[slashgear]Apple brings metal to osx

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monstercameron

Diamond Member
Feb 12, 2013
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http://www.slashgear.com/apple-brings-metal-to-os-x-08387236/
OS X El Capitan is introduced with the iOS developer feature Metal, allowing developers to get "closer to the hardware." This software element allows developers to code in a way that brings potential speed increases and battery performance as well, "up to 40 percent battery performance," has been reported by users after re-coding apps with Metal, according to Apple's Federighi. According to Epic Games, Metal is allowing developers to destroy vehicles 70-percent faster than ever before, on a Mac - onstage at WWDC 2015.

Unfortunate for fans of Metal of the Heavy variety, this upgrade in OS X is not of the musical variety. It's here for performance. It's here to make things smoother. It's hear to let developers get up close and personal with Apple hardware.

Metal offers "10x improvement in game performance" said Federighi before introducing Epic Games to the stage.
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conspiracy theory: Maybe this was why apple decided to use alot of AMD this refresh cycle?
 
T

ThatBuzzkiller

Golden Member
Nov 14, 2014
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Noctifer616 said:
Not really. Apple could make the drivers, all the need would be the architecture documentation for GCN which I think is publicly available.
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I think you would need more than just the ISA documentation ...

Plus I think AMD still keeps some trade secrets of the GCN architecture and especially their drivers ...
 
flopper

flopper

Senior member
Dec 16, 2005
739
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so PC gaming and now Mac gaming created by AMD they done a lot of things right.
 
N

Noctifer616

Senior member
Nov 5, 2013
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ThatBuzzkiller said:
I think you would need more than just the ISA documentation ...

Plus I think AMD still keeps some trade secrets of the GCN architecture and especially their drivers ...
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Valve wrote a Vulkan driver for Intel and as Apple also has coders with driver experience I don't think it would be an issue on that front.

Also I don't see AMD holding back any extra documentation they would need give them. There is also the chance AMD helped them out.

Also, isn't Metal a low level API like DX12, Mantle and Vulkan? If some, that would make coding drivers easier.
 
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ThatBuzzkiller

Golden Member
Nov 14, 2014
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Stuka87 said:
For all we know Metal for OSX is a fork of Vulcan that Apple has full control over.
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No ...

Apple has full control of Metal's specifications and standards whereas Vulkan's will likely be dictated by the Khronos Group and the Architecture Review Board ...

Metal probably won't be very vendor agnostic either since it will most likely be biased towards the PowerVR and the GCN architecture so it could potentially expose hardware capabilities exclusive to both of them ...
 
B

bystander36

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2013
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Metal offers "10x improvement in game performance" said Federighi before introducing Epic Games to the stage.
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Why must they over sell the API?
 
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S

Silverforce11

Lifer
Feb 19, 2009
10,457
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It makes a lot of sense for battery reduction as reducing CPU usage will make a big difference for gaming on MAC laptops.

Plus, OSX is gonna need something to compete with DX12.
 
sandorski

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,697
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What's most interesting about this is that it makes AMD the foundation of every major non-Phone/Tablet/Handheld Gaming device.
 
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greatnoob

Senior member
Jan 6, 2014
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RampantAndroid said:
Vulkan isn't out yet, right? Metal released in iOS8; iOS and OSX are more or less siblings.
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Vulkan, Metal and even DX12 more or less etc. are all forks of Mantle.

sandorski said:
What's most interesting about this is that it makes AMD the foundation of every major non-Phone/Tablet/Handheld Gaming device.
Click to expand...

No they are most certainly NOT the foundation "non-Phone/Tablet/Handheld Gaming device". It means AMD is the pioneer of Mantle that has laid out a foundation for Vulkan, DX12, Metal etc. Big difference.

Apple are the first to standardise Metal + Modified OpenCL OS-wide which is absolutely amazing in every aspect as a programmer since now programmers of every skill level benefit when writing their apps for Mac OSX/iOS as the 'hard' stuff is handled behind OS-level.
 
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3

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
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bystander36 said:
While that may be true, they said "gaming performance", which isn't draw calls as far as gamers are concerned.
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That's your interpretation. The draw calls "could" be there's. I'm only guessing as I know it's a metric that Mantle and the other API's, 10X the draw calls, tout. I think it's a legit metric. It's like saying a driver offers up to 60% performance increase because you've included a multi GPU profile for a game that didn't have one before. Companies do this all of the time.

All I can say is I'm happy that other OS's besides Windows are being serious about improving rendering efficiency. I model in Cinema 4D and use PS. IF they get a Metal rendering path and not Vulkan it might give me an option for dramatically improved performance that I wouldn't get otherwise. Or it might force them to update the OpenGL rendering path to Vulkan to offer similar performance for their Windows customers (Me!).
 
sandorski

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,697
6,257
126
greatnoob said:
Vulkan, Metal and even DX12 more or less etc. are all forks of Mantle.



No they are most certainly NOT the foundation "non-Phone/Tablet/Handheld Gaming device". It means AMD is the pioneer of Mantle that has laid out a foundation for Vulkan, DX12, Metal etc. Big difference.

Apple are the first to standardise Metal + Modified OpenCL OS-wide which is absolutely amazing in every aspect as a programmer since now programmers of every skill level benefit when writing their apps for Mac OSX/iOS as the 'hard' stuff is handled behind OS-level.
Click to expand...

po tate oh/po tat oh.
 
NTMBK

NTMBK

Lifer
Nov 14, 2011
10,423
5,727
136
Oh well done Apple, you were this close to easily being able to get ported games (with Vulkan supporting Windows, SteamOS and potentially OS X). Instead you shot yourselves in the foot with more proprietary bullshit. Enjoy your ports of Flappy Bird clones :rolleyes:
 
Glo.

Glo.

Diamond Member
Apr 25, 2015
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You NTMBK complain about gaming on OSX, but COMPLETELY forgot that ADOBE software will work on Metal also.

Can Adobe software work on DirectX or Vulkan?

THAT is the biggest news of Mantle on OSX. Apple simply did what they do. Adapted idea for their needs. And made it even better. Mantle will be core for system graphics, Professional content creation tools and Games.

Is that a bad idea?

Porting games on OSX will be simple cause the core for every modern API is Mantle.
 
3

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
Glo. said:
You NTMBK complain about gaming on OSX, but COMPLETELY forgot that ADOBE software will work on Metal also.

Can Adobe software work on DirectX or Vulkan?

THAT is the biggest news of Mantle on OSX. Apple simply did what they do. Adapted idea for their needs. And made it even better. Mantle will be core for system graphics, Professional content creation tools and Games.

Is that a bad idea?

Porting games on OSX will be simple cause the core for every modern API is Mantle.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they ported PvZ very easily. Probably at this point any Mantle game will be easy and in the future DX12. These API's are all very similar now.
 
NTMBK

NTMBK

Lifer
Nov 14, 2011
10,423
5,727
136
Glo. said:
You NTMBK complain about gaming on OSX, but COMPLETELY forgot that ADOBE software will work on Metal also.

Can Adobe software work on DirectX or Vulkan?

THAT is the biggest news of Mantle on OSX. Apple simply did what they do. Adapted idea for their needs. And made it even better. Mantle will be core for system graphics, Professional content creation tools and Games.

Is that a bad idea?

Porting games on OSX will be simple cause the core for every modern API is Mantle.
Click to expand...

Adobe currently runs on OpenGL... it would be easier to port to Vulkan (which uses the same GLSL shader language as OpenGL) than to port to Metal.

And Metal != Mantle, we have no confirmation of that yet... while we have confirmation that Vulkan is a direct evolution of Vulkan.
 
3

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
NTMBK said:
Adobe currently runs on OpenGL... it would be easier to port to Vulkan (which uses the same GLSL shader language as OpenGL) than to port to Metal.

And Metal != Mantle, we have no confirmation of that yet... while we have confirmation that Vulkan is a direct evolution of Vulkan.
Click to expand...

At this point in time it wouldn't be. Besides, what's wrong with controlling the API used by your OS? msft does it and nobody calls them out.
 
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