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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

(Or just ignore Mac entirely, as Apple itself is doing more each day themselves)

— Lars Doucet (@larsiusprime) June 4, 2018

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.
Tags: Misc, Vulkan
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sub Jun 4, 2018
Meanwhile all Lead-Rendering-Engine bigwigs on Twitter like:

"C'mon it's so straightforward to add an abstraction layer for rendering backends - it's the way to go, anyways."

:D
Ehvis Jun 4, 2018
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A lot (if not most) professional software still uses OpenGL (older compatibility stuff even). Seems like a harsh move to kill that off. I'm sure Laminar Research of X-Plane won't be amused either.
Shmerl Jun 4, 2018
Hehe. Apple deprecate OpenGL support on macOS. Game developers deprecate macOS support altogether. Way to go Apple to alienate developers even more.


Last edited by Shmerl on 4 June 2018 at 9:07 pm UTC
nox Jun 4, 2018
Hm, I find that kind of scary. Microsoft pushing their "no vulkan allowed" storefront, and no opengl on mac.

EDIT: I don't know the details, only read about it briefly. Read further down for more information from smarter people.


Last edited by nox on 4 June 2018 at 9:18 pm UTC
sub Jun 4, 2018
Quoting: noxHm, I find that kind of scary. Microsoft pushing their "no vulkan allowed" storefront, and no opengl on mac.

"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?
Shmerl Jun 4, 2018
Quoting: 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.


Last edited by Shmerl on 4 June 2018 at 9:13 pm UTC
Shmerl Jun 4, 2018
https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs/issues/366

They might find some solution, but nothing is supported now.


Last edited by Shmerl on 4 June 2018 at 9:16 pm UTC
nox Jun 4, 2018
Alright, so it seems like the post I read about it might have exaggerated it a bit then. Still doesn't sound good until a solution is found.
Alloc Jun 4, 2018
Wish everyone was targeting Vulkan only and either the OSs would support Vulkan or players would move on to something proper that doesn't do such crap. With ("real") Windows supporting Vulkan that might actually work but I doubt any big dev would go this way unfortunately.
Jau Jun 4, 2018
Apple and Microsoft are insane. They want to think about their platforms as gaming consoles. When you port a graphical application on PS4, you have 2 APIs : 1 high level and one low level specifically made to optimize the rendering for a specific hardware. Here, they don't have this excuse. The hardware is never the same, so you need some kind of "adaptable" APIs. Vulkan is the logical, pragmatic solution.
They are trying to steal as much freedom as they can, imprisoning their users / developers to squeeze out as much cash flood as possible for themselves and only them *mwahahaha*... in the multi-platform era : They are insane and dangerous !
I hope Atari VCS will be a success (near 10000 donators ! ^^ ). I really do !
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