open GL,open CL deprecation Fnal Cut Pro Rendering EGPU

[aywa.co]

I use Final Cut X on my 2017 MacBook Pro 13 in, its my workhorse and use if for everything. I want to get into EGPU and understand that an AMD card will increase render time and performance of my Mac because of Open GL. with apple phasing this out is it worth getting an AMD card over Nvidia ?

 

[flyinmac]

If you intend to keep everything as it is, not upgrade operating systems or hardware or change software, then go with whatever boosts your productivity the most.

If you plan to stay current, then I’d pick a path that requires less hardware changes as you move forward.

Keep in mind too, that you’re current machine may lose operating system support after Mojave anyway. . Edited due to transposition of numbers (apologies to Original Poster)

So I wouldn’t spend any money counting on future support.

Also keep in mind that Apple has a history of changing direction and dropping supported API’s. So while “Metal” is the choice today, it’ll be dumped at some point and everyone will have to switch over again.

There’s a reason games don’t thrive in the Mac market. By the time they convert to Apple’s latest proprietary API’s, they find that Apple has dumped them. So a rewrite is needed.

Makes it hard to have one program that you build up and keep improving, if you have to keep yanking it’s engine out and starting over.

 

[Ritsuka]

Apple only supports AMD card in eGPU boxes right now, so unless you want to install some hacks each time, better get a AMD card.
Final Cut right now doesn't use the eGPU, so it won't change much. Probably will in the future.

Please ignore flyinmac ramble.

 

[alex00100]

Keep in mind too, that you’re current machine may lose operating system support after Mojave anyway.

So I wouldn’t spend any money counting on future support.

Wtf, he has a 2017 machine. The rest of your rumble doesn’t make much sense either. Metal will obviously be updated to metal 3 at some point which all current Macs won’t support, but what do you propose, stop all progress?


FCPX doesn’t use an egpu due to a bug, as far as I know so it should work fine after Apple fixes it. To choose an egpu I recommend going to egpu.io to find one that fits on your table and in your budget and and also one with a supported amd card.

And please ignore flyinmac, god knows what’s up with that dude.

 

[flyinmac]

Please ignore flyinmac ramble.

Wtf, he has a 2017 machine. The rest of your rumble doesn’t make much sense either. Metal will obviously be updated to metal 3 at some point which all current Macs won’t support, but what do you propose, stop all progress?

Clipped.......

And please ignore flyinmac, god knows what’s up with that dude.

Calm down...

I mixed the 13 with the 17 it happens... Some of us actually do make mistakes sometimes, and I can reverse entire sentences... Fortunately, I usually catch them.

As for the "Metal", I've been around long enough to watch more than one of these proprietary "standards" go down the drain. Whether it'll become "Metal 3" or some other entirely different technology based on an entirely different instruction set, who knows. But it will happen.

As for the 2017 machine, yes, you'll be current longer. Apologies to the OP for the mix up. Usually I catch my transpositions.

 

[alex00100]

As for the "Metal", I've been around long enough to watch more than one of these proprietary "standards" go down the drain. Whether it'll become "Metal 3" or some other entirely different technology based on an entirely different instruction set, who knows. But it will happen.

Of course and that's how it's supposed to be! Or do you propose we use DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2 forever?
Or are you just sad that apple dropped support for your 2006 Mac Pro and 2009 iMac?

 

[flyinmac]

Of course and that's how it's supposed to be! Or do you propose we use DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2 forever?
Or are you just sad that apple dropped support for your 2006 Mac Pro and 2009 iMac?

Apple’s history of developing custom proprietary API’s and telling developers that they have to move to that API and then abandoning said API after the developers switched to it, is all I’m referring to.

Carbon, Cocoa, Quartz... all faced resistance by developers as they waited to see if Apple was going to actually stick to the standard. Once developers switched, Apple changed the required API again.

Open Source API’s that remain supported by all platforms encourage developers to produce software for every platform.

Proprietary API’s from a company that changes API’s faster than larger players can port their software to a custom API set, only serves to discourage development.

 

[Ritsuka]

Cocoa and Quartz, what has changed? Still there and going strong. Carbon UI is still working after ten years since being deprecated.
OpenGL won't be removed from macOS tomorrow.

 

[alex00100]

Both of them were around for more than a decade and like Ritsuka said, are still supported. How long do you need them to last, 20 years?

 

[Ishayu]

Here's what I want to understand...

What harm, precisely, does OpenGL 1.1, 2.0, etc. actually do? They take up megabytes of space on the disk, and there are no known security risks with them. Just leave them alone?

Sure, discourage people from using it. It is out of date and doesn't have the features we expect today; but don't threaten to remove it... >_>

And by the way, OpenGL is way older than 20 years. It came out in 1992, which is 26 years ago, and it was based on a proprietary API that came out in 1980, which is 38 years ago.

 

[Ritsuka]

Each time there is a new GPU in Mac, they have to write a new / modify the OpenGL driver for that GPU.
Anyway, it's not like they will remove it next year… the whining around this topic is so overblown.
[doublepost=1528387002][/doublepost]The removal of 32bit support will kill many more games next year than OpenGL removal in 5 or more years.

 

[aywa.co]

the reason I ask is I see multiple vides posted on youtube by either 9to5mac or some other sites showing rendering improvements in FCPX due to an AMD EGPU Final Cut Pro X (FCPX) performance on MacBook Pro eGPU – Pro ....

 

[Flint Ironstag]

Apple’s history of developing custom proprietary API’s and telling developers that they have to move to that API and then abandoning said API after the developers switched to it, is all I’m referring to.

Carbon, Cocoa, Quartz... all faced resistance by developers as they waited to see if Apple was going to actually stick to the standard. Once developers switched, Apple changed the required API again.

Open Source API’s that remain supported by all platforms encourage developers to produce software for every platform.

Proprietary API’s from a company that changes API’s faster than larger players can port their software to a custom API set, only serves to discourage development.

You can definitely add OpenCL to that list. Not to mention Schiller re: MP 6,1 (This is the form factor for the next 10 years) - now it's not even officially supported for eGPU. It's a real problem.

 

[Ishayu]

Each time there is a new GPU in Mac, they have to write a new / modify the OpenGL driver for that GPU.
Anyway, it's not like they will remove it next year… the whining around this topic is so overblown.
[doublepost=1528387002][/doublepost]The removal of 32bit support will kill many more games next year than OpenGL removal in 5 or more years.

It's not that complicated, actually. Sure it's complicated, but not THAT complicated. GPU architectures take instruction streams just like CPU architectures do. Yes, newer GPU's have newer instructions, but other than that it's not that bad.

GPU's have a somewhat different history because they started out being fixed function - that is to say every single command in OpenGL and DirectX had to be mapped to a specific hardware function. New architectures added new functions, but didn't remove the old ones, hence you simply had to add code the driver - not re-write it from scratch.

Nowadays, they are no longer fixed function, which means OpenGL functions must be implemented in the native instruction set of the GPU, which is quite a bit simpler than the fixed function instruction sets, but each instruction does less and you get a lot more of them. Like before, new generations of GPU's add more instructions, but it's just a matter of writing a better compiler or translator for the driver, not rewriting every function in the driver.

To make matters even more interesting, Vulkan, DirectX 12, and Metal are all significantly simpler than OpenGL and DirectX 11 and down. Now, the game developer or the engine programmer is expected to implement the mathematics that solve the light equation themselves, which it turns out a rather large number of them are extremely good at.

The end result is drivers that are less prone to crashing, are smaller, and have less overhead.

There is no doubt that OpenGL's way of doing things is horribly outdated at this point, and in that sense it makes very good sense to deprecate it. However, A LOT of old software still needs it. We can simply implement it on top of Vulkan or Metal, which I would strongly recommend, and then we just leave it there.