Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
So Apple believe it is better to have iOS games ported to the Mac than Windows games. Makes sense the way so many of Apple's decisions do.
 
Apple is after ensuring the end user has the best experience. That means they have to be the bad guy to developers. From experience, devs don’t really like doing anything different.
It is not refusing to do things differently, but more more expensive and difficult.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dorje Sylas
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.

Absolutely, I really enjoy both, but they are very different.

There are lots of times I love to pick up and play some quick games on my iPhone/iPad. But others when I want to sit down with my HOTAS, rudder pedals, TrackIR head-tracking or Tobii 4C head-and-eye tracking. There's no comparison in the experience.
 
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.

Mobile gaming makes more revenue and that's only expected to continue. Obviously with more revenue, I would think that is where developers would want to be. With Apple bringing iOS apps to the Mac, I am sure they would prefer to use one standard. This way they can take advantage of the mobile games that exist today and give developers the tools to create more advanced games to be sold cross-platform. It certainly makes sense for Apple. I'd imagine they are okay only taking a small piece of the PC gaming market.

Global_Games_Market_2018.png
 
Launched four years ago, Metal is Apple's own 3D graphic and programming interface that combines the functions of OpenGL and OpenCL under a singular API.
So, developers have had four years to bring their apps up to date. Why is that a problem? I don't know anything about programming. But if that was my profession, I think four years would be plenty of time.
 
Overall, my testing suggests a 15-20 frame difference between Windows (DX) / Mac (Metal) on the same hardware, same game. While this might not seem like a huge difference to some, it could mean a lot to many who have Macs that don't have the latest computer hardware (which inherently are a lot of us as Apple trails behind when it comes to employing the latest hardware).

Until they get it down to a 5-10 frame difference, I'm using Windows for gaming.
 
  • Like
Reactions: xnu
It may be time for a pacific demonstration outside WWDC. Maybe Apple will change their mind or at least provide for a smooth transition that may benefit everyone.
 
I don't understand why Apple can't support OpenGL/CL and Vulkan alongside Metal.

"Support" and "Doesn't Work" are two separate concepts.

It will be up to non-apple entities to provide support, this is to say, library/software/upgrade downloads and forum/email support mechanisms provided by a third party.

A good example is Flash.
Apple definitely does not provide support, but Adobe & Google do.
Flash content will still work on a current Mac via Chrome or by a NPAPI plugin w/in Safari.
 
Last edited:
The flip side is that if are limited games, then your game will have more reach. On the PC side, there are some great games that I'll never buy because of the huge selection of very good games.
 
I don't understand why Apple can't support OpenGL/CL and Vulkan alongside Metal.

It's fine for iOS, where developers are used to doing things Apple's way and only Apple's way, but the desktop is a whole other beast.

Probably because they want developers to make the switch. If they do not pull the plug, there is no reason to change.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dysamoria
Well, it’s non Apple tech. That’s the same thing, isn’t it? Apple seems to be moving to a NIH (Not Invened Here) policy even when doing so gains neither the customer or the company any advantage.

Except that they opened CarPlay to third party maps and are opening the automatic password prompts to third party options as well. Many of their announcements yesterday made it EASIER to use non-Apple options (except this one).

I couldn't care less about the gaming aspect of this, I need to see how the huge number of scientific programs that currently can be supported on both Linux and macOS are going to continue to function. One of the key reasons many people in science related fields buy Macs is so they can run this software on a computer that natively supports programs like Office as well.

We now have a situation where Windows is adding a Linux layer as an option and Apple is removing the ability to run cross-platform compiled programs. Sounds like a losing situation for Apple...
 
This is the hint people. Apple custom chips for the Mac are coming with Mac 10.15 or 10.16. That big fat underperforming OpenGL is a bottle neck that needs to be removed for a better future.
 
Mobile gaming makes more revenue and that's only expected to continue. Obviously with more revenue, I would think that is where developers would want to be. With Apple bringing iOS apps to the Mac, I am sure they would prefer to use one standard. This way they can take advantage of the mobile games that exist today and give developers the tools to create more advanced games to be sold cross-platform. It certainly makes sense for Apple. I'd imagine they are okay only taking a small piece of the PC gaming market.

Global_Games_Market_2018.png

Mobile gaming isn't cranking out billions of dollars because they're putting high quality gaming out. They're making money off microtransactions, and there's growing backlash to these predatory money-making schemes. This market is going to crash hard soon.
 
Except that they opened CarPlay to third party maps and are opening the automatic password prompts to third party options as well. Many of their announcements yesterday made it EASIER to use non-Apple options (except this one).

I couldn't care less about the gaming aspect of this, I need to see how the huge number of scientific programs that currently can be supported on both Linux and macOS are going to continue to function. One of the key reasons many people in science related fields buy Macs is so they can run this software on a computer that natively supports programs like Office as well.

We now have a situation where Windows is adding a Linux layer as an option and Apple is removing the ability to run cross-platform compiled programs. Sounds like a losing situation for Apple...

No one cares about science programs. That's what graphing calculators are for.

The only thing that matters is pwning n00bs.
 
You ever tried running a blizzard game in metal? Starcraft is the worst of the bunch. Nearly unplayable with graphical glitches. I went back to OpenGL after seeing how bad metal was. The game devs don't support it the same.

Do you even read what you write? Where is the Apple's fault in all of this? How it is Apple's fault that "Blizzard Entertainment" has bad devs, who cannot or do not want to even make the game properly?
 
Blender is all OpenGL / OpenCL. Was going to buy an eGPU to increase Blender performance but now it looks like I should move to Linux or Windows instead. This truly sucks. :-(

There is absolutely 0 incentive to do anything 3D on MacOS. We have switched for 3D, Rendering and Compositing to Windows long time ago. Truth is if you are on comparable mid range machine MacOS would run faster but since there is no ultra-high end or hyper-high end on MacOS anyway speed difference is easier to compensate in Windows by offloading the work on multiple GPUs that matter (Nvidia) with multiple CPUs or just one prosumer CPU thats still not available inside Macs if you want great power to dollar ratio.

I don't even remember when was the last time we did video on Mac either. Windows has NLE apps now that fully support evil ProRes now so there is even one less reason to stay on Mac.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ssgbryan and Ulfric
I wonder if this is really an issue given the popularity of cross-platform tools like Unity and Unreal Engine.

From a business point of view it would be quite difficult to see the learning curve of Metal payoff since most of gaming action happens on Windows anyway...
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.