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DancinJack
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Vulkan on macOS

Mon Feb 26, 2018 11:48 am

Hey, here's some good news. Some more info: https://moltengl.com/moltenvk/

Also, if Apple would choose to stick with OpenGL for stuff that isn't on Metal over Vulkan, they have completely lost it. I mean look at this (with a grain of salt)... Imagecredit to Ars/Khronos for the photo. it is not mine.
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LostCat
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Re: Vulkan on macOS

Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:22 pm

Last I checked Apple doesn't support the latter versions of OpenGL either, so if this works as claimed that's good.
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DancinJack
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Re: Vulkan on macOS

Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:30 pm

LostCat wrote:
Last I checked Apple doesn't support the latter versions of OpenGL either, so if this works as claimed that's good.

Oh God no. Their OpenGL is so old. It's one of the areas of macOS (and iOS) they have really messed up.
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chuckula
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Re: Vulkan on macOS

Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:34 pm

Given how broken OpenGL on Mac OS X is, a 50% performance boost might actually be considered disappointing.


However, I'm happy to see Vulkan on Mac OS X provided by third parties since Apple has been too busy Vulkaning around to do the job itself.
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LostCat
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Re: Vulkan on macOS

Mon Feb 26, 2018 2:43 pm

chuckula wrote:
Given how broken OpenGL on Mac OS X is, a 50% performance boost might actually be considered disappointing.

However, I'm happy to see Vulkan on Mac OS X provided by third parties since Apple has been too busy Vulkaning around to do the job itself.

On the plus side, they got people using Metal really quickly on iOS and Mac. Vulkan has barely any major devs using it so far that I've noticed.

Honestly I think everyone thought it'd take off quicker.
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Airmantharp
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Re: Vulkan on macOS

Mon Feb 26, 2018 4:13 pm

About time.

I'd be happy to have Vulkan as the 'One API to Rule Them All'. Figure out graphics, and you have ultimate portability.

[and I'm with chuckie that this may not be very impressive performance-wise- getting Mac up to PC parity will likely be harder than getting Linux there]
 
LostCat
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Re: Vulkan on macOS

Mon Feb 26, 2018 7:27 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
I'd be happy to have Vulkan as the 'One API to Rule Them All'. Figure out graphics, and you have ultimate portability.

Pretty sure the only console using it is the Switch, so I wouldn't expect that to happen anytime soon.
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derFunkenstein
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Re: Vulkan on macOS

Mon Feb 26, 2018 7:36 pm

If the relationship between the OpenGL and Metal renderers in StarCraft 2 is any indication, this is pretty well optimized. In the early game when CPU is not really being taxed, at 1440x900/medium on my MBP, OpenGL starts out at around 80fps, and the Metal renderer pushes a hair north of 120. At 2048x1280 where I normally play, it's more like 65 and 95. Weird thing is that the building grid in squares where you can't place a building, the Metal renderer shows those squares as blue where OpenGL and DX on Windows show them as red. that's the only place where I see any image quality problems.
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