Unreal Engine Gains Early Access Support for Developing VR Content in macOS High Sierra [Updated]

[MacRumors]

At its 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced Metal 2, the next-iteration of its graphics API for iOS, tvOS, and macOS. Metal 2 includes support for VR content creation for the first time, and when Metal 2 was highlighted at the event, Apple said Valve, Unity, and Unreal would bring their VR tools to the Mac.

Epic Games is making good on Apple's promise, and has announced that it is releasing early access support for developing for virtual reality on Mac platforms through the Unreal Engine Github.

At WWDC, Industrial Light & Magic Chief Creative Officer John Knoll took the stage to demo the Unreal Editor running live in VR mode on one of Apple's newly announced iMacs.

Going forward, Epic Games plans to add full support for VR development on macOS in an upcoming release. Mac VR support, along with general Metal 2 support and Mac optimizations, will ship in Unreal Engine 4.18, with previews coming in September and a full release coming in early October.

Valve started offering a SteamVR for macOS beta back on June 5, as did Unity.

Update: According to Epic Games, early access support will actually be available starting tomorrow morning.

Article Link: Unreal Engine Gains Early Access Support for Developing VR Content in macOS High Sierra [Updated]

 

[pat500000]

Wonder what oculus gotta say about mac now......"ooh requirement no gooooooodddd."

 

[mistafro]

#thisisawesome

 

[ILikeAllOS]

Wonder what oculus gotta say about mac now......"ooh requirement no gooooooodddd."

I think Apple should find a way to block the rift from working with Macs just to spite oculus.
That would be a nice punishment for biting the hand that feeds.

But either way, partnering with Valve is much better for Apple anyway, so no skin off Apples nose!

 

[Merode]

Wonder what oculus gotta say about mac now......"ooh requirement no gooooooodddd."

Probably something along the lines: "finally, welcome to 2015 Apple". Ever wondered why Unreal didn't support VR earlier on Mac? Might be because Radeon Pro 580 is first ever GPU in any Mac to meet minimum requirements for VR (and it actually barely meets them).

Oculus will follow, trust me.

 

[pat500000]

Probably something along the lines: "finally, welcome to 2015 Apple". Ever wondered why Unreal didn't support VR earlier on Mac? Might be because Radeon Pro 580 is first ever GPU in any Mac to meet minimum requirements for VR (and it actually barely meets them).

Oculus will follow, trust me.

I know. I just like to see oculus ceo's face with humility....heh
[doublepost=1497999398][/doublepost]

I think Apple should find a way to block the rift from working with Macs just to spite oculus.
That would be a nice punishment for biting the hand that feeds.

But either way, partnering with Valve is much better for Apple anyway, so no skin off Apples nose!

Lol i think so think too. Valve might be better.

 

[bladerunner2000]

Wonder what oculus gotta say about mac now......"ooh requirement no gooooooodddd."

If Apple keeps packing in mobile GPUs into desktops, his point will still stand.

 

[4RUNRCLB]

I can't wait for a full blown Star Wars game in VR. I think I would probably get lost in a game like that forever if done correctly. Heck even the new battlefront II coming out would be amazing on a headset. #lightsabers

 

[HalfNelson]

Valve...VR Portal, please and thank you.

 

[JordanNZ]

If Apple keeps packing in mobile GPUs into desktops, his point will still stand.

The new iMacs aren't using mobile GPUs. the 580 pro supports VR.

 

[Avieshek]

'm not worried with the iMac Pro that has HBM 2 for graphics (instead of DDR5) but the MacBooks, where this is a more real representative in the real world.

 

[sudo1996]

I think Apple should find a way to block the rift from working with Macs just to spite oculus.

Well, they did this a long time ago. They took forever to update OpenGL, and of course OS X didn't support DirectX, so they had no good options. But I haven't bothered checking whether High Sierra will change this.
[doublepost=1498038976][/doublepost]

If Apple keeps packing in mobile GPUs into desktops, his point will still stand.

The new iMacs do meet their recommended specs. Their GPUs are smaller than Nvidia's but aren't considered mobile. Also, there are plenty of VR systems that work fine with much weaker GPUs, so I don't know why their requirements are even that high.
[doublepost=1498039841][/doublepost]

Probably something along the lines: "finally, welcome to 2015 Apple".

Meanwhile, plenty of game devs are stuck in 2005 with 32-bit single-platform software because everything they do is a hack in comparison to Apple and Valve. Apple's been approaching this like they approach most things (except the effing dongles), very carefully. And Valve has been doing a great job of making their games optimized and multi-platform. I'm sick of Microsoft and pals making a mess of this ecosystem, and for once, I feel there's a great chance of Apple taking some of the gaming market.

This is not to justify Apple's lack of support for putting, say, a GTX 1080 into a Mac. You still have to use a pre-2013 Mac Pro for that, which is ridiculous. So, yeah, big middle finger to Tim Cook for that.

 

[blackcrayon]

This is not to justify Apple's lack of support for putting, say, a GTX 1080 into a Mac. You still have to use a pre-2013 Mac Pro for that, which is ridiculous. So, yeah, big middle finger to Tim Cook for that.

But they are finally embracing Thunderbolt 3 eGPUs- even though it will take a little while longer for it to be official. That's going to be the primary way people use GTX 1080s and such in Macs moving forward, since there's probably no way the forthcoming Mac Pro is going to make up the majority of sales (it's not gonna be cheap). And according to first impressions it sounds like it works quite well for VR (and people have been doing it with PC laptops for a while now as well).

 

[smirking]

Valve...VR Portal, please and thank you.

Uggghhh, that better come with free motion sickness bags. I remember getting so nauseous playing that game that I couldn't do anything but lie down for a couple of hours after playing.

 

[sudo1996]

But they are finally embracing Thunderbolt 3 eGPUs- even though it will take a little while longer for it to be official. That's going to be the primary way people use GTX 1080s and such in Macs moving forward, since there's probably no way the forthcoming Mac Pro is going to make up the majority of sales (it's not gonna be cheap). And according to first impressions it sounds like it works quite well for VR (and people have been doing it with PC laptops for a while now as well).

Yeah, I'm really excited because I feel that GPUs have always been the bottlenecks on Macs just for daily usage. Like, macOS itself lags if I'm driving an external monitor with my laptop. And the few times I play games, I'd like them to be fast.

I wonder if Apple or someone is going to finally fix how sketchy it is to use a GPU. Like, there's not even a standard "top"-like utility for GPU tasks, and most users can't tell whether programs are taking advantage of the GPU. And drivers, OpenGL support, etc. are all over the place. I gave up trying to use TensorFlow with the GPU...

 

[melendezest]

I have 2 things to say about this vid:

1. This looks AWESOME. I'll soon be experiencing my childhood fantasies as close to real life as possible.

2. The female VR presenter is totally my type. Nice and soft and round. Nice to see.

 

[huperniketes]

I think Apple should find a way to block the rift from working with Macs just to spite oculus.
That would be a nice punishment for biting the hand that feeds.

But either way, partnering with Valve is much better for Apple anyway, so no skin off Apples nose!

Right, right. Business success is assured when you let objective 3rd party criticism of your platform's shortcomings drive your strategy. Spend those engineering and marketing resources to advance and tout your proprietary graphics technologies and try to convince developers to write apps for it. Except for the critical 3rd party developer, with the most sophisticated VR headset. That's genius.

You'd actually be doing Oculus a favor, preventing their hardware from supporting your proprietary platform; unusable anywhere but on your machines, numbering less than 1/10th the market they're already serving. Why spend as much supporting a platform with a tiny share of the market? There's no volume to make it up.

Anyhow, Unreal Engine 4 already supports the Oculus Rift. Do you want to antagonize Epic Games too by crippling their potential markets too?

 

[Sophie.]

My worry is that even if Apple keep improving Metal, and even include better GPUs; they still have the stumbling block of having an API that devs have to support specifically for the Apple platform. We'll probably remain in a situation where developers won't want to produce games for OS X because it means extra resources with not enough of a return on cost for them to bother. I'm guessing Metal will mainly be relevant for production software which does have a sizeable user base.

 

[huperniketes]

My worry is that even if Apple keep improving Metal, and even include better GPUs; they still have the stumbling block of having an API that devs have to support specifically for the Apple platform. We'll probably remain in a situation where developers won't want to produce games for OS X because it means extra resources with not enough of a return on cost for them to bother. I'm guessing Metal will mainly be relevant for production software which does have a sizeable user base.

Either new macOS (or iOS) software, or an existing product where the expected performance gains are worth the development cost.

Or, the usual case: a developer rewrites the code in order to play with the shiny new API.