Yes, that's what I meant. Thanks for elaborating. These APIs are great for MMOs and CPU-bound games. Might not be as useful for shooters.
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OS X Deus Ex: Mankind Divided on Metal!
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Yes, that's what I meant. Thanks for elaborating. These APIs are great for MMOs and CPU-bound games. Might not be as useful for shooters.
Of course it matters. Aside from GPU drivers, games spend the vast majority of their CPU time running their own code, not calling OS functions. If the new graphics APIs require games to handle more stuff on their own that drivers used to do, guess what happens? Also, being a shooter doesn't magically change performance...detail is detail, draw calls are draw calls. The drivers and GPU don't care whether you're playing a MMO or a shooter.
--Eric
I meant, matters in terms of erasing the Windows/Mac performance gap. I don't see Metal making that magically go away. Obviously these APIs will be an improvement (eventually, DX12 with Deus Ex is worse, at least on nVidia cards. Growing pains, I guess.)
Wow guys, chill out. I'm not sure why you think I am being a troll.
I love gaming on the Mac. I game there as much as I can. But if I want the best performance for demanding titles, I stick to Windows. Luckily, this does not mean as much as it used to, as I play smaller indie games more these days anyway. Right now, I'm happily enjoying Talos Principle and Pillars of Eternity, and they're great. I'm looking forward to trying out DoW II (had it for Windows for ages, could never be bothered to restart to play it) this weekend.
My comments about Metal are just realistic. Metal is not going to magically make the Mac performance hit go away. If you think it will, prepare for disappointment. If it weren't for Metal, we probably wouldn't be getting Deus Ex at all. And it's still behind in needed features. It is possible to love Mac gaming while criticizing it and Apple.
Perhaps my mistake was posting like I was on Inside Mac Games. We're a jaded bunch when it comes to Apple over there.Also, sarcasm doesn't read well on the internet. I hate on it because I love it.
What you call being realistic comes across as just pessimistic to many of us reading your posts. Noone thinks Metal is magic. But it's new, and some of us are willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt. Certainly Aspyr, Feral, Epic, and other actual developers who work with games and code every day will be where the proof lies.
My 2 cents.
[doublepost=1475025629][/doublepost]
It's not magic. It's science.
I think we have 2 sources of comparisons between openGL and Metal on the Mac: GFXBench and WoW. In both, Metal is much faster than openGL (especially on GFXBench Manhattan). So current evidence suggests that Metal will make Deux Ex run better.
And I don't see why the complexity of a game should reduce the performance gaps between the 2 APIs. The more draw calls you have per frame, the bigger the gain, unless you are not CPU-limited.
Someone mentioned Vulkan. While it would be cool to have it, Metal is not a waste of time. At least it is well designed and "easy" to use.
See what others have to say about Vulkan/DX12 from a developper point of view.
https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/628713913094422528
https://twitter.com/Tojiro/status/628664374408839169
Since Feral are not Engine developers, porting a game to Vulkan would have been too big a task for them, possibly. Will the Linux version of the game use Vulkan? I don't think so.
EDIT: quoting a slide from a Unity Dev:
OTOH, Metal on the Mac lacks features, namely geometry shaders, but the architecture of the API and potential performance gains are nothing to sneeze at.
[doublepost=1475044828][/doublepost]I'd like to stress that while many have talked about Metal, namely Blizzard, Aspyr, Unity and Epic, Feral had remained silent. Yet they may be the first to port such a graphically intense game (not just an game engine) to Metal. Kudos to them.
And I don't see why the complexity of a game should reduce the performance gaps between the 2 APIs. The more draw calls you have per frame, the bigger the gain, unless you are not CPU-limited.
Someone mentioned Vulkan. While it would be cool to have it, Metal is not a waste of time. At least it is well designed and "easy" to use.
http://aras-p.info/blog/2015/03/13/thoughts-on-explicit-graphics-apis/
See what others have to say about Vulkan/DX12 from a developper point of view.
https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/628713913094422528
https://twitter.com/Tojiro/status/628664374408839169
Since Feral are not Engine developers, porting a game to Vulkan would have been too big a task for them, possibly. Will the Linux version of the game use Vulkan? I don't think so.
EDIT: quoting a slide from a Unity Dev:
Granted, it's about Metal on iOS not on the Mac, but clearly it shows that Apple did a good job.•Metal:
–Much less code than in GLES
–Much faster than iOS GLES
•DX12:
–Similar amount of code to DX11
–Much slower than DX11
OTOH, Metal on the Mac lacks features, namely geometry shaders, but the architecture of the API and potential performance gains are nothing to sneeze at.
[doublepost=1475044828][/doublepost]I'd like to stress that while many have talked about Metal, namely Blizzard, Aspyr, Unity and Epic, Feral had remained silent. Yet they may be the first to port such a graphically intense game (not just an game engine) to Metal. Kudos to them.
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Linux version is out November 3rd, but Mac version "is standing by until Metal is updated later this year".
I guess Sierra introduced some bugs with Metal and they're waiting for a fix before releasing. I hate delays, but at least the experience will be better from release.
I guess Sierra introduced some bugs with Metal and they're waiting for a fix before releasing. I hate delays, but at least the experience will be better from release.
It is unlikely a point release would add a feature critical for release, but not critical for beginning development.
WoW, for example, has issues with Metal on both ATI and Intel hardware, so its probable that they're also experiencing issues and waiting for a fix before alienating a huge portion of the potential audience.
Or maybe they know that Metal will get update with new features, and they will be announced on upcoming event.
And now the Linux version is out, and the mac people are still waiting. And from what they say "waiting for apple to update metal" it does sound like a long wait, like at best a couple of months but most likely next major macOS release, if at all. So what I wonder is if there is any ETA or knowledge about what Metal is lacking and if they have any kind of information from apple that this would indeed come sooner rather than later.
Feral said by the end of the year, which would have to mean the 10.12.2 release.
There's no guarantee 10.12.2 will be coming this year. Apple's release cycle for their minor updates has significantly slowed. They have only just distributed the very first beta of 10.12.2 to developers and it will probably be a few months until the final version.
For comparison: the last two 10.x.2 updates were released in late January/early February.
Last year, though, .1 was released in mid-November, not October. Apple still has plenty of time to get .2 out by Christmas.
If Feral's statement is accurate I don't see how it isn't coming next month. Apple's not going to put out a "supplemental graphics update."