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.
Also I wonder about WebGL.
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: sub"no vulkan allowed" storefront.
You mean Vulkan API apps are not allowed on the Microsoft store?
Really? Can you please point me to a source?
I think they only allow UWP, and UWP doesn't support Vulkan. So the result - no Vulkan applications allowed.
Unless its changed is is still impossible to fullscreen a game bought under the windows store as i remember a bunch of streamers and yt saying that it wasnt possible it defaults to windowed stretch/fullscreen but not true full screen. Even so I am glad am not on windows anymore.
Quoting: HoriI think it will mean bad things for Linux.
Why?
Because when you made a game for Linux you were very close to a Mac port also, and vice versa. So you didn't get just Linux's or Mac's market share, you got both. Now you will only get one. Two small shares combined were reasonable, but just one probably won't cut it for many devs.
But thats already happened there are many games out on mac but not linux and that was when open gl was the only way to code games for mac. I think that it may discourage a few indie studios from doing a linux port however since pretty much all Triple A games are either ported by Feral or VP it makes little difference as they both have their own custom tools for porting. Aspyr dont count anymore since they pretty much abanadoned linux a year ago.
It’s the same with 32-Bit apps. Apple is going all-in on 64-Bit/Metal. As a developer, if you also plan to release on iOS (which is the biggest mobile gaming platform) you have to support Metal anyway.
The porting houses use Metal now, Feral will even update some older titles like Tomb Raider (2013) to 64-Bit/Metal.
We may not like it, but both DirectX and Metal are here to stay. It’s still an uphill battle for Vulkan.
Quoting: Whitewolfe80Aspyr dont count anymore since they pretty much abanadoned linux a year ago.
Aspyr has basically almost fully transitioned into a publisher.
Well, nuff said. Mobile devices/Smartphone is right here and right now. It's no longer "the future". Apple shows they willing to throw away (not so) "open platform" Mac for (totally) "close platform" iOS. So, it is time for Linux/FOSS community to seriously R&D-ing on mobile devices. If not, our (not so distant) future generations might never know what is meaning of open platform.
And no, Android is NOT our viable future. I don't think "cocktail license" OS should become our future platform.
If Apple would have any sense they would switch to Vulkan, instead of a proprietary standard.
Quoting: GuestDon't forget "how much they want a Windows pre-10 version of their game". There's still a lot of those out there and DX12 I believe doesn't run on them, while Vulkan does.Quoting: LeonardKThis can also mean that less games come to Linux, unfortunately. On mac OS they'd need Metal (Vulkan via Molten *might* be an option), on Windows they usually rely on DirectX12 often enough, unfortunately. Then only Linux is the reason for OGL and Vulkan, so basically the market share of OGL/Vulkan just dropped by quite some percentage. Sad.
Also I wonder about WebGL.
Development has been moving away from OpenGL since the new generation of APIs was announced, so I don't think this news will impact GNU/Linux desktop gaming much. Don't forget about the mobile sector, which has been OpenGL ES dominated in the past, but is really shifting to Vulkan and Metal anyway. So there are big reasons to be using Vulkan anyway - the real question is if it's enough to convince developers to go all-in on a cross-platform API, or if they'll maintain a DX12 version first & foremost. That will really depend on the developer and how much they want a mobile version of their game.
Mountain Man Jun 5, 2018
Quoting: JanAs a developer, if you also plan to release on iOS (which is the biggest mobile gaming platform) you have to support Metal anyway.Pretty sure Android dwarfs iOS in that arena.
At least according to this source, Android sits above 80% of the market while iOS is less than 20%:
https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os
Last edited by Mountain Man on 5 June 2018 at 4:24 pm UTC
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