Slashdot Mirror
Autodesk Drops Support For Alias, VRED In macOS Mojave Over OpenGL Deprecation (appleinsider.com)
"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.
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.
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.
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).
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
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 !
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
Because the OS vendor has made it more expensive to support their users.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Your point is?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.'"
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
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.'"
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?
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.
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.
Well of course it's a dead standard. You can thank Nero for that. Fucking Romulan.
#DeleteFacebook
... still playing games that call mode 13h.
#DeleteFacebook
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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});
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!
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.
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.
"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 ...
"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.
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
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
"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.'"
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.
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.
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.'"
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.
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.
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.
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.'"
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!
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.'"
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!
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!
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.
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.'"
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.'"
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...
There's also DXVK, implementing DirectX 11 in Vulkan to run DX11 games on Linux. So even non-Vulkan games are using Vulkan.
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.
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
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!
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.
"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.
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.
[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?
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.
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.
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.
The good thing is it comes with a free frogurt.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
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?
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.
"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.'"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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?
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.
"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.
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.'"
https://www.macgamerhq.com/gui...
Scroll down the list.
Now, you were saying?!
Life is not for the lazy.
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.
"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.
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.
"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.
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.
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
Or, to bring this thread full circle, they could just do Vulkan and support all three OSes...
"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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.