Quoting: manus76Oh it's simple: as i said the original question was why so much Apple bashing as if it had tremendous impact on the state of linux gaming. Does it?
Apple is a company and it will do all it can to earn money, maybe having an extra API specifically tailored for your hardware brings money. If one wants to challenge Apple on that front they need a company too, linux isn't one.

Because Apple is one of the worst cases of lock-in proponents. Metal is the example here. You apparently agree. If you don't understand why it deserves criticism, then I guess you think damage to the industry progress is good and falls into "do what you can to earn money". That's not the first time someone tries to justify such crooked practice.

And if you just don't get why Apple is criticized, and not other lock-in proponents like MS, Sony and etc. it's because the conversation was about Apple above. Of course all of them deserve this criticism.

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Quoting: manus76I do understand that but again: Does Apple force anyone to release their games (or software in general) on MacOS? Do programmers know beforehand they will need to support another backend? If they do know and still release on MacOS is this Apple's fault or the programmers'?

Forcing is the wrong word here. Developers target bigger markets first naturally. So if they need to support N graphics APIs instead of 1, they'll spend N times more effort / money / time on doing it, instead of focusing on improving other things. And out of those N, they'll focus on bigger ones first. And it is lock-in jerks' fault, that instead of collaborating on the common standard, they created their lock-ins, to make the above effort much harder. HTML history can demonstrate you the benefits of the common open standard, and the damage lock-in can cause.

The bottom line, you got the point of lock-in being a tax. So I don't see what you are even arguing about.

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Quoting: manus76You did not explain, you gave an example (Epic and their UE) to which i gave a counterexample (Croteam Talos Principle/SS). And there are dozens of other examples of games released on multiple platforms/backends which somehow work and are profitable.

No work comes for free. Work of supporting additional APIs costs money and effort. I.e. it's a tax. Sure, some can afford it, but you are very mistaken if you think it's free (either in time, money, people and so on). Some can afford this tax more than others, but it's still a tax. It creates a barrier of entry, and in general, has a chilling effect on competing platforms of those who create this tax with lock-in. That's the while idea behind it. If you still don't understand, read some general articles about the damage of vendor lock-in.

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Quoting: manus76What does it have to do with Apple?

I just explained it above. What exactly you didn't understand? At least I see no point in repeating what I said, unless you have a specific misunderstanding of how pushing lock-in taxes developers.

To summarize. Any lock-in of some major participant in the industry creates a tax, or if you want a barrier of entry, which can deter some, or simply cause them spend more time on development or reduce quality of less prioritized options.

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Quoting: Whitewolfe80https://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Planning-Open-Source-GameWorks-Competitor-Mantle-Linux

you mean apart from in this interview where he gives the rough date of 2014 of mantle being an open source project

It was known even before that, but yeah, that's a good example. AMD started focusing on open sourcing stuff more, once Lisa Su [External Link] became CEO.

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Quoting: Guest"eventually" is not something you can base a business decision on.

Apple and MS aren't new to competition paranoia. And they have tons of cash to throw at that. It's very clear they pushed their APIs only out of fear of opened up Mantle (which became Vulkan). Regardless, it doesn't matter now. They had all the time to start collaborating once it happened, even if they didn't know before, that Vulkan was going to emerge eventually. In the end they didn't, because they are too bent on lock-in.

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Quoting: JanThis is speculation. Even Apple cannot develop a brand new graphics API within six months

Neither can MS, and it's not a speculation. There were draft documents published from early DX12, which were practically verbatim copies of Mantle documentation, with just minor editions. Search for it, you can find them.

Both Apple and MS were content with doing nothing, until AMD finally woke them up. But instead of collaborating, they pushed their NIHs.

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Quoting: GuestAT NO POINT did AMD ever announce that they planned to donate or open it.

This is incorrect. AMD from the start communicated the intention to make it open eventually. Everyone knew it, and AMD indeed did it, by giving Mantle to become Vulkan's base. So both Apple and MS knew very well it's coming. That's why they rushed so much to produce their lock-in NIHs.

As early as 2013, it was known that Mantle will be opened: http://wccftech.com/amd-mantle-api-require-gcn-work-nvidia-graphic-cards/ [External Link]

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Quoting: JanI think this a specific Aspyr/Feral issue, because they are mainly Mac porting houses. But in general if an engine like Unity supports both Vulkan and Metal -- where's the problem for the original developers?

I explained it a few posts above, you probably missed it.

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Quoting: GuestPromoting piracy as an excuse for bypassing DRM is simply going to harm the already small market's image with publishers.

Usage of DRM itself is already causing harm. Some publishers are getting that, but most legacy ones are getting it very slowly.

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