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Mac and Metal
- Thread starter TallManNY
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It has the potential to, however only if developers are willing to take advantage of it. For many devs that are already working in the OpenGL world (where they get Linux compatibility, and Windows compatibility if they want), they're probably not going to want to re-write their graphics engines to run on Metal instead. For developers that are only invested in OpenGL for OS X (like Blizzard, who uses DirectX on Windows, OGL on OS X and no Linux support), then moving to Metal would probably prove to be a good idea so long as they can get their development team trained on the new technology.
I wonder...is Apple actually tries to kill openGL ? There were some interesting pieces of information shared in this WWDC.
1. Apple brings metal to OS X
2. Apple makes metal open source (wow!) and brings it to Linux (the other OS using openGL as its main API)
3. Makes no similar announcement concerning windows
4. Makes no announcement for extending their openGL (e.g. vulcan) although the discussion was about gaming as well
I wonder if they are planning to establish metal as the counterweight of directx, by joining forces with linux under it.
1. Apple brings metal to OS X
2. Apple makes metal open source (wow!) and brings it to Linux (the other OS using openGL as its main API)
3. Makes no similar announcement concerning windows
4. Makes no announcement for extending their openGL (e.g. vulcan) although the discussion was about gaming as well
I wonder if they are planning to establish metal as the counterweight of directx, by joining forces with linux under it.
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Where is the information stated that Metal is open source? Only Swift was announced opensource as far as I know. Also on the Metal page, there is no statement of open source.
For the programmers, what is the significance of Swift being open source if it is exclusive to OSX?
You're correct it is Swift not Metal.
You're correct it is Swift not Metal.
When it's open source, we'll be able to run Swift on Linux. This is huge for me -- as a scientist I run large data analyses on a Linux cluster, while working on a Mac.
I also run some computations on the Mac, so this announcement means I can run the same Swift code locally and on the cluster.
I'm looking forwards to trying out Metal for Mac compute performance vs OpenCL.
You're correct, my bad. I'd guess though that - although not open source - Metal will be available to anyone developing apps with Swift, as shared libs/classes (otherwise, it would be extremely limiting to develop apps for iOS on Linux without having metal). This strengthens my suspicions that apple wants to make linux also jump on the metal wagon, while they still maintain the full control of metal (they are control freaks after all
), and make a common front against directx.For sure, though, this will be a hit to android. If anyone was hesitating to develop apps for iOS because of the Mac requirement, now he will be able to do so using a free os too.
This is a smart move, yes. However, I'd like to see apple still extending their openGL support as well.
Metal for OSX is CUDA and DirectX 12 in one thing. Also, there is already thread about Metal on this forum
Oh? Did Microsoft make the DirectX 12 source code available to allow this and I missed the memo?
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I am not talking about definition of technology, but only idea of it.
CUDA - Pro apps, Direct X - Gaming. Metal can be used in both. So it is "like" Direct X and CUDA in one thing.
That is all
Fair enough. I've since read info that responds to some of my posted concerns so I'm going to cut my previous post down to size. I'd remove it altogether if you were not too quick for me!
So this means that, if Blizzard recode Diablo 3 to use metal, will it run better with the same hardware?. What do you think?
Depends how well it was coded already. It will for sure get rid of overhead and draw calls on CPU. We still have to wait, but from my perspective, there is very little evidence not to wait better performance on OSX with Metal.
How much? Time will tell... However...
Barefeats benchmarks show that at 4K in Diablo 3 AMD FirePro D700 get 53 FPS. I think on OSX 10.11 we can see 70 FPS in the same circumstances. On single card. If, finally, there will be dual GPU support, the difference will be bigger.
How much? Time will tell... However...
Barefeats benchmarks show that at 4K in Diablo 3 AMD FirePro D700 get 53 FPS. I think on OSX 10.11 we can see 70 FPS in the same circumstances. On single card. If, finally, there will be dual GPU support, the difference will be bigger.
Why talk about benchmarks on a Mac Pro when the vast majority of Mac gamers will not be playing D3 or anything else on a Mac Pro with FirePro D700 card in it never mind with CrossFire? They will be playing on MacBooks and iMacs with mobile cards and sometimes integrated chipset GPUs.
Anyway, as you said time will tell. I'm excited and looking forward to the first title I play on my iMac that utilizes Metal.
That would be goodness. I thought I read somewhere that the problem at this point was understood and significant improvement was possible already not even taking Metal into account? Am I remembering correctly do you know?
How do you know that? I would, because it would be my only machine, and apart from work I LOVE gaming. If Crossfiring would be possible on OSX the differences would be tremendous.Why talk about benchmarks on a Mac Pro when the vast majority of Mac gamers will not be playing D3 or anything else on a Mac Pro with FirePro D700 card in it never mind with CrossFire? They will be playing on MacBooks and iMacs with mobile cards and sometimes integrated chipset GPUs.
Anyway, as you said time will tell. I'm excited and looking forward to the first title I play on my iMac that utilizes Metal.
I would love to get stable 60 FPS in Overwatch in 4K resolution on a Mac Pro with El Capitan. With current solutions it would be possible only with crossfiring the GPUs from Mac Pro.
How do I know what? That the majority of Mac gamers do not play games on Mac Pros???
I was not talking about what you personally play on. I was simply pointing out that benchmarks for that hardware aren't terribly useful to the vast majority of Mac gamers is all.
It would be like telling the Windows or Linux gamers on Steam about DX 12 benchmarks on a tricked out Falcon Northwest rig. Of course it will run well but that doesn't tell the average person much about what they may have to look forward to or not.
That's all I meant about that. If you'd specified in the post you are using a Mac Pro and hoping for these results on your own system I wouldn't have made the same comment necessarily but you quoted Barefeets benchmarks so how was I to know you were talking purely about expectations for your own Mac Pro if that is what you meant?
Not a big deal but my comment still stands basically as written. However a game runs on a Mac Pro doesn't tell the majority of Mac gamers what to expect on their computers. Therefore, the information is less useful to them than similar benchmarks on comparable hardware.
Hopefully we understand each other better now. I'm not attacking you, just pointing out my own view of what is useful or not in terms of performance measurements for the general Mac gaming population. In any event, I don't see how it is possible to make FPS predictions at this time that are anything more than pure guesses really. Again, as you said yourself, we shall see how that all turns out when it all turns out.
I knew that you are not attacking me, and I also wasn't attacking you .
My post also stands as it is. Barefeats made gaming benchmarks, I was asked: will Diablo 3 recoded for Metal will run faster. So I gave my thoughts about it.
P.S. After reading quite a lot about Metal, and asking "here and there" I would make correction to my predictions. I think Diablo 3 in 4K on Radeon M290X will run way faster than Current benchmarks on Barefeats show. Like 30-35%.
On Mac Pro it will be completely different story. Second GPU with performance boost from Metal can be completely unpredictable right now.
Gosh, I wish Apple would update Mac Pro to Haswell-EP and AMD Hawaii/Grenada GPUs...
.My post also stands as it is. Barefeats made gaming benchmarks, I was asked: will Diablo 3 recoded for Metal will run faster. So I gave my thoughts about it
.P.S. After reading quite a lot about Metal, and asking "here and there" I would make correction to my predictions. I think Diablo 3 in 4K on Radeon M290X will run way faster than Current benchmarks on Barefeats show. Like 30-35%.
On Mac Pro it will be completely different story. Second GPU with performance boost from Metal can be completely unpredictable right now.
Gosh, I wish Apple would update Mac Pro to Haswell-EP and AMD Hawaii/Grenada GPUs...
Hmmm, the last I read was in the same thread you were in on Inside Mac Games, where G-News said he had emailed the developer, and was waiting on a reply. There was some thinking by some Mac users that the problem was with nVidia GPUs only, not AMD. I don't know that anyone has investigated or tested that theory.
http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=47497&st=20
Thank you. I'd forgotten about that. No further info I see. I hope that gets resolved one way or another.
Many MacBook Pros have 2 GPUs including one from intel that is quite good at compute from what I heard. It'd be nice if Metal could help to make the 2 GPUs work together in a game.Why talk about benchmarks on a Mac Pro when the vast majority of Mac gamers will not be playing D3 or anything else on a Mac Pro with FirePro D700 card in it never mind with CrossFire? They will be playing on MacBooks and iMacs with mobile cards and sometimes integrated chipset GPUs.
Anyway, as you said time will tell. I'm excited and looking forward to the first title I play on my iMac that utilizes Metal.
Why talk about benchmarks on a Mac Pro when the vast majority of Mac gamers will not be playing D3 or anything else on a Mac Pro with FirePro D700 card in it never mind with CrossFire? They will be playing on MacBooks and iMacs with mobile cards and sometimes integrated chipset GPUs.
Anyway, as you said time will tell. I'm excited and looking forward to the first title I play on my iMac that utilizes Metal.
Yep, i play Diablo 3 in my macbook 2010 with an nvidia 320m and it's very playable at lowest settings at native resolution. At the keynote the blizzard logo appeared but there isn't any official word from them. I doubt that they recode D3 but we will see...