VKGL: An Effort For OpenGL Core Profile Support Over Vulkan

[geearf]

Could you explain a bit more? What would have to be done in software?

Vulkan is still missing some stuff to properly implement OGL (same with D3D11, ex: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulk...stem/issues/26).
No clue what anymore though.

[BeardedGNUFreak]

Awww, the poor liddle Linux fanboys cried to the mod.

Love it.

[BeardedGNUFreak]

beardedgnufreak, the dumbest are you. I guess you're the mac freak at x-plane forums? If you don't like Linux go trolling elsewhere.
Personally I don't think Metal will be much used. Probably Metal and DX12 together will not reach Vulkan usage level.

Every single iPhone and iPad device in the world is or will use Metal...

Linux gaming is dead with sub 1 percent marketshare and 3D gaming on Android is a complete joke compared to iOS.

Dream on.

[kpedersen]

Steam stats mention: Linux is ~1%, macOS is ~8% and Windows is ~90%

So that means the market share of Metal cannot be any higher than 8%! And that is if *every* macOS Steam game uses Metal. As it stands over 90% of macOS games still use OpenGL. Metal really is doing *much* worse than I thought. Why are people even discussing it?

But wait... Can iOS save Metal?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...ating-systems/

Nope. Not at all. The market share of iOS vs Android is absolutely dismal (probably because of the overly restrictive nature of the Apple hardware/software). Since Metal only runs on Apple platforms (yes, its *biggest* downfall so regardless of how "great" Metal might be, everyone will opt for OpenGL instead), the remaining share that Android is dominating will be split between OpenGL (and Vulkan on much newer devices because Vulkan is very modern technology).

The only thing that will save Metal is if Apple somehow pushes it as an open standard. Or if Vulkan becomes encompassing enough that a teeny tiny Metal compatibility layer can be run on Vulkan (which is the most likely outcome).

Hate to say it but I won't be ordering my Metal programming books just yet. I personally doubt it is even worth an authors time writing one at this point .

My prediction: In ~5 years time, Apple will stop fsck(8)ing around, go back to Objective-C, support OpenGL and Vulkan properly as a standard and become a nice little well behaved UNIX-like. Otherwise it will be dead in ~15 years (or a semi dormant state like it was 2005).

Now, can we stop discussing Metal please? It is boring since it has no future

[Weasel]

I suspect the announcement of Apple about dropping OpenGL played a role in this.

Really, for ONE time that Microsoft could be the #1 asshat when it would have been actually useful (and announce that they will eventually block OpenGL on Windows) so that these projects would have enough motivation to start, you know, to save legacy applications and whatnot, they don't do it and let Apple take the lead.

Uh, actually Microsoft deprecated OpenGL for quite a while before Apple did.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...ndows-api-list

Scroll down to "Deprecated or legacy APIs". Unless you meant something else? EDIT: nevermind, re-read what you said, Microsoft will probably never "remove" OpenGL, unless they're forced to by the graphics drivers or they have a replacement (like this project, but it has to be done by them, not expect users to "install the compatibility library" or whatever). Because they're not Apple.

That said, I have to be careful with a disclaimer since some people tend to pick on anything: I obviously don't work for Microsoft, so this is just based on experience rather than something authoritative (which you won't get anyway).

[Weasel]

Every single iPhone and iPad device in the world is or will use Metal...

Linux gaming is dead with sub 1 percent marketshare and 3D gaming on Android is a complete joke compared to iOS.

You talk about market share joke, when anything made by Apple is always the largest joke in terms of market share?

Linux, at least, dominates the server space and is open source. Apple can't dominate even the smartphone space in terms of market share. Using your own words, they're "a complete joke".

[starshipeleven]

Uh, actually Microsoft deprecated OpenGL for quite a while before Apple did.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...ndows-api-list

Scroll down to "Deprecated or legacy APIs". Unless you meant something else?

That's weird.
I'm unsure about what they are deprecating there as the OpenGL is provided by the drivers themselves, MS has no control over that (yet).

But yeah I meant adding some certification requirement for drivers (which is entirely doable) that does not allow drivers to ship other APIs than the ones approved by MS themselves (aka DirectX stuff), then allow only signed drivers, because "security".

EDIT: nevermind, re-read what you said, Microsoft will probably never "remove" OpenGL, unless they're forced to by the graphics drivers or they have a replacement (like this project, but it has to be done by them, not expect users to "install the compatibility library" or whatever). Because they're not Apple.

Yeah, to the contrary of Apple they don't have the spine to do such breaking changes even if it would have been a good thing.

[kpedersen]

Microsoft deprecated OpenGL for quite a while before Apple did.

Actually very true, The OpenGL that comes with Windows *has* stagnated around OpenGL 1.2 for many years.

But that is the great thing about open standards like OpenGL and Vulkan, it is the many GPU manufacturers (and open-source implementations) who make the OpenGL driver and adhere to spec and integration with wgl (The Windows GL API). Whereas using one API (Metal) from one single vendor (Apple) is... well it just shows that person is a bit of a berk really doesn't it haha.

Whats worse (for the Apple kids), is that I imagine Apple will also remove their agl layer as a heavy handed approach to vendor lock in, meaning that 3rd party implementations of OpenGL will not be possible on Apple platforms. Haha.

[Weasel]

Yeah, to the contrary of Apple they don't have the spine to do such breaking changes even if it would have been a good thing.

I wouldn't call "pissing on users" a good thing. Of course, like I said if they bring a OpenGL-on-Vulkan (or D3D12 or whatever) implementation, then there's no problem at all though.

GDI+ is also deprecated and probably uses Direct2D internally. I don't know, but since they consider it a replacement, it's my best guess. Removing GDI+ would be a dick move, something akin to Apple who really doesn't give a shit about users, because they'll keep buying it no matter what shit they're fed with.

[starshipeleven]

I wouldn't call "pissing on users" a good thing.

I didn't call "pissing on users" a good thing. I called "dropping OpenGL which means a strong push towards Vulkan and its ecosystem of abstraction frameworks" a good thing.

MS keeps pissing on users every major Windows update breaking someone's stuff and workflow, for debatable reasons, so I don't think they really care about that.