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Comment by wtallis | Hacker News Reader

The main reason is that Apple's pushing their own graphics API (Metal) rather than supporting the cross-platform Vulkan API. Apple also doesn't make any machines targeted for gaming use, and they haven't used NVidia graphics chips for quite a while and don't ship drivers for recent NVidia chips, so even Hackintosh users have trouble building a great Mac gaming system.

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TBF, Apple’s Metal was developed before Bulkan while tackling the same problem, and for the NVidia chips, the reason on the bad relationship of NVidia/Apple is mostly on NVidia, right?

It doesn't matter if Metal was first, or better.

The problem is that it's unique and different. The problem is that I (as an open source developer for a popular gaming-related project with an OSX port) can't realistically develop and support a metal backend without having to buy an expensive mac with a good modern GPU.

And with OpenGL being deprecated on Mac, with old and (sometimes) broken drivers that are missing 10 year old features, along with apple breaking things and adding new signing/notarising requirements, it's hard to justify continuing to support mac.

Same kind of thing goes for Nvidia/Apple. It doesn't matter who's fault it is for starting that feud, it's still hurting the users.

I’ve mentioned it in a sibling comment, but I’ll just copy-paste my text:

> The problem space Vulkan and Metal solves is not high level cross platform graphics (which OpenGL tries to solve), it’s low level control over the GPU. That’s the problem they’re trying to solve, it’s not about cross platform. You might ask, ‘Then why is OpenGL deprecated?’. The answer is that Apple is just deprecating it’s own support since there’s a more low level API, OpenGL should be implemented as a library on top of Metal, which (for example) libraries like MoltenGL is.

Vulkan is the vendor-independent derivative of AMD's Mantle, which pre-dates Apple's Metal. There were several proposed new 3D APIs around that time, but ISVs quickly converged around Vulkan. Apple's reticence to adopt or even permit it is worse than Microsoft's continued efforts to push Direct3D.

The team that developed Mantle got ignored by AMD management, who then left and subsequently got hired by Apple to develop Metal. Vulkan's release was held up for over a year by AMD management and red tape, which was by then already a year later than Metal's release.

None of that matters one iota.

I'm not going to spend valuable time and resources on a non-standard graphics API for a platform with anaemic graphics hardware. Instead, I'm going to target Windows and Linux with Vulkan or OpenGL. If I do support MacOS, it will be via MoltenVK, and it will be a second tier platform.

From my point of view, by dropping standard OpenGL they have turned their platform into a second-class citizen.

Then you will only target Linux.

OpenGL and Vulkan only happen to work on Windows via the ICD driver model introduced in OpenGL 1.1, which Microsoft hasn't yet bothered to remove.

Instead they aren't supporting it on UWP and Win32 sandbox model, which only allow DirectX.

Microsoft's way forward is also to build OpenGL wrappers on top of DirectX like ANGLE.

https://github.com/microsoft/angle/wiki

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/in-the-works-opencl-a...

And then there are the game consoles.

Khronos has just messed up providing SDKs that are at the same productivity level as commercial APIs.

So long as the API works, I really don't care about the implementation details.

I also don't care about Microsoft's UWP and sandboxing stuff.

They might have a desire to take the platform in that direction. But I have no obligation to follow, and if they want to retain application developers they won't be able to simply cut us off. We've always got the option of abandoning Windows entirely if they make it too inconvenient and troublesome to develop for. It's not like we don't have a precedent for abandoning MacOS X as a top tier platform for exactly those reasons.

Yes they will, Windows 10X only allows for sandboxed software.

"How Windows 10X runs UWP and Win32 apps"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztrmrIlgbIc&list=PLWZJrkeLOr...

MSIX

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/overview

> Apps that are packaged using MSIX run in a lightweight app container.

Yes, Win32 can still choose between both models in current versions, depending on Windows 10X reception, I bet it might eventually change.

Sandboxing resistant developers are always free to keep their Windows XP or 7 copy, I guess.

It's way to early for 10X to be influencing anyone's plans. It's still in the middle of transitioning from a pile of Microsoft's pipe dreams to a product that may or may not bear much resemblance to those original ideas.

Maybe, lets see.

Metal's first release was 2014, one year after Mantle in 2013. Vulkan's first release wasn't until 2016, and Mantle was proprietary.

Does it really solve the same problem? Can I run metal API on my windows or linux machines?

Also, to answer your question: no. Nvidia is in the GPU selling business. They wouldn’t mind having their high priced GPUs in high priced laptops. Apple keeps control of what hardware they sell, which dictates what software gets developed. Why would Nvidia or Apple spend resources to make software for a computer that no one is selling? It’s Apple who refuses to buy rather than Nvidia being unwilling to sell.

The problem space Vulkan and Metal solves is not high level cross platform graphics (which OpenGL tries to solve), it’s low level control over the GPU.

That’s the problem they’re trying to solve, it’s not about cross platform.

You might ask, ‘Then why is OpenGL deprecated?’. The answer is that Apple is just deprecating it’s own support since there’s a more low level API, OpenGL should be implemented on top of Metal, which (for example) MoltenGL is.

MoltenVK is an exciting prospect, but until I see games running it I will be skeptical that it exists.

Can you run direct3d on your Linux and Mac systems?

I can run OpenGL and Vulkan on my Windows system. MacOS is the only platform that has officially deprecated OpenGL support, and there is no plan for any future Vulkan support.

Windows only has support on legacy Win32 thanks to the ICD driver model. Vulkan and OpenGL aren't supported on Win32 and UWP sandboxes.

Game consoles never had OpenGL support, other than a timid attempt from Sony with GL ES 1.0 using Cg as shading language.

Technically yes: http://www.nongnu.org/wined3d/

We’re talking about Vulkan. Why are you asking about D3D?

There are Vulkan and OpenGL -> metal libraries. The original post gave windows (where the better performing native api is direct3d) As an example.

>TBF, Apple’s Metal was developed before Bulkan while tackling the same problem

The point is that Windows has an alternative to their proprietary APIs, but mac doesn't

Metal is one hurdle, Apple has a weird habit of putting many small ones up in front of you for whatever reason it gets old after awhile and the sales aren't there to justify jumping over them most mac users who want to game don't seem to have issues just buying a console either so it's not like a large group of customers isn't being reached

iOS is an exception due to it's position in the market but I've been seeing less and less interest in mobile overtime too

Since after High Sierra (Mojave I think?), Apple eliminated the ability to use non-metal drivers on macOS wholesale. Nvidia’s drivers weren’t developed in Metal and there’s zero reason for them to do so (only way to use Nvidia is intentionally either as an addon to a Mac Pro or as an eGPU, which they don’t see a large market for it) and Apple has a long history of killing off support of something on their platforms, users be damned.

> only way to use Nvidia is intentionally either as an addon to a Mac Pro or as an eGPU, which they don’t see a large market for it

Not quite. From Nvidia: "Apple fully control drivers for Mac OS. But if Apple allows, our engineers are ready and eager to help Apple deliver great drivers for Mac OS 10.14 (Mojave)...Unfortunately, Nvidia currently cannot release a driver unless it is approved by Apple." — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia#Apple/Nvidia_web_driver...

Apple is preventing Nvidia from releasing Mac Pro and eGPU driver support.

Which means if Apple allows them to use non-metal drivers. Historically, there’s little reason to think Apple would waiver (wish they would) and the value for Nvidia to write their drivers using Metal is minimal.

I’m kind of curious though: what value do their web drivers have to them now that they couldn’t just release them as OSS and allow a determined group to rewrite them as Metal.

No, you've misunderstood again.

Nvidia's eGPU web drivers already supported Metal in High Sierra [0]. Apple refuses to sign their drivers for Mojave and up. Without Apple's signature, GPU drivers will not run on macOS, OSS or not.

[0] https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/uploads/monthly_2020_03/84...

Ah, that's interesting.

I know there are some older Nvidia cards that do work on Mac, but most of the recent GTX/RTX/etc. ones don't. Are they similarly Metal (and just missing a signature)?

Because whenever I was actually keeping up with this, the stalemate was over Nvidia not leveraging Metal.

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