Progress Being Made On New "WebGPU" Web Graphics API

[name99]

It doesn't have to. It just takes Apple's backing, because they're not happy with WebGL for whatever reason. Maybe they feel it's too capable of competing with their native apps, so they're looking to sew some market confusion and slow down adoption by putting another standard out there. I don't know, but Apple has consistently behaved in a way that inspires anything but trust and good faith.


It's not really the engineers I'm worried about. And just because the process might be transparent doesn't mean the motives are either transparent or pure.

We've got an existence proof of them walking away from OpenCL and creating Metal instead of adopting Vulkan. It's also the lone hold-out of Objective C and originator of Swift. This is not an company about adopting open standards or developing any standards that don't put them at some sort of competitive advantage. So, it should be understandable to view anything they do through a standards body with skepticism. That's all I'm saying.

You mean the way they adopted Metal in 2014, two years before Vulkan even existed?
And the way that they use h.264 and h.265 as their video standards rather than VP9?
And the way that they invented their own language rather than using, I don't know, C#, or Go?

Might I respectfully suggest that the way in which you're currently viewing the tech world is not going to prove especially useful for understanding what we see around us today, or predicting what will happen over the next few years.

[coder]

You mean the way they adopted Metal in 2014, two years before Vulkan even existed?

So, where is their Vulkan support, today?

All of your other points are basically saying "hey, the other guys are doing it, too", which does nothing to mitigate my original suspicion that Apple is up to something with this move.

[name99]

So, where is their Vulkan support, today?

All of your other points are basically saying "hey, the other guys are doing it, too", which does nothing to mitigate my original suspicion that Apple is up to something with this move.

I don't understand your logic. Apple created Metal because they needed a modern GPU API and Khronos couldn't get their act together enough to deliver one.
Once they had created and implemented Metal, why do they need to support Vulkan?

What's your mental model here? That Apple OWES the world API support for things it doesn't care about?
Apple doesn't support Fortran. Microsoft doesn't support JHFS+ or APFS. Android doesn't support D3D12.
No company supports whatever random API someone else has dreamed up. Complaining that they don't do so is just ridiculous.

[smitty3268]

What's your mental model here? That Apple OWES the world API support for things it doesn't care about?
Apple doesn't support Fortran. Microsoft doesn't support JHFS+ or APFS. Android doesn't support D3D12.
No company supports whatever random API someone else has dreamed up. Complaining that they don't do so is just ridiculous.

It's not quite that black and white. Apple doesn't owe support, but they are going beyond not caring about an API and are actively blocking it. No 3rd party can add Vulkan support on Apple devices because Apple won't allow it. You can argue that there are reasons for that if you want to, but it rubs some people the wrong way.

[name99]

It's not quite that black and white. Apple doesn't owe support, but they are going beyond not caring about an API and are actively blocking it. No 3rd party can add Vulkan support on Apple devices because Apple won't allow it. You can argue that there are reasons for that if you want to, but it rubs some people the wrong way.

Well apparently these guys didn't get that memo because they're implementing Vulkan on iOS and macOS and have been doing so for a while... (Over two years for GL support, I guess about a year for Vulkan support.)

https://moltengl.com

[coder]

Well apparently these guys didn't get that memo because they're implementing Vulkan on iOS and macOS and have been doing so for a while... (Over two years for GL support, I guess about a year for Vulkan support.)
https://moltengl.com

Compatibility layers are okay if you just have something you want to recompile or do a quick-n-dirty port of, but they ultimately disadvantage anything not using the native API. What smitty was referring to is that AMD is not allowed to provide a driver on MacOS that implements Vulkan support, whereas Microsoft doesn't prevent them from doing this on Windows. It's a pretty a-hole move, IMO, and not one you can even justify with your race-to-the-bottom psychology.

Thing is, I can try to explain why I'm instinctively suspicious of Apple. You clearly don't share my view and don't seem interested in trying to see my point. I know some people aren't as bothered by fascism as others, so I'll leave you to enjoy your nice walled garden.

[name99]

Compatibility layers are okay if you just have something you want to recompile or do a quick-n-dirty port of, but they ultimately disadvantage anything not using the native API. What smitty was referring to is that AMD is not allowed to provide a driver on MacOS that implements Vulkan support, whereas Microsoft doesn't prevent them from doing this on Windows. It's a pretty a-hole move, IMO, and not one you can even justify with your race-to-the-bottom psychology.

Thing is, I can try to explain why I'm instinctively suspicious of Apple. You clearly don't share my view and don't seem interested in trying to see my point. I know some people aren't as bothered by fascism as others, so I'll leave you to enjoy your nice walled garden.

What evidence do you have that "AMD is not allowed to provide a driver on MacOS that implements Vulkan support"?
I see no evidence for this claim. Obviously AMD would have to code-sign their driver etc; but the real issue is: are they willing to bother?
As far as I can tell the issue is not that Apple is stopping people, but that no-one thinks it is worth the effort.

[smitty3268]

What evidence do you have that "AMD is not allowed to provide a driver on MacOS that implements Vulkan support"?
I see no evidence for this claim. Obviously AMD would have to code-sign their driver etc; but the real issue is: are they willing to bother?
As far as I can tell the issue is not that Apple is stopping people, but that no-one thinks it is worth the effort.

Apple has said they won't allow it. They're the ones that have to sign any drivers, it's not AMD that does that.

Molten is an interesting project, but game developers have discussed it and said that there's no way it can provide good enough performance to be usable by real AAA level games, and that's built into the design of how it works. It's good for a compatibility layer for older apps, though, or places where having full performance isn't as important.

[name99]

Apple has said they won't allow it.

Can you provide a reference for this claim? Because I can't.
One reason I am dubious is simply that Apple does not talk about things (like whether they will or won't one day support Vulkan. You can assume what you like, but you won't find an official Apple statement on the subject.) And they don't have guidelines as to what's not allowed in drivers.

To me this looks very much like what I said above. People are PO'd that Apple doesn't support Vulkan, and when the fact that that is an unreasonable thing to be PO'd about is explained to them, they grasp for other (superficially plausible, but un-anchored in reality) justifications for their anger.

The reality strikes me as much more prosaic. Apple have made their API choice for multiple reasons
(a) strategic control
(b) they can develop it in sync with the GPU (completely true now on iOS, will soon, IMHO, be true on macOS)
(c) they want an API that is BOTH high performance AND easy ENOUGH to use. Metal meets those goals. GL wasn't high performance (on the CPU side). Vulkan is too much hassle to use, too finicky for not enough additional win.

Everyone else (AMD, nV, intel, some random company) doesn't see any value in it because people who are obsessive about games wouldn't buy macs anyway, even if they had a Vulkan API. (The whining would just move on to something else --- can't swap in new video cards, can't overclock, can't decorate the RAM with LEDs...)

Apple doesn't need to have some drastic policy against Vulkan drivers because no-one is interested in writing one --- because there's no value to doing so.

[coder]

[/SIZE]The reality strikes me as much more prosaic. Apple have made their API choice for multiple reasons
(a) strategic control
(b) they can develop it in sync with the GPU (completely true now on iOS, will soon, IMHO, be true on macOS)
(c) they want an API that is BOTH high performance AND easy ENOUGH to use. Metal meets those goals. GL wasn't high performance (on the CPU side). Vulkan is too much hassle to use, too finicky for not enough additional win.

Everyone else (AMD, nV, intel, some random company) doesn't see any value in it because people who are obsessive about games wouldn't buy macs anyway, even if they had a Vulkan API. (The whining would just move on to something else --- can't swap in new video cards, can't overclock, can't decorate the RAM with LEDs...)

Apple doesn't need to have some drastic policy against Vulkan drivers because no-one is interested in writing one --- because there's no value to doing so.

This is circular logic, but I like the fact that you're at least acknowledging that Apple's actions are motivated by proprietary interests.

BTW, if they were merely concerned about the overhead of OpenGL, then why not support more recent versions, with their focus on AZDO (Approaching Zero Driver Overhead) features?

Also, is Vulkan not tracking hardware developments? It seems to be getting rev'd pretty frequently, at least.