Apple Deprecates OpenGL & OpenCL

[Sniperfox47]

I think that both Apple and Qualcomm are bigger than Intel in terms of unit sales. Mediatek maybe too, but I am not fully sure. That would make Qualcomm the biggest OpenCL vendor, and Adreno supports OpenCL 2.0 since A5x series.

Not to mention the original poster's post isn't even true at all. AMD offer an OpenCL 2.0 driver for Windows and Linux xD

https://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-art...L2-Driver.aspx

[grok]

Afaik Windows S was "jailbroken" within days of the alpha leaking, and in general it's a pretty shitty idea to begin with.
Imho it's either going to languish and die as people stay they fuck away from such crippled devices (think of the Microsoft Surface debacle with Windows RT or something), or be jaibroken and run normal windows applications, or both.

Or Microsoft themselves offers an upgrade from S to Pro, except this seems "free" on their high end products but not free at all on third party low end laptops.

Maybe the problem is they want the dumbed down users, those who will only run Edge and the default software etc. Small problem with that : these users tend to never install any software at all on a PC. Hence the store, and crap in the start menu : seriously there's a picture of Mickey Mouse in there, an ad for some other kiddy game, an ad for some war game.
Fine but for a user who never installs anything on their PC, it's still more complicated to use an online-account and download things than to do nothing at all and click on Edge to run Edge, on Word to run Word, etc.

So, it might be all for nothing.
That or they'll try to win by attrition : won't fool millions of existing PC users, but will ensnare first time PC users who have Windows 10 as their first desktop operating systems. That'll be tens of millions, then hundreds of millions people possibly.

[grok]

Deprecated could also mean they just won't update their OpenGL : no OpenGL 4.6, or future versions like 4.7 or 5.0 if these ever come out.

If MacOS is not too locked down I don't think it's a huge issue for "old" games. Someone will probably make MESA run on top of Metal. At worst it might be stuck on OpenGL 2.x support, then 3.x, etc., but that will run quite a few games. Or will compatibility go to crap and you'll have to run Windows versions on wine?

[starshipeleven]

You realize deprecated APIs on OS X hang around from 3-5 years. By that time frame people will be fully entrenched with using Metal and Vulkan will have replaced OpenGL in all but legacy pro apps that refuse to invest in platform specific drawing apis.

You realize he is talking about games and not "pro apps" right?

[Marc Driftmeyer]

Congratulations to everybody who bought games for the Mac then. All these will become worthless when they go through with removing OpenGL.

You realize deprecated APIs on OS X hang around from 3-5 years. By that time frame people will be fully entrenched with using Metal and Vulkan will have replaced OpenGL in all but legacy pro apps that refuse to invest in platform specific drawing apis.

[starshipeleven]

However, it stands to reason that the people who will purchase a PC that comes with Windows S Edition or whatever it is called will want to play games from time to time as well. That number will be small in direct comparison to other Windows versions but very large when compared with Linux or Mac gaming. That is a potential reason for developers to choose DX.

Afaik Windows S was "jailbroken" within days of the alpha leaking, and in general it's a pretty shitty idea to begin with.
Imho it's either going to languish and die as people stay they fuck away from such crippled devices (think of the Microsoft Surface debacle with Windows RT or something), or be jaibroken and run normal windows applications, or both.

[GruenSein]

... (insert long rant here) ...

Please work on your manners, man. Your over the top know it all attitude is downright painful to read. That being said, when boiling down your rant, our views aren't even that far apart. I totally agree that Windows is the most important platform for gaming. Unlike you, I am simply not convinced that Windows focused developers will overwhelmingly choose Vulkan over DX in the future. Overwatch for example - one of the most popular games atm - runs on DX only (And PS4, I think).
I am totally aware that most people don't buy games from the Windows Store. However, it stands to reason that the people who will purchase a PC that comes with Windows S Edition or whatever it is called will want to play games from time to time as well. That number will be small in direct comparison to other Windows versions but very large when compared with Linux or Mac gaming. That is a potential reason for developers to choose DX.
Another reason that neither of us can judge is how good developer tools are for either API. As seen with Nvidia GameWorks etc., developers tend to choose whatever gives them quick results. Cross-platform compatibility is an afterthought, as you correctly said. The PS4 is of no relevance in this context, since it requires a proprietary API anyway. This is why I called XBox support a bonus you get from DX.

The reason, I bring up mobile gaming lies in the fact, that many developers use off the shelf engines. Since Unity, Unreal etc. already support Metal for the mobile platforms, it is not such a big leap to make it work on the Desktop as well. Additionally, Blizzard is one example of a company already supporting Metal even without using one of those engines. And while the pure number of devices is smaller than the number running Android (Didn't check, I'll believe your figures for now) the revenues are an entirely different and arguably more important figure. Current projections for the future see iOS still bringing in more money than the entire Android market.

It all comes down to the question if Windows development will end up prefering Vulkan or not. If so.. Well, great. If not, any cross platform support will require an additional API to be supported. In that case, developers will focus on revenue heavy platforms.

[Luke_Wolf]

No need for the condescending tone but hey.. This is what happens on Linux boards, I guess. I hope, your crystal ball was clean when making such predictions.

My crystal ball has been pretty damn accurate including guessing the shift to compat profiles for Radeon when everyone else was officially saying no. That said let me make it explicitly clear I'm not betting on the Playstation 5 rumor, simply saying it's there, and it would make sense.

While Metal is no competition for any API used on Windows since it will never be available there, DX and Vulkan are definitely competing there and the outcome of that will have consequences on how developers think about cross-platform support.

Oh DX12 and Vulkan are competing alright, but don't count on a Vulkan win suddenly causing an increase in games additionally targeting Linux or Mac. Unless you're an indie developer the roadblocks are as much corporate as they are technical. For example consider Id. In spite of making the whole point of using OpenGL and now with Doom, Vulkan when nobody else was doing so they simply don't care about Linux, and their historical support was all of one guy in his free time. There's no technical reason Doom shouldn't be running on Linux, it's just corporate.

AFAIK all Windows Store apps are bound to DX. With MS now offering a version that only works with such apps, the future development in this regard is very uncertain.

You're not a gamer are you? Nobody cares about the Windows Store, that is doubly true for gamers. Gamers only care about 2 distribution services: Steam and GOG.

Also, the list of DX12 games is approximately as long (or rather short) as the List for Vulkan (refer to Wikipedia for a lack of a better ad-hoc source).

Right and DX12 was released in March 2014, Vulkan was released in February 2016 effectively a 2 year difference.

Developers will choose the API that works best on their main target platform, which is Windows at the moment. Depending on MS's support and commitment, that might very well end up being DX, which offers the bonus of also working on XBox.

Nope definitely not a gamer. As far as games go Windows is Priority #1, Playstation is Priority #2. Right now XBox is languishing in the corner and not likely to come out anytime soon, but I have a game for you: Go to your local consumer electronics or game store and look over their PS4 and XBox One selection take your smartphone and find out how many of the games they have aren't already on Steam for Windows.

Should that happen, Vulkan will "only" open the market for Linux and Android gaming, which both presumably aren't generating too much revenue when compared to their Apple counterparts. Metal will open the door to the iOS market (big already) and the desktop Mac market. So, like it or not, it is at the very least possible that we will end up with two proprietary APIs as the most used APIs in gaming.

According to the IDC Apple has a mere 15% share of the smartphone market that's been mostly stable YoY for a while now. Want to take a swing at what the other 85% of the market is?

Also once again... clearly not a gamer. The gaming market for PCs and consoles, and the gaming market for mobile are almost entirely disjoint sets. Outside of games that are already casual the gaming community regardless of platform hates people who try to join those two sets together. So nobody cares about opening the door to Android or iOS, and going after the Mac and Linux shares are nothing more than an afterthought.

Also... no, while there will certainly be at least one proprietary API in the top 2, I can tell you right now which one it won't be: Metal. In fact Metal will be at the very bottom of the stack of currently maintained APIs. Vulkan will however be in the top 3, the only things that can come ahead of Vulkan in terms of share are DirectX and LibGNM (Sony's proprietary API).

Also keep in mind MoltenVK is a thing, if I'm a game developer or a porter and my goal is to bring Mac and Linux support why exactly should I bother writing twice what I can write once for (as dubious as Steams statistics are) 3.6% of the market? (keeping in mind that with few exceptions in the modern market if they're going to bother targeting Mac they're also going to target Linux)

That being said, of course I'd prefer it if everyone simply agreed on a cross-platform API (even though I don't really care about games, some scientific apps are cross-platform now and I'd like them to remain cross-platform. One popular, widespread and well-established example is ParaView).

and here we have it... you don't care about games. As a result, for the reasons we can see above, you're not qualified to speak on this matter. You don't understand the market you're talking about.

[starshipeleven]

Congratulations to everybody who bought games for the Mac then. All these will become worthless when they go through with removing OpenGL.

If they bought the game on Steam they are fine. 99% of the games for Mac will work in either Windows or Linux (or both).

The time they will spend on MacOS will just decrease.

[Weasel]

Congratulations to everybody who bought games for the Mac then. All these will become worthless when they go through with removing OpenGL.

I think that applies to most Mac software.