Valve abandons the macOS version of SteamVR

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  • Reply 61 of 78
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    dysamoria said:
    Don’t Unreal engine & Unity already support Metal?
    They do.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 62 of 78
    canukstormcanukstorm Posts: 2,694member
    elijahg said:

    ElCapitan said:
    The rewrite to Metal for cross platform developers is non trivial because the Metal libraries only work with Objective-C or Swift, neither of which are used (if at all) outside dedicated macOS or iOS development. (Yes, IBM has done some work on server side Swift).

    In addition, apart from the VR announcement at WWDC 2018, Apple has gone completely silent on the subject. 

    Loss of OpenGL, and the lack of a replacement that can work cross platform, will rob the macOS users of a large number of software titles once OpenGL is gone from the platform (macOS 10.16 speculative). 
    Apple is getting really good at announcing things and not following through. It's partly why businesses don't use Apple anymore - there is no predictability. Why would anyone invest in the MP with the future upgrade path uncertain? Even investing in software compiled for Intel is in doubt right now, as Apple might or might not switch to ARM one day. The secrecy was great for building hype back in the days of yore, but since we know pretty much exactly what the product is going to be months before release nowadays it only hampers their success in a business setting.

    But yes loss of OpenGL is my main concern with this. I doubt they'll remove it in 10.16, but it may end up deprecated. If they do remove it, I really have no choice but to switch to Windows. And if I do, I'll probably end up with an Android phone and watch instead, and eventually a PC rather than my current iMac. It'll be a shame as I've been an Apple fan since my first 20mhz (!) Performa 475 in 1996, and converted many many people to Apple, but the changes for the sake of change are really getting tiring and overly restrictive now.
    Quite the opposite.  There are more Apple products used by businesses today than their entire history, not just iOS devices but Macs as well.  IBM has deployed over 200,000 Macs in their company and that's just one example.  A year or two ago, on one of Apple's financial conference calls, Tim Cook that Apple's enterprise business was worth $25 billion a year.
    watto_cobraroundaboutnow
  • Reply 63 of 78
    digitoldigitol Posts: 276member
    Many developers, companies, former mac supporters have been leaving the Appleverse. What do you expect when Apple bites the hand that feeds. Apple is in a sinking boat, and going nowhere but down. Face it, Apple is dead, move on and you will be happier. 
  • Reply 64 of 78
    coolfactorcoolfactor Posts: 2,239member
    I logged in to comment on the fact that their official statement referred to "OSX" instead of "macOS", and I felt this was a clear indication that they are out of touch with the Mac platform.

    But when I followed the link, I see they updated the statement. Obviously others drew their attention to this, too.
    SteamVR has ended macOS support so our team can focus on Windows and Linux.
    We recommend that macOS users continue to opt into the SteamVR [macos] branches for access to legacy builds. 

     :D 

    Apple's AR and VR frameworks will blow them out of the water, and they know it!


  • Reply 65 of 78
    coolfactorcoolfactor Posts: 2,239member

    elijahg said:
    I've said this before, but all this closed source incompatibility is chillingly reminiscent of Apple of the mid-90's and Microsoft in the late 90's and into the Ballmer years. Since Sat Nad has taken over, MS have had a much more open approach and they are being lauded for it, with respect for MS steadily increasing. Apple on the other hand is going backwards compared to the huge amount of open-sourcing and increased compatibility after Jobs' return in the early years of OS X, causing respect to decrease. It really is quite concerning.
    Jobs as champion of open systems? Interesting way to rewrite history. 

    Sorry but no, while Apple has at times leveraged and contributed to open source projects, it has never been about open systems. The very nature of Mac and the ecosystem is a walled garden. That hasn’t changed.

    Not true. Maybe for GUI apps, but Macs natively run huge amounts of open-source code that's easily installable via MacPorts and Homebrew. Ironically, it's been Windows that has lacked in this regard for decades. Microsoft has started to change the tides in that regard in the past couple of years with an increased focus on participating in open-source communities, but I fear they have a hidden agenda with that.

    elijahg
  • Reply 66 of 78
    canukstormcanukstorm Posts: 2,694member

    elijahg said:
    I've said this before, but all this closed source incompatibility is chillingly reminiscent of Apple of the mid-90's and Microsoft in the late 90's and into the Ballmer years. Since Sat Nad has taken over, MS have had a much more open approach and they are being lauded for it, with respect for MS steadily increasing. Apple on the other hand is going backwards compared to the huge amount of open-sourcing and increased compatibility after Jobs' return in the early years of OS X, causing respect to decrease. It really is quite concerning.
    Jobs as champion of open systems? Interesting way to rewrite history. 

    Sorry but no, while Apple has at times leveraged and contributed to open source projects, it has never been about open systems. The very nature of Mac and the ecosystem is a walled garden. That hasn’t changed.

    Not true. Maybe for GUI apps, but Macs natively run huge amounts of open-source code that's easily installable via MacPorts and Homebrew. Ironically, it's been Windows that has lacked in this regard for decades. Microsoft has started to change the tides in that regard in the past couple of years with an increased focus on participating in open-source communities, but I fear they have a hidden agenda with that.

    Most recent versions of Windows 10 ship with a Linux kernel installed within a container

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-install
    elijahg
  • Reply 67 of 78
    esummersesummers Posts: 953member
    Considering the SteamVR support was never completed in the first place... It was buggy and support for the second generation trackers was never completed.  It was very obviously beta quality.  It never worked well enough to be usable by games.  It is a shame that anyone using it professionally can no longer use their gear.  This support was still useful for Final Cut Pro, Unreal Engine, and Unity.  Hopefully this means Apple has a replacement for OpenVR on the horizon... but with Apple's AR focus most likely on mobile, that may never happen...
    edited May 2020
  • Reply 68 of 78
    esummersesummers Posts: 953member
    elijahg said:
    Fatman said:
    The reality: Steam can’t sell these things even to the larger installed Windows base. They need to cut costs because they are bleeding money. As I’ve said in past posts, no one wants these big bulky headsets! On a related topic - Apple NEEDS to embrace and natively SUPPORT Vulkan on MacOS and iOS. It can co-exist with METAL and will give developers another option for app development.
    Not sure about your first point. Valve are making massive amounts of money. But supporting Vulkan on macOS at least would help cross platform compatibility a lot. But as Apple of late is becoming more and more of a control freak, they want to control every aspect of their products, right down to the APIs developers use so I think it unlikely. Apple has actually rejected apps using MoltenVK. The ridiculous thing too is there is no evidence Metal is actually any better than Vulkan, so the incentive for devs to learn it is pretty small. 

    Apple has always been anti-gaming (their OpenGL stack was several years out of date, and extremely slow), and considering a big chunk of their profit comes from App store games, that must be very embarrassing internally.


    This is full of misinformation.   Yes, Apple has rejected apps using MoltenVK but not *because* they were using MoltenVK.  Yes Apple's OpenGL stack is years out of date because it has been deprecated for years.  This is a much better situation than Android where there isn't a single device that supports OpenGL ES 3 properly.  Apple's out-of-date OpenGL is still in a better place then Android, although nobody should be using it anymore.   Metal is supported by all major game engines and VulkanVK is a much better option than OpenGL in other cases.  Apple does care about gaming on iOS.  The size of Apple's engineering staff in this area probably dwarfs most of these other companies.  Apple builds the fastest mobile GPUs in existence.  Further, Metal matches the Apple's mobile GPU architecture.  It is much simpler than Vulkan and allows Apple to leverage their work on LLVM to optimize for the GPU.   It makes sense for them, but you can use VulkanVK.  The performance hit is pretty small for most games that use this wrapper.  There is likely no performance hit relative to other platforms if the developer didn't take the time to tune for the specific GPU.  If they were going to that trouble, they might as well just use a metal backend.  There has never been a universal graphics platform.   Even Vulkan itself is not universal as there are significant differences using it with a desktop class chip vs a tile-based mobile chip when building anything non-trivial.
    edited May 2020
  • Reply 69 of 78
    kbeekbee Posts: 25member

    Probably nothing to do with the fact that Apple "deprecated" OpenGL and Vulcan while forcibly preventing NVIDIA from releasing compatible Mac drivers.
    Conjecture and rumor. No one on this forum knows what’s up between Apple and Nvidia for certain. 
    It is very simple. Apple wanted to introduce OpenCL and NVidia didn‘t want to ...
    Story told.
  • Reply 70 of 78
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    asdasd said:
    elijahg said:
    asdasd said:
    elijahg said:
    elijahg said:
    I've said this before, but all this closed source incompatibility is chillingly reminiscent of Apple of the mid-90's and Microsoft in the late 90's and into the Ballmer years. Since Sat Nad has taken over, MS have had a much more open approach and they are being lauded for it, with respect for MS steadily increasing. Apple on the other hand is going backwards compared to the huge amount of open-sourcing and increased compatibility after Jobs' return in the early years of OS X, causing respect to decrease. It really is quite concerning.
    Jobs as champion of open systems? Interesting way to rewrite history. 

    Sorry but no, while Apple has at times leveraged and contributed to open source projects, it has never been about open systems. The very nature of Mac and the ecosystem is a walled garden. That hasn’t changed.
    Considering he open sourced pretty much all the APIs on NextStep to become OpenStep, looks like you might need to gen up on your history a bit. Oh and what about Webkit? What about Bonjour? What about CUPS? Swift? IOKit? What about contributions to Apache? To OpenSSL? To Autoconf? To Samba? To X11? LLVM? BSD? Clang? OpenGL? Might as well get your head out of Apple's ass at the same time. Walled garden doesn't mean you have to use incompatible standards and APIs. Look where that got Apple in the 90's.
    Correct. And anyway the Mac isn't a walled garden. You can literally download apps from anywhere, compile any unix compatible program, make is a server, and so on. Its as open as any unix system. 
    I didn't claim it was, Strangedays did.
    I said Mac and the Apple ecosystem is a walled garden. Maybe you don't remember the years of proprietary hardware & software under the Jobs-era that set the Macintosh apart from "PC-compatibles"?

    The notion that Jobs was all about open systems and now Cook isn't is disconnected from reality. 
    OS X isn't walled at all, what do you mean by that?  Most Mac hardware is off the shelves as well. It's all quite different from the OS 9 days and before. 
    First of all Mac predates OS X. Remember, his claim was Jobs embraced open while Cook doesn’t. This is untrue, and looking back throughout the entire history of Mac make that clear. While Jobs-era OS X utilized open projects, it also embarked on its largest closed endeavors ever. Clearly then, Jobs-era utilization of open projects wasn’t some sort of spiritual ideology, it was a means to an end. 

    The Apple ecosystem, which Mac is one part of, is famously a walled garden. More so in iOS to be sure, but open/closes is a spectrum. Apple has managed tight control over Mac since Macintosh, but it remains on the spectrum even today, with Linux on one side and iOS on the other. Compared to a fully open platform like Linux, macOS remains 50% closed as a platform:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_platform

    ...it’s not a binary matter or it being entirely open, or entirely closed. 
    The fact that OS 9 preceded OS X is of course true, but hardly makes your argument. OS 9 was closed but OS X was what Steve Jobs produced, He could hardly have removed OS 9 on his first day at work. Jobs also standardised the components used in the Mac. 

    That Harvard study is comparing chickens and peanuts. Obviously Apple is not going to make money from opening up macOS like Linux, nor does it license OS X to other manufacturers ( which is what the 3rd row in that study shows in incredibly unclear language).  That doesn't mean that MacOs is walled, which in common parlance means that you are restricted from what you can install.


  • Reply 71 of 78
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    ElCapitan said:
    asdasd said:
    ElCapitan said:
    elijahg said:

    ElCapitan said:
    The rewrite to Metal for cross platform developers is non trivial because the Metal libraries only work with Objective-C or Swift, neither of which are used (if at all) outside dedicated macOS or iOS development. (Yes, IBM has done some work on server side Swift).

    In addition, apart from the VR announcement at WWDC 2018, Apple has gone completely silent on the subject. 

    Loss of OpenGL, and the lack of a replacement that can work cross platform, will rob the macOS users of a large number of software titles once OpenGL is gone from the platform (macOS 10.16 speculative). 
    ... but it may end up deprecated. 
    It IS deprecated as of macOS 10.14.

    If they announce an ARM Mac, there is not a snowball's chance in hell they will have OpenGL support on their own GPUs. (...or use anyone else's GPU for that sake).
    I am fairly dubious about this. There are, as in every company, many factions in Apple. Using metal only is probably something driven by the engineering teams. If it harms games development in the future I can see OpenGL being un-deprecated, or if that is too much of a  concession, staying "deprecated" for ever. Apple is clearly wanting to do something in the AR, and VR space as well.
    We shall see what emerges at WWVDC. If they were to un-deprecate it, there is a lot of work needed to bring the Apple implementation up to speed with the versions used by most game and software developers. Otherwise it would be somewhat pointless.

    OTOH, OpenGL is pretty much (completely) dead on iOS and if the goal is to make it easier to develop once and deploy to both iOS and macOS, Metal is what it will be. 
    hmm, if mobile games work without OpenGL then presumably Apple is hoping the games devs move from iOS to the Mac, using -- as you said -- metal. I actually don't know why I cant download every game I run on iOS for the Mac already. 
  • Reply 72 of 78
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    dysamoria said:
    Also: VR is almost a nothing and nowhere product. Only hardcore (and money-comfy) gamers are buying it, it’s not remotely ubiquitous in the world of gaming, it’s expensive, it’s immature and clunky tech... Hard core gamers aren’t usually Mac owners. That’s usually the Mac-hater crowd.
    I don't believe you've ever used VR. PSVR is absolutely incredible and has sold in the millions. Lot of people going for the Oculus Quest which doesn't require a console or PC. Neither are particularly expensive. The only people I see outright dismissing the technology are people who haven't spent any time getting to know it. It's literally a game changer and I can't wait to see what the next generation of hardware brings.
  • Reply 73 of 78
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    Sure would love to see Apple fill this void, which seems inevitable because even their own software (FCPX/Motion) was leveraging Steam VR for creators, as were others. The optimistic side of me wants to think they've already got something in the works and Valve knows this. Pessimistic side says we won't see anything until they have their own headset hardware out which could be years off still. Either way this creates an uneasy period of limbo for VR content creators on the Mac platform.
    [Deleted User]
  • Reply 74 of 78
    beowulfschmidtbeowulfschmidt Posts: 2,120member
    gatorguy said:
    slurpy said:
    PDRPRTS said:
    Been having this feeling that the new ARM Mac is the beginning of the end of the Mac as we know it and this story kind of settles it - for me - as the only way this news isnt an absolute disaster. Im thinking the new Mac is not a Mac at all. The new ARM Macs may actually be iPad-laptops gradually dropping the Mac-as-we-know-it - meaning the 'macOS'. As soon as Apple guarantees major software franchises on a new 'MacPad', it has no reason to evolve the macOS layer of OS X. What we now know as Mac may be about to go the "System 9" way (Catalina does feel as clunky as System 8). Apple would be dropping a lot, but it has dropped optical-drives, audio-jacks, Motorola, IBM, beige, etc before.. each deemed as crazy as impossible at the time.. but that is Apple - it would be dropping the mouse-based GUI !! it helped champion all these years.
    ...,Steam VR is a niche within a niche. The people who used this on a mac are statistically negligible. This story does not "mean" anything, and no conclusions can be drawn from it.
    Agreed. 
    I am an avid VR gamer, and pancake games are second choices for me at the moment.  That said, I agree that Steam VR is a "niche within a niche" platform.  I could wish otherwise, so more developers would consider VR versions of their games (I'm talking to you, CD Projekt Red).  Fortunately, there are enough good games that appeal to me to make it worthwhile for me.
  • Reply 75 of 78
    beowulfschmidtbeowulfschmidt Posts: 2,120member
    Beats said:
    Not good news. 

    All Apple needs to do is create their own platform and COMPLETELY annihilate Valve. Apple are being pu**ies though with their weak gaming push.
    It's been apparent to me for quite some time that Apple, for reasons which are no doubt sufficient, simply does not care that the Mac line isn't attractive to gamers.  They've demonstrated that fact over and over again.  🤷‍♂️

    Seems to be working OK for them.
    elijahg
  • Reply 76 of 78
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,622member
    dysamoria said:
    Also: VR is almost a nothing and nowhere product. Only hardcore (and money-comfy) gamers are buying it, it’s not remotely ubiquitous in the world of gaming, it’s expensive, it’s immature and clunky tech... Hard core gamers aren’t usually Mac owners. That’s usually the Mac-hater crowd.
    I don't believe you've ever used VR. PSVR is absolutely incredible and has sold in the millions. Lot of people going for the Oculus Quest which doesn't require a console or PC. Neither are particularly expensive. The only people I see outright dismissing the technology are people who haven't spent any time getting to know it. It's literally a game changer and I can't wait to see what the next generation of hardware brings.
    I think you are both right from different perspectives. 

    I got my wife an Occulus Go just to test the waters and she was mighty impressed. We will definitely upgrade to the next generation of standalone devices when they hit those key checkboxes (comfort, battery, resolution, heat, phone integration etc).

    Not a day goes by without her using it and the Go is very much an entry level device. 

    She even watches a lot of Amazon Prime and Plex content on it, too.


  • Reply 77 of 78
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    dysamoria said:
    Also: VR is almost a nothing and nowhere product. Only hardcore (and money-comfy) gamers are buying it, it’s not remotely ubiquitous in the world of gaming, it’s expensive, it’s immature and clunky tech... Hard core gamers aren’t usually Mac owners. That’s usually the Mac-hater crowd.
    I don't believe you've ever used VR. PSVR is absolutely incredible and has sold in the millions. Lot of people going for the Oculus Quest which doesn't require a console or PC. Neither are particularly expensive. The only people I see outright dismissing the technology are people who haven't spent any time getting to know it. It's literally a game changer and I can't wait to see what the next generation of hardware brings.
    I can vouch for the Oculus Quest, great piece of kit. Although I haven't got one myself ( you just can't get them now) I have used them.
  • Reply 78 of 78
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    avon b7 said:
    dysamoria said:
    Also: VR is almost a nothing and nowhere product. Only hardcore (and money-comfy) gamers are buying it, it’s not remotely ubiquitous in the world of gaming, it’s expensive, it’s immature and clunky tech... Hard core gamers aren’t usually Mac owners. That’s usually the Mac-hater crowd.
    I don't believe you've ever used VR. PSVR is absolutely incredible and has sold in the millions. Lot of people going for the Oculus Quest which doesn't require a console or PC. Neither are particularly expensive. The only people I see outright dismissing the technology are people who haven't spent any time getting to know it. It's literally a game changer and I can't wait to see what the next generation of hardware brings.
    I think you are both right from different perspectives. 

    I got my wife an Occulus Go just to test the waters and she was mighty impressed. We will definitely upgrade to the next generation of standalone devices when they hit those key checkboxes (comfort, battery, resolution, heat, phone integration etc).

    Not a day goes by without her using it and the Go is very much an entry level device. 

    She even watches a lot of Amazon Prime and Plex content on it, too.


    asdasd said:
    dysamoria said:
    Also: VR is almost a nothing and nowhere product. Only hardcore (and money-comfy) gamers are buying it, it’s not remotely ubiquitous in the world of gaming, it’s expensive, it’s immature and clunky tech... Hard core gamers aren’t usually Mac owners. That’s usually the Mac-hater crowd.
    I don't believe you've ever used VR. PSVR is absolutely incredible and has sold in the millions. Lot of people going for the Oculus Quest which doesn't require a console or PC. Neither are particularly expensive. The only people I see outright dismissing the technology are people who haven't spent any time getting to know it. It's literally a game changer and I can't wait to see what the next generation of hardware brings.
    I can vouch for the Oculus Quest, great piece of kit. Although I haven't got one myself ( you just can't get them now) I have used them.
    Yeah, so the Oculus Go is kind of an advanced Google Cardboard. I ordered a Cardboard device way back when (made of plastic btw) to use with my iPhone, and downloaded a bunch of garbage from the App Store that didn't work super well. Eventually, I found a basic shooter game where you're in a ship and shooting cancerous brain cells or something by using your gaze, and was able to look all around in my environment, like the back of my ship's cabin, for example. Cool! I suddenly started to get it based on that alone.

    I went to Siggraph and tried a PC headset playing a VR movie, which I could view 360/stereo, and that  was pretty cool, so started to get it a bit more. Saw a lot of people lined up for things like Eagle Flight on a custom bird type controller you lay down on and flap wings. Super cool! lines were too long to get in on those.

    I got the PSVR, tried a few things until I got Batman Arkham VR, and there's a part where you use the move (hand) controllers to grab the cowl and put it over your head and look in the mirror, at which point you can see your fucking bat face and bat hands in front of you and moving with your movement. At that point I was like HOLY SHIT I get it now. Further in, you can like squat and look at the underside of desks and stuff. Other games you can peer around corners or look over the tops of and into objects to see what's inside.

    Further stuff has taken me into DOOM VFR with a rifle controller and launching off ledges and looking up at giant beasts trying to kill me, and you have no idea how much I've been imagining this since high school playing DOOM on a 386 wanting to be IN THE GAME. And YOU ARE.

    You SERIOUSLY do not get it unless you've tried it and given it a fair shake. 

    All the haters in these forums have NOT tried it. It's more than apparent.
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