS, iOS has much higher revenue per user-year than Android: an estimated 9 times as much. In some markets, this more than makes up for its smaller user base. (Sources include "iOS App Store brings in 2x more revenue than Play Store despite seeing half the downloads" by Edoardo Maggio and "Apple is pulling further ahead of Google in this one key area" by Kif Leswing.) To what extent does this association between higher-value customers and Apple products also extend to macOS vs. Windows and X11/Linux?
GPLv3, Apple, BSD, freedom by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 06:48 · Score: 0

Apple would rather give their customers ancient software than loosen their grip on the iThings.
Except that Apple isn't the only one that had to change the way they did things: FreeBSD made the switch to LLVM/clang as well.
One can hardly argue that the BSD folks are trying to restrict people's freedoms.
Can't touch type on a Touch Bar by tepples · 2018-07-30 06:53 · Score: 1

While my eyes are focused on the screen, how can I tell where my fingers are relative to the buttons on the Touch Bar? One can't touch type on a Touch Bar, despite the name.
Maintaining two views is expensive by tepples · 2018-07-30 06:57 · Score: 1

Oh, you mean like Windows has done for DECADES with DirectX?
Windows (desktop) allows OpenGL and more recently Vulkan in addition to DirectX.

Lazy Developers, that don't know how to code using a standard Model-View-Controller method, are the ones that will continue to have "porting" problems, you mean...
Maintaining both an OpenGL view and a DirectX view is expensive. So instead, developers targeting Windows and something else (where "something else" isn't Xbox) maintain only one: OpenGL. The added wrinkle here is that maintaining both an OpenGL or Vulkan view and a Metal view is also expensive.
1. Re:Maintaining two views is expensive by TheFakeTimCook · 2018-07-30 09:16 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, you mean like Windows has done for DECADES with DirectX?
  Windows (desktop) allows OpenGL and more recently Vulkan in addition to DirectX.
  
  Lazy Developers, that don't know how to code using a standard Model-View-Controller method, are the ones that will continue to have "porting" problems, you mean...
  Maintaining both an OpenGL view and a DirectX view is expensive. So instead, developers targeting Windows and something else (where "something else" isn't Xbox) maintain only one: OpenGL. The added wrinkle here is that maintaining both an OpenGL or Vulkan view and a Metal view is also expensive.
  Maintaining OpenGL across platforms is no picnic, either. Quit making excuses.
2. Re:Maintaining two views is expensive by tepples · 2018-07-30 11:40 · Score: 1
  
  Are you claiming that maintaining OpenGL across platforms or Vulkan across platforms is as hard as or harder than maintaining OpenGL and DirectX, or OpenGL and Metal, or Vulkan and DirectX, or Vulkan and Metal?
Metal: June 2014; Vulkan: February 2016 by tepples · 2018-07-30 07:03 · Score: 1

There was no business case for introducing Metal instead of going with Vulkan
Other than that when Apple released Metal, Vulkan wasn't publicly released yet.
1. Re:Metal: June 2014; Vulkan: February 2016 by Tough+Love · 2018-07-30 07:47 · Score: 1
  
  There was no business case for introducing Metal instead of going with Vulkan
  Other than that when Apple released Metal, Vulkan wasn't publicly released yet.
  But Apple was a prominent member of Kronos group and could easily have done a Vulkan alpha release, or glNext as it was called. Instead, Apple abused its Kronos membership to learn Vulkan design details and rushed out an incompatible API a few months ahead of Vulkan. How sleazy can you get! And how sweet Apple got smacked on the head by Autodesk.
  
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2. Re:Metal: June 2014; Vulkan: February 2016 by Plumpaquatsch · 2018-08-01 01:47 · Score: 1
  
  Other than that when Apple released Metal, Vulkan wasn't publicly released yet.
  But Apple was a prominent member of Kronos group and could easily have done a Vulkan alpha release, or glNext as it was called.
  
  Bullshit. Vulkan wasn't even announced as a planned product when Apple shipped Metal in developer betas of iOS, first demos of Vulkan came a year later. Heck for all we know Vulkan only exists because Apple presented an alpha of Metal to Kronos.
  Actually, looking at Wikipedia, we have "Metal has been available since June 2, 2014 on iOS devices powered by Apple A7 or later" vs. "The Khronos Group began a project to create a next generation graphics API in July 2014 with a kickoff meeting at Valve Corporation.[36] At SIGGRAPH 2014, the project was publicly announced with a call for participants."
  They didn't see an early alpha, they saw the bloody demo at WWDC, like the rest of the world. If they then tried to get Apple to make it a Kronos project we don't know, but we can be pretty certain where they even got the idea for Vulkan from, Stop pretending.
  
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3. Re:Metal: June 2014; Vulkan: February 2016 by UnknowingFool · 2018-08-08 00:24 · Score: 1
  
  But Apple was a prominent member of Kronos group and could easily have done a Vulkan alpha release, or glNext as it was called.
  
  Haven been proved totally wrong that factually Apple could not have gone with Vulkan as it was released years after Metal, now your argument is that Apple could have forced the Khronos Group which is made of many members of the graphics community into an "early release"? You do know that the Khronos Group hadn't even released the early versions until years later but Apple was capable of doing it?
  
  Instead, Apple abused its Kronos membership to learn Vulkan design details and rushed out an incompatible API a few months ahead of Vulkan. How sleazy can you get! And how sweet Apple got smacked on the head by Autodesk.
  So your accusation is Apple somehow learned of the design details and rushed out an imcompatible API "months ahead". That's ludicrous at best. I wasn't in the Khronos Group but my reading of it was that Apple learned that Khronos would take years to decide on what to do next and Apple didn't want to wait. So they made their own spec.
  
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Antitrust by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 10:23 · Score: 0

There's collusion to deprecate OpenGL from a lot of places recently.
It's one of the most hardware 'neutral' abstractions for stuff (ok, it has some idiosyncrasies and PITA bits) but it works on most platforms. I don't understand why apple are "trying" to drop it (they don't have a decent market share to dictate removal of updates/support for it) apart from a semi-glacial update pace, which, is dictated by how many companies buy into it
Though, I note a similar move is underway on PC/windows. Most odd.
Some fu*king MBA somewhere has likely figured out another way to try to make money from this, at the expense of the rest of us (techies/geeks/clued).
1. Re:Antitrust by Anonymous Coward · 2018-07-30 10:37 · Score: 0
  
  It's not a conspiracy. OpenGL is single threaded. It is very old tech from another era.