Game Devs Express New Fears Over Future of Mac Gaming as Apple Deprecates OpenGL and OpenCL in macOS Mojave

[AlxM]

"particularly how it affects the future of gaming on Mac"

What future? I own 3 Mac's and one PC. That Windows 10 PC is a glorified gaming console. I rip out all of the junk from Windows 10, and install only games and Chrome on that computer. Gaming on Mac's has never been good. The quote from the developer was dead on, most dev's overlook the Mac now so this change means nothing really.

Even if it takes off with Metal you will need a iMac Pro or the coming Pro to run them like a PC and at 3-4 times the cost of a powerful gaming PC.

I think the big thing not mentioned here is that if iOS apps get ported you will have a lot of games coming over that will use Metal and probably work well on Intel GPU based Mac's.

Which is why I built a gaming PC. It’s far more powerful than a console, fun to tinker with, and at the end of the day I go back to my iMac for literally every other computing need.

If you want to game, use the right tool. PCs and consoles are built for that task.

 

[gim]

Why do some think old technology should be supported forever? At some point you have to cut it loose. If you require it, then don't upgrade. Sorry kids. This is how the world works. Even Honda doesn't support your '84 Civic with new parts like fenders anymore.

Congrats on authoring the stupidest comparison I've read on the internet all year.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

There might be a reason why no third party engine fits the bill, and writing your own in a low level API might be too expensive and suboptimal.
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OpenGL continues evolving. It provides optimization to application developers while Metal does not.

Even though they stood up on stage and talked up the Metal improvements and how they keep improving it, did you miss that part??

 

[Xavier]

Feral did a great job with the port of Rise of the Tomb Raider. On my older Mac, it ran really well (2013 iMac 27"). This is definitely a good example of a game and developer that is working well with Metal.

Yes, no longer supporting OpenGL and OpenCL could hurt developers, but the way games are typically ported to Mac won't change. Instead, it may become slightly easier with Metal. As a business, can you expect your business model to work indefinitely? A switch to Metal for Mac developers now needs to happen.

 

[critter13]

The dream of Nvidia GPUs working on macOS are evaporating each and every day.

there is a way, costs a bit more. macvidcards.com . they are about to roll out nvidia GPUs that work as eGPUs in mac os.

 

[Mirice99]

The only games Apple is interested in are ones with microtransactions which they get 30% of.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

You mean years down the road, that option is not only seeing the light of day next year, Most games on iOS are much less feature rich or immersive then games like fallout. Also consider these games are designed to run on tiny displays

Is Fallout on the Mac native or wrapped like 95% of Mac games using Wine or Crossover? Most AAA games that are Mac compatible are Linux wrapped Windows games and that process ALWAYS takes a performance hit (emulation like) and breaks some things, like Multiplayer.

 

[xnu]

I am sure it is not just games, I would imagine other programs are effected. We will hear about them in the coming days.

 

[cube]

Even though they stood up on stage and talked up the Metal improvements and how they keep improving it, did you miss that part??

I don't watch Apple keynotes anymore.

The point is that a high level API does a lot of things for you, otherwise you have to optimize that functionality yourself if not using an even higher level API.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

A reminder to some. This is not removing legacy old code or standards.
It is removing support for industry standards that allow cross platform coding.
Surely Apple and all its resources can sit OpenGL and OpenCL on top of Metal.
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Cause its going to be a baron landscape for Mac gaming when it arrives

Mac gaming is already baron.

 

[whooleytoo]

The thing is, there's a lot of software out there that is well-supported and being used on Macs right now, that uses OpenGL. A good example is Second Life.

Some developers may decide that it's not worth the effort to port their code to Metal, since Metal is only used by Apple. Thus they will just discontinue Mac support.

We are going to lose software on the Mac platform because of this.

Already lost (or "are losing") Elite Dangerous. The lack of compute shaders in OpenGL on the Mac meant it hasn't received the major updates as the PC version, and since OpenGL has been a dead-library-walking for a while, it was only a matter of time.

Apple really aren't making it easy for Mac game developers. They won't support the cross-platform library, meaning more effort required in porting to the (small) Mac market. Very little focus or marketing from Apple on games, so it's all on the developers. No Macs with upgradable GPUs, and generally low to mid-range mobile GPUs built-in (so framerate and/or graphical quality suffer against the PC versions).

 

[asiga]

It’s certainly time to move to another OS for development of scientific and professional graphics apps. I believed my next MacBook could be my last Mac, due to the changes in Apple these years, but now I question whether I’ll be getting that new MacBook at all. As a cross-platform developer, I think it’s obvious that supporting my graphics and scientific apps on the Mac won’t be reasonable a couple of years from now. This means one platform less to support, concentrating my efforts on Linux and Windows which do support established graphics standards (and CUDA, which although not a standard, is widespread in GPGPU research, and a must if you want to test GPU code from others).

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Metal is so much better than OpenGL for Mac gaming this is a good thing. Mac gaming is already an afterthought but knowing that those companies who do support it will support it in the best manner possible is good for users. I don't buy into the idea that it will evaporate completely.

 

[cube]

Metal is so much better than OpenGL for Mac gaming this is a good thing. Mac gaming is already an afterthought but knowing that those companies who do support it will support it in the best manner possible is good for users. I don't buy into the idea that it will evaporate completely.

Metal CAN be better.

 

[lockhartt]

So, to me, the whole debate whether gaming on the Mac matters or not; and whether bringing iOS games to the Mac is important or not, is irrelevant to me. What's really disturbing here is that we're losing support for open standards.

Historically, when the Mac has eschewed legacy technologies, it has done so in a way that embraced newer, more advanced - but open - standards. Think iMac here... no floppy + all USB ports.

It wasn't until the iOS platform evolved that the approach changed. First, we had the proprietary dock connector cable. Then, we moved to proprietary Lightning port. Then we abandoned the headphone jack (which I really don't have a large problem with, as that transition was handled fairly gracefully and it really does embrace the newer, more advanced approach of bluetooth audio... others would disagree).

I generally call BS on the "walled garden" argument, but the move to excise open and still-valid graphics standards from mac OS is definitely a step in that direction.

It reminds me of the big-endian/little-endian days, when vendors had to custom make graphics cards for the Mac. It wasn't a good thing for anybody. The Mac was stuck with fewer options that often didn't perform as well as their PC counterparts (or, at least, didn't keep pace or extend to the same level of performance options), but definitely cost more.

It also reminds me of when Apple suddenly decided to pull Objective C support out of WebObjects, while continuing to claim it was the fundamental coding language for the Mac. Needless to say, WebObjects became effectively irrelevant after that.

Tim, if you're listening; I'm not sure who's idea this is, but it's stupid. This is just another step toward the death of the Mac. Maybe that's the point, but I for one don't like it.

That's my $0.02 for the day.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

I don't watch Apple keynotes anymore.

The point is that a high level API does a lot of things for you, otherwise you have to optimize that functionality yourself if not using an even higher level API.

Thanks for making my point

 

[decafjava]

This list is a year old, but some of the more popular games have already moved to Metal.

https://www.macgamerhq.com/guides/macos-metal-games/

Surprisingly good list.

Not sure if they support Metal or what but X-plane and Cold Waters are two very good games availbe on Mac.

 

[panjandrum]

It's interesting that Apple, with all their $$$, can't seem to hire programmers skilled enough implement new advanced software features while still supporting both older software and hardware. Maybe they should start headhunting Microsoft programmers. Somehow those wizards at Microsoft have managed to implement all kinds of amazing new technologies while simultaneously continuing to provide access to older technologies and allowing older hardware to run a modern OS (known as Window 10) with whichever of these underlying advanced technologies said piece of hardware supports. Windows 10 can even be installed natively, and run quite well, on Macintosh hardware that Apple's programmers haven't been able to figure out how to support since Snow Leopard, which is something like 7 entire operating systems out of date at this point! It's got to be really embarrassing to be a programmer at Apple right now, or part of HR for that matter, since both departments are obviously incapable of doing the job their primary competitor does exceedingly well....

 

[Jack Burton]

Thoughts and musings gathered from others on Cgtalk, which is centered on pro apps, not games.

First the devs:

From a couple of people who work for Maxon, makers of Cinema 4d:

if apple droped suport for opengl and opencl tomorrow the yes it would be a problem. but we have a very good working relationship with apple and everything will be fine.
apple users already have the option to use prorender using metal if they so wish

It will make it harder for us to maintain feature parity between OS X and Windows, but other than that, what the the guy above me said.

The the pro users:

Marmoset Toolbag already switched to Metal for their real time engine, and Otoy, the makers of Octane, are porting Octane to metal. According to Otoy, performance on nVidia hardware on Macs under metal or Cuda is basically the same. The upside being someone like me can just buy a supported AMD GPU and not worry about installing scripts and getting into the terminal to work with an Nvidia card on an eGPU.

It's frustrating, sure. But under metal, I'm getting more options on the Mac than I had before.

This is not that big a deal, and the writing has been on the wall for a while. Unfortunately, Apple has not updated their OpenGL implementation for years, and OpenCL never really took off.

Now they've made it official, and these APIs are deprecated. This does not mean dropped: they will continue to exist in the OS for a while (two more versions, probably), but they will only receive security or bug fix updates.

Most developers who have made the shift to working with Metal prefer it to OpenGL: it is easier to develop for, faster, and compares well to Vulkan and D3D12 in terms of features.

I can see that many would be frustrated by this, but their play with Metal is much bigger than just a 3D API: they are implementing their machine learning tools as Metal shaders, and this is opening up whole new simplified approaches to employing AI and machine learning for developers. Metal becomes the gateway to a whole array of ways to leverage the GPU. As already mentioned, OTOY is implementing Octane on top of Metal.

This announcement has no implication for CUDA, and CUDA will continue on MacOS for as long as NVidia supports it. Vulkan is available on MacOS (and iOS) via the MoltenVK, and outperforms OpenGL. MoltenVK is built on Metal. DirectX is of course, proprietary to Windows.

Well, they dropped flash which was proprietary for html5 which was open.

Here it's the other way around, they're dropping the open standard, despite being officialy listed as a promoter of Khronos group.

I can see why PC game developers porting to Mac are going to have a problem. But this will bring iOS game developers to the Mac. Now, that may not be what people want, and I understand that frustration.

Not that I care about Mac gaming at all. I have game systems for gaming and a Mac for work.

 

[Applebot1]

Gaming and Mac never have been a good match. If your primary use is gaming then save your hard earn cash and look else where.

 

[CWallace]

It's interesting that Apple, with all their $$$, can't seem to hire programmers skilled enough implement new advanced software features while still supporting both older software and hardware.

It is not a case of "can't", but a case of "won't".

Maybe they should start headhunting Microsoft programmers. Somehow those wizards at Microsoft have managed to implement all kinds of amazing new technologies while simultaneously continuing to provide access to older technologies and allowing older hardware to run a modern OS (known as Window 10) with whichever of these underlying advanced technologies said piece of hardware supports.

That infinite backwards compatibility was a major reason Windows was a bit of a basket-case OS. Windows 10 in fact deprecated a not insignificant amount of that support which is why it shows much better stability and performance than previous editions.

 

[bladerunner2000]

Yay because I want to play mobile games on a desktop.... Seriously what kind of mindset is that??

Apple mindset, lol. This is such a joke;

1. First they give us barely any games
2. Then they give us lousy ported games that run like ass
3. Then give us outdated GPUs from years ago to run crappy ported games
4. Then they give us mobile grade GPUs in desktops
5. NOW they want to give us mobile games AND abandon OpenGL

It's amazing how Apple consumers don't realize they're being fleeced and if they do, they just take it. You can't have much sympathy for mac consumers.

 

[redheeler]

You guys are forgetting that Apple is creating a unified program for developing apps on the iOS and macOS. There are many metal games on the iOS that can now easily come over to the Mac.

You've just got to abandon the old school way of thinking how Mac games are made.

Apple doesn't have to deprecate OpenGL to bring iOS games to the Mac. Deprecating OpenGL only makes it harder for developers to port their games from non-Apple platforms over to the Mac.

I definitely want to see more games on the Mac than what is available on iOS. Sure there are a certain amount of good games on iOS, but a large percentage of iOS games are freemium junk.

I only use AD blockers of which there are plenty for Safari. I will gladly take Safari with a lack of extensions over Chrome and its lack of any kind of privacy, 8 days a week.

I also prefer Safari over Chrome for day-to-day browsing, but I don't want to see MacOS become Safari-only until Apple makes it easier to develop third-party extensions. They're not offering any incentive to third-party extension developers, and aside from adblockers there aren't a lot of extensions available.

 

[Winter Charm]

When have Macs EVER been good for gaming?

Remember Marathon?

IE: Halo 1 *before* microsoft stole it.

 

[Toutou]

Metal is more optimized for Mac. The Mac is supporting too many old libraries.The future needs optimization. Anything not optimized can run the Mac experience down. Even now , look at the garbage of Chrome. Apple should make macOS Safari only as well.

You sound like a person who doesn't really know what they're talking about. Especially the word "optimization".