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Game Devs Express New Fears Over Future of Mac Gaming as Apple Deprecates OpenGL and OpenCL in macOS Mojave
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Just another set back...
If you asked Microsoft that same question, they would say the same but they would provide backward compatibility for it for longer than Apple ever could.
Apple just wants everyone to use *their* technology. and no one else. Although they limits to others, they are also swift at breaking it as well..
What could/will be the effect of this for the future of photo/video editing on a Mac? (I don't know)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OpenGL_programs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OpenCL_applications
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OpenGL_programs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OpenCL_applications
Reminds me of when Apple dropped Flash and pretty much helped put the nail in the coffin. I had just finished learning to program in Flash too. lolIt's not old technology, it's a currently used open standard.
If Apple stopped supporting HTML, would you claim that's old tech too?
In all fairness, if they didn't care about gaming, they wouldn't be advocating Metal and eGPUs.
They don't care about GAMING. They DO care about graphics intensive apps like Science, Design, and Engineering...
Mac Pros (were) heavily used in audio/video production for example. Getting a Mac Pro for gaming wouldn't be practical.
DX12 won't be "popular", it will just be "ubiquitous" over time. But it still doesn't mean Microsoft is dropping OpenGL support as fallback option. In fact OpenGL fall-back is still the answer to supporting Windows XP (yes there are still people using that OS), and some lower end Windows 7 (upgrade from XP) boxes.
Metal will not be "ubiquitous", and if you aren't developing to iOS (which I'm not and have no intention to) nothing else uses it. Unlike Vulkan/OpenGL. There is a reason many mid-tier indie games are coming to Switch recently, instead of getting an iOS version out.
iOS is what, the 2nd largest gaming platform (by install base and probably the largest based on revenue) on the planet?
Game developers have already made the transition to Metal with/without a cross platform 'solution'.
Game developers have already made the transition to Metal with/without a cross platform 'solution'.
If DX12 becomes ubiquitous it will be because of many devs using game engines, not doing heavy programming against this API.
That's not all it's for though.... I don't think the focus was on gaming, that's just how most see it..
OpenGL can be used for applications as well and Metal can be the same, so think its wrong to say its only used for games since that's what most people develop it for. Mostly video
I agree. I have always considered Macs as productivity machines, not gaming machines - although some casual gaming on them is ok. This year I built a gaming PC and entrenched the idea that you need separate computers for productivity vs. gaming right down to different monitors, keyboards and mice ideally.
Macs aren't built for gaming, but paying 2399$ ++ (Macbook Pro) for a computer that won't run at least a few decent games just isn't worth it. I do have a gaming desktop (Windows, but would prefer Linux if it had more games) but there are times when I want to game on the go. And the computer I usually take with me on the go is a Mac, since I prefer macOs for everything not gaming related. It isn't always an option to carry a desktop or Windows gaming laptop around.
My first Mac was the Power Mac 6500 Creative Studio, maybe released a year later? Whilst it was speedy and relatively expensive, the gaming library was niche - Marathon and Myst II were personal favourites. For the same price you could get a full blown 3Dfx PC which was much better suited to gaming. It wasn’t until the iMac was released did the Mac start getting games that were from different studios and have a more respectable library.
Man... after all that security in Safari buttered me up yesterday, I feel totally let down today. On a side note, I believe Microsoft once dumped OpenGL to push along DX and that didn't last very long... and I'll probably install Windows anyhow for games, it's just better at it.
Apple banned Steam Link, now this. No surprise. Apple wants everyone on their ecosystem. I would say that this is the beginning of the end for serious gaming on the Mac, but Mac was never a serious gaming platform anyway. We used to get serious games for Mac, though they tended to come after the PC versions. Now, some games will be ported to iOS (Civ VI and Xcom are two that have been done already), and so we may get a Mac OS version ported from the iOS versions. That's realistically the extent of game porting we'll see on the Mac in the future.
Honestly, it might actually get us more games on Mac, so long as the developers take the time to port from iOS to Mac OS. iOS is a much larger market than Mac OS, and we are starting to get popular games on iOS, including titles like Fortnite.
Honestly, it might actually get us more games on Mac, so long as the developers take the time to port from iOS to Mac OS. iOS is a much larger market than Mac OS, and we are starting to get popular games on iOS, including titles like Fortnite.
You're missing the point. It's not about being "old technology"--it's the convenience of it. In the past, devs have been able to compile for both Mac and PC easily due to the old solution being cross-platform and open source. The fact now that they can't do that anymore is causing a lot of game devs to stop and question whether the extra time needed to compile a game for Mac is worth it.
Yes, that’s exactly my point: Supporting Metal as the only officially available API for graphics and GPGPU means the purpose of the new Mac Pro would be only iOS gaming or iOS development. No research team is going to invest $10000 in a machine that has no OpenGL, no OpenCL, no CUDA, and no Vulkan. Such a machine will have no use for scientific/pro/research development. It will excel at playing the iOS Angry Birds, though.
No it's not. Mobile gaming is the future of mobile gaming. That has very little to do with the topic being discussed here. There's not much crossover with PC/Mac gaming and mobile gaming. One focuses on quick hit, sitting on the toilet games and the other focuses on in depth time consuming play. There's really no worry of one taking over the other.
I'm sure that's part of it, but given the fact that the majority of their income comes from consumer-based products (not pro) I think it would be logical to say that they want to bring better mainstream gaming to the Mac to appeal to the masses.
Apple abandoned OpenGL a long time ago, this is just them making it official.
.. but what I'm saying is that there are other big industries that DON'T need OpenGL (such as video and music production).
