With news doing the rounds about the latest update to macOS, it turns out they're finally admitting they're doing nothing with their support of OpenGL and it's to be deprecated.
See here, where it says:
Deprecation of OpenGL and OpenCL
Apps built using OpenGL and OpenCL will continue to run in macOS 10.14, but these legacy technologies are deprecated in macOS 10.14. Games and graphics-intensive apps that use OpenGL should now adopt Metal. Similarly, apps that use OpenCL for computational tasks should now adopt Metal and Metal Performance Shaders.
I've seen so many complaints about the poor OpenGL support on macOS for quite some time, so it's not exactly a surprise. It's going to be a shock for those game developers not using a pre-made game engine like Unity and the likes.
"This isn't a Mac news website" I hear you scream at your monitor. Yeah, I know. However, this could have a big impact on Linux gaming, for better or worse. It could lead to developers either dropping Mac support due to the small market share and not being worth having to learn another (closed) API, or it could mean them dropping OpenGL in favour of Metal and not doing Linux version for the smaller again market share.
Interesting times we live in. Thankfully, the big game engines will take away some of the pain for developers. My Twitter feed has been—colourful this evening when news of this came in. Here's some initial reactions:
Jupiter Hell + DRL - D**m, the Roguelike developer:
Jupiter Hell is the last game that I'll do that will have OSX support. https://t.co/662OLJ0hqj
— Kornel Kisielewicz (@epyoncf) June 4, 2018
Defender's Quest developer:
If Apple thinks this is going to drive Metal adoption, they're nuts. All this means is "All aboard the Vulkan train!"https://t.co/szY0WuJ2Oz
— Lars Doucet (@larsiusprime) June 4, 2018
(Or just ignore Mac entirely, as Apple itself is doing more each day themselves)
MidBoss developer:
Fuck Apple. If they insist on going this route I may just have to start exclusively shipping Electron web builds of my games on Mac to ensure things will keep working. Sorry for those of you on Macs but 2% of my games users is not worth implementing a whole new back end for. https://t.co/lPoqpwOL9n
— 'Shark Hugs' Eniko (@Enichan) June 4, 2018
Starsector developer:
This would mean the end of OS X support by Starsector. Unless @LWJGL comes up with some dark magic? https://t.co/2RaKk0Q5fw
— Alexander Mosolov (@amosolov) June 4, 2018
Maia developer:
I won't port thousands of lines of my engine to a non standard proprietary API. Neither will many other developers either on principle or due to OSX's tiny install base. Here lies the end of games on Apple's desktop platform. pic.twitter.com/nKUWiMKwDS
— Simon Roth (@SimoRoth) June 4, 2018
The list goes on and on like that. What will be interesting to see, is if more developers who are building the tools themselves look to projects like MoltenVK to use Vulkan on both Linux and Mac.
I do have to wonder, if Valve knew this was coming and helped get MoltenVK open sourced to help for when this situation eventually came.
What are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
With this news, we'll see soon or later what devs will continue to support us (Vulkan move) and what devs won't.
It might be interesting... support Linux because it can brings more customers or because It's a Free/Libre OS?
I'm a bit afraid that we can loose some devs/porters. So wait & see...
https://moltengl.com/moltengl/
Avehicle7887 Jun 4, 2018
Quoting: CyrilWow, what a day.
With this news, we'll see soon or later what devs will continue to support us (Vulkan move) and what devs won't.
It might be interesting... support Linux because it can brings more customers or because It's a Free/Libre OS?
I'm a bit afraid that we can loose some devs/porters. So wait & see...
For some time now we have been getting ports that the Mac users don't, a few examples are Ruiner and Vaporum. Hopefully devs will continue to see that although small, there's profit to be made in Linux, not to forget the great improvements it made on the desktop.
EDIT:
Technically, Linux is more gaming capable than Mac and you can build a system from parts.
Last edited by Avehicle7887 on 4 June 2018 at 10:34 pm UTC
Quoting: FireStarWDoesn't this also mean for mac users that their back catalog of opengl games will be unable to be playable on new versions of macos? What a crazy decision.Sounds like the kind of spiteful move I would expect from Apple.
Quoting: Avehicle7887Quoting: CyrilWow, what a day.
With this news, we'll see soon or later what devs will continue to support us (Vulkan move) and what devs won't.
It might be interesting... support Linux because it can brings more customers or because It's a Free/Libre OS?
I'm a bit afraid that we can loose some devs/porters. So wait & see...
For some time now we have been getting ports that the Mac users don't, a few examples are Ruiner and Vaporum. Hopefully devs will continue to see that although small, there's profit to be made in Linux, not to forget the great improvements it made on the desktop.
Actually , going OpenGL will be meaningful for small devs who wants to aim PC only and have very small chances to make it a story of success.
Otherwise , if you want to aim for mobile too Vulkan is the only way now. Since you can expand your available platforms to MacOS and Ios thanks to MoltenVK.
On AAA wise , nothing changed. Dx11 will be the dominant api (W7 , 8 and 10 ) since mobile devices are not capable to run them and Linux user base is simply not worth it.
Interestingly it hurts video editing apps as well - heck, probably even more as they often rely on OpenCL.
Wonder whether Apple is going to try releasing their own 3D app (they hired a couple of 3d devs in the recent months) or whether they're simply going to piss on this segment of pro market.
Last edited by PJ on 4 June 2018 at 10:37 pm UTC
Isn't NVidia providing CUDA on macOS?
Quoting: GuestHave to wait and see what they decide to do in future MacOS releases. It's possible they might provide a shim library of some description to emulate, but then they have shown in the past not to really care for backwards compatibility sometimes.
Apple is infamous for unplugging widely used compatibility solutions for the sake of their innovative apps. Remember Rosetta which made possible running PowerPC applications on Intel based Macs? It was discontinued starting with Mac OS X 10.7 all sudden. Everyone was furious and claimed that no one will upgrade to Lion in order to keep their PowerPC software running; but in the end people moved on and Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft ended up profiting hugely thanks to forced upgrades. Same will surely happen to those who reject to use cloud based software solutions (Creative Cloud, Office 365, etc) in favor of traditional installations.
Gaming has always been an afterthought for Macs but considering the potential software suit upgrades, Apple simply doesn't care at all. Hack, a barely used Macbook Pro in my former work had 20k€ worth Adobe + Microsoft software installed in it; not a single being but me (1h of basic Illustrator edit) even touched those. As many middle sized, poorly managed companies are being constantly rooked that way, imagine the possibilities...
Anyway, as I investigated a bit, if Apple eventually terminates OpenGL in upcoming releases of macOS; MoltenGL and LWJGL might be the only ways to run OpenGL software on Macs. I have no idea, how that would be utilized by users.
Last edited by rea987 on 4 June 2018 at 11:26 pm UTC
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