OpenGL, OpenCL deprecated in favor of Metal 2 in macOS 10.14 Mojave
Apple has taken the first steps toward completely killing OpenGL and OpenCL in Mojave in favor of its own Metal technology.
Buried in the developer's documentation section, Apple made the declaration that it is starting a "grace period" from transitioning away from the older technologies.
Of the older graphics technologies, Apple says that:
The move comes as no surprise. The OpenGL version on macOS High Sierra has been stuck at the version 3.3 that was released in 2010. The current version of OpenGL is version 4.6, released in 2017.
The Kronos group maintains the OpenGL standard. In February, the Khronos group released open source tools that allows Vulkan, a 3D graphics API, to work on iOS and macOS.
The move was intended to make it easier for developers to port games to Apple's hardware from other platforms, while still taking advantage of technologies like Apple's Metal graphics API. It isn't clear where the effort stands at present, however, given the deprecation of OpenGL.
Buried in the developer's documentation section, Apple made the declaration that it is starting a "grace period" from transitioning away from the older technologies.
Of the older graphics technologies, Apple says that:
Given the news, it is just a matter of time until older apps using these technologies will no longer function -- but they will still work for at least a year without updates. Apple also says that active development has ceased on OpenGL and OpenCL on the Mac, and the API's will only get "minor changes" going forward.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.
Metal is designed from the ground up to provide the best access to the modern GPUs on iOS, macOS, and tvOS devices. Metal avoids the overhead inherent in legacy technologies and exposes the latest graphics processing functionality. Unified support for graphics and compute in Metal lets your apps efficiently utilize the latest rendering techniques.
The move comes as no surprise. The OpenGL version on macOS High Sierra has been stuck at the version 3.3 that was released in 2010. The current version of OpenGL is version 4.6, released in 2017.
The Kronos group maintains the OpenGL standard. In February, the Khronos group released open source tools that allows Vulkan, a 3D graphics API, to work on iOS and macOS.
The move was intended to make it easier for developers to port games to Apple's hardware from other platforms, while still taking advantage of technologies like Apple's Metal graphics API. It isn't clear where the effort stands at present, however, given the deprecation of OpenGL.
Comments
I wonder how many apps will make that transition?
Developers could also chose to integrate the new Vulkan tools mentioned in the article instead. My understanding is they link to Metal so should still work.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/vulkan-is-coming-to-macos-ios-but-no-thanks-to-apple/
There's also an open source project https://moltengl.com/moltenvk/
The key is that Apple will no longer include it in MacOS.
Third parties have to use Vulkan drivers, etc.
Maybe I'm just behind on this, but isn't Metal an Apple thing? OpenGL/CL was across platforms. Are all the 3D apps and such re-writing for Metal? I thought DirectX was more a gaming thing.
That's good... my son is interested in Steam, so I'll pass that along.
its really hard to imagine Adobe not following Apple wherever it goes. They tied their wagon to Apple’s horse long ago.
i guess there are other creative software vendors that make Mac OS software that may drop off, but Adobe is the one I use.
Looks like Apple feels iOS’ market penetration gives it enough clout to start acting like M$ and simply become ever more proprietary. Sad.
Apple could have either worked within standards bodies to move OpenGL/OpenCL towards Metal, create an OpenGL/OpenCL API on top of Metal, or opened up Metal like they opened up Swift for industry-wide adoption.
Mac users are lucky to get ports for AAA games, there is no way game developers will waste time with Metal
That said, without a little push, devs can be very, very slow to adapt, as adapting requires time and effort up front. If it can be avoided, they'll avoid it, but this should do the trick. Oh, and to those inclined to panic over such things, if devs and publishers are making money selling their games and apps on macOS, they will continue to do so. If they don't, they won't. This will not have any impact in terms of releasing software. If they're making money, they'll adapt, like devs always do.
I'm less optimistic about OpenCL, as Metal hasn't yet proven to be as adept as OpenCL at offloading CPU tasks to the GPU. Heck, Adobe already supports both OpenCL and Metal for this very purpose in their apps, and to say OpenCL is faster than Metal is an understatement. It can be massively faster in certain tasks. Apple better make significant improvements to Metal in this area over the life of Mojave if this is to go smoothly.
Anything that speeds up the iOS apps & games transitions,the better.
Sadly it is crap like this that has me on an HP laptop at the moment with the eventual aim to see if Linux can do it for me.
My understanding is that several companies including Apple and AMD did in fact pushed for significant improvements to OpenGL but got massive push back from companies heavily involved in OpenGL. The problem is that many smallish companies are heavily invested in OpenGL and simply can mot rapidly adapt to code breaking changes. Out of this conflict came Metal and AMDs solution. Both are effectively replacements for OpenGL but also support apps OpenGL was never designed for.
Actually i see the opposite. Game developers are likeky to be the only ones to make the switch to Metal. There are a couple of reasons.
#. First OpenGL was never really designed for gaming in the first place
#. Performance is the other big issue. Games get a huge speed up from these new GPU interfaces. Vulkan, which is very similar to Meral, is already widely accepted for games.
#. Lastly just about all iOS development is now on Metal anyways.