Working towards tends to suggest that it's not actually being used at the moment, or perhaps I misunderstand?
If Apple don't want me to spend my gaming pounds on their hardware, then I'll have to go elsewhere. Not my choice, theirs.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
OS X Deus Ex: Mankind Divided on Metal!
- Thread starter imacken
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Working towards tends to suggest that it's not actually being used at the moment, or perhaps I misunderstand?
If Apple don't want me to spend my gaming pounds on their hardware, then I'll have to go elsewhere. Not my choice, theirs.
"Working towards" probably because those games are not ready for release yet. I doubt they made them OpenGL first just to port them back to Metal now...
Just wait, I'm sure we'll see those games sooner rather than later now.
https://twitter.com/hoserama99/status/846435272434696192
He mentions they're Metal related in the replies.
Ah , that twitter page won't load for me because I don't have an account. Could you let me know if his comments are dated from yesterday or today??
BO - "I'm pretty excited about 10.12.4 as a whole - lots of good fixes in there that don't make the fold, so to speak."
CC asks "...Metal?"
BO - "It's like you know me."
Was posted yesterday, as soon as 10.12.4 was released.
I understand how you feel! Mac is coming more and more into the video gaming world.
Nice. It's pretty obvious that 10.12.4 doesn't have any show-stopping bug.
Thanks for your patience everyone, our Mac publishing schedule is starting to look pretty exciting again.
We've just released F1 2016 using Metal, and on April 18 Total War: WARHAMMER will be released, also powered by Metal. We'll let you know when we have dates for the other stuff you've been looking forward to, such as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. We have some unannounced Mac games up our sleeves too...
We've just released F1 2016 using Metal, and on April 18 Total War: WARHAMMER will be released, also powered by Metal. We'll let you know when we have dates for the other stuff you've been looking forward to, such as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. We have some unannounced Mac games up our sleeves too...
I suppose it would be too much to expect one of them to be Elite Dangerous: Horizons?
Last edited:
Yes it would! Frontier do the Mac version of ED, and I believe that Metal doesn't have Compute Shaders so Horizons is unlikely to happen any time soon.I suppose it would be too much to expect one of them to be Elite Dangerous: Horizons?
Thank God for Bootcamp!
Ah.. Metal has had compute shaders from the start.
Even the latest feral announcement....
https://twitter.com/feralgames/status/852489302839881728
"Total War: WARHAMMER on Mac uses the latest in 3D rendering such as compute shaders, only possible with Metal, for highly detailed graphics."
Frontier are simply terrible at communication.
Yep, I know, but Frontier have stated that Metal's Compute Shaders is not up to the job. Horizons is still a non starter.
I thought it was a random forum member that stated that. They may be been talking about tessellation shaders at the time (metal lacked them) but not compute. Metal compute is more than up to the job.
But the situation is different with 10.12. Has been no communication since.
They needed compute shaders and tessellation together. In 2015 OpenGL and Metal only had one of each.
It would be nice to have an actual update on this now 10.12 is out.
Feral are doing just fine with compute now.
Its been a year and a half since we had an update from frontier.
Which is why there is massive discontent brewing in the Mac section of Frontier's forums.
I pointed out that Frontier's statement wasn't quite accurate with respect to Metal. My former colleagues at Frontier did investigate Metal at the time, but they had concerns that their very, very long compute shaders would be problematic on a new API and it would be a total rewrite of the graphics stack for Mac (OpenGL to Metal).I speak from experience implementing Mac Metal in UE4 that it is not a trivial undertaking. For Frontier it wouldn't have made commercial sense to invest so much more into the Mac version given the smaller number of Mac players unless they were certain it would work. The PR statement was just over simplified.
I'm not expecting them to return to Mac Horizons at this point, though I've no official confirmation - I just look at how much else Frontier is doing and think the moment has likely passed.
I'm not expecting them to return to Mac Horizons at this point, though I've no official confirmation - I just look at how much else Frontier is doing and think the moment has likely passed.
It was likely that Frontier evaluated it for 10.11 they didn't have tessellation or any other functionality that they likely need to render their planet surfaces. Regardless, as Marksatt mentioned Frontier is unlikely to invest the money to rewrite their entire Mac renderer at this point for 2-3% of their end-users. Maybe they could outsource that work to Feral or someone else. However, I'd wager all of the porting houses are behind now that it seems that OS X Metal might finally be ready for prime time (now that 10.12.4 is out) and they have a backlog of ports that were delayed due to metal bugs.
As Metal is finally getting some traction, it becomes increasing clear that the only option for Mac games will be Metal. Either use Metal or don't do games for the Mac.
It may be workable for big game engine developers or porting houses, but I wonder if we'll lose many indy games in the transition.
I believe openGL will remain at version 4.1 for a (very) long time, but it won't be removed. Just like the old Quicktime still works on Sierra.
It may be workable for big game engine developers or porting houses, but I wonder if we'll lose many indy games in the transition.
I believe openGL will remain at version 4.1 for a (very) long time, but it won't be removed. Just like the old Quicktime still works on Sierra.