68 replies to this topic

[galad]

I I remember correctly, Apple made part of the OpenGL driver, a gpu vendors were limited to implementing only a part of OpenGL. Metal leaves almost of the implementation work to the gpu vendors.

It's not easy (or better, impossible) to implement another API not supported by Apple because there is no public and documented way to do so.

[UmarOMC1]

MoltenVK Now Supports Vulkan Tessellation On macOS, Other Features


The crew working on the open-source MoltenVK layer that allows for Vulkan to run on macOS/iOS by remapping the calls to use Apple's Metal drivers just picked up a lot more capabilities.

Headlining the new MoltenVK v1.0.34 release that was issued on Friday is support for tessellation. Vulkan tessellation support can now work on Macs! The new MoltenVK release also adds support for VK_KHR_get_surface_capabilities2 and VK_EXT_host_query_reset. On the extension front is also updated support for VK_KHR_swapchain.

MoltenVK 1.0.34 also corrects function entry point handling, tracking device features enabled during the vkCreateDevice() call, fixes for potential memory leaks, greater precision within shader float constants, and a wide variety of fixes.

More details on the hefty upgrade to this Vulkan-over-Metal iOS/macOS library can be found via the release post from GitHub.


PLEASE VISIT PHORONIX website as linked in the story title.

[UmarOMC1]

MoltenVK 1.0.36 Released With Many Fixes & Improvements For Vulkan On MacOS

The open-source MoltenVK continues advancing for supporting a healthy subset of the Vulkan API on Apple's macOS and iOS platforms…

[Janichsan]

UmarOMC1, on 24 July 2019 - 10:20 PM, said:

MoltenVK 1.0.36 Released With Many Fixes & Improvements For Vulkan On MacOS

The open-source MoltenVK continues advancing for supporting a healthy subset of the Vulkan API on Apple's macOS and iOS platforms…

I recently learned that the new 64-bit version of Final Fantasy XIV for Mac uses a combination of MoltenVK and DXVK. Would be interesting to hear how well (or not) this runs.

[jeannot]

So that's a double translation layer, DX > Vulkan > Metal?

[Janichsan]

jeannot, on 25 July 2019 - 01:55 PM, said:

So that's a double translation layer, DX > Vulkan > Metal?

Yup.

[UmarOMC1]

MoltenVK Now Supports More Vulkan Extensions, Begins Targeting Metal 3.0

The open-source MoltenVK project that offers Vulkan API support for Apple devices on iOS and macOS is out with a new release for mapping Vulkan atop Apple's Metal graphics/compute stack.

MoltenVK has picked up support for a number of new Vulkan extensions and other fixes, but now does require Apple Metal 3.0. A Metal 3.0 requirement means using Xcode 11 for building and targeting macOS 10.15+ and iOS 13+ for the run-time requirement. MoltenVK still supports their earlier v1.0.36 release without Metal 3.0 for those wanting the older iOS/macOS coverage…

[galad]

Nope, the the article author did not understand anything at all.

MoltenVK made a Metal3.0 git branch so they can play around with new Metal features. But it won't drop compatibility with previous macOS versions. It will required Xcode 11 to build, and 10.15 or iOS 13 to use the new Metal features, but it will still run on previous versions too.

[Janichsan]

galad, on 02 August 2019 - 12:46 AM, said:

Nope, the the article author did not understand anything at all.

Phoronix isn't really known for their Mac knowledge.