Name: Metal Developer Tools on Windows Offer New Gaming Opportunities
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Metal Developer Tools on Windows Offer New Gaming Opportunities

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Saturday July 11, 2020 10:51 am PDT by Game developers are now able to more easily develop games for Apple devices using Windows machines, thanks to a new set of released by Apple ().Apple quietly released a set of Metal Developer Tools for Windows 10 at WWDC this year, which enables Metal Shading Language (MSL) compilation on Windows into Metal Library Objects targeting Apple platforms. This means that game production teams may now use PCs to compile games developed on Windows for macOS and other Apple operating systems.Many game development studios have established game or graphics asset production pipelines that use the Microsoft Windows infrastructure. One of the key final steps in the asset creation process is compiling the graphics and compute shaders for inclusion in the game.Since Apple is transitioning the Mac to , developers that bring their games to Metal will be able to run them on iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and macOS. Apple's API automatically translates all inputs to whatever the available input method may be, such as touch, controller, or keyboard and mouse. Developers targeting the Apple platform can now develop for , , Mac, and simultaneously. This may make the Apple platform more attractive to game developers as they will have access to a far larger market share than on macOS or iOS alone.Although it is not possible to develop games for Apple devices on Windows entirely, since a Mac is still needed to sign software and for testing, the availability of gaming-oriented Apple developer tools for Windows marks a significant step in gaming on Apple devices.As Apple moves the Mac to custom silicon, where it will , it is interesting that Apple is releasing developer tools specifically for gaming with regards to Windows. Seeing that these new developer tools allow Windows games to be compiled into Metal for Apple platforms, rather than being completely rebuilt, it should now be easier for developers to port native PC games and AAA titles to the Mac.Update: Max Tech also has a good video covering the topic:Tags: , [ ]Why not adopt industry standard Vulkan ('https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/') instead of making developers learn another API?Score: 31 Votes ( | )Apple game console incoming? All that controller / keyboard support. Apple silicon with GPUs surely competing / surpassing the current generation consoles. Seems kind of inevitable that the Apple TV becomes a serious gaming platform.Score: 24 Votes ( | )Why not adopt industry standard Vulkan ('https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/') instead of making developers learn another API?Metal provides a 10 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1 while Vulkan provides a 3.5 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1 ('http://www.androidauthority.com/opengl-vs-vulkan-performance-706408/').Essentially Metal is faster.Score: 16 Votes ( | )Why not adopt industry standard Vulkan ('https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/') instead of making developers learn another API?why not adopt C# instead of swift? why move to sillicon? why be anything other than a PC? plus lazy game developers don't need to learn another anything. most use unity or unreal which spits out metal games automagically. most will never make or touch custom shadersScore: 15 Votes ( | )If you've developed anything with low level graphics API, you'll know compiling shaders is just tiny piece of whole story. Without full Metal support for Windows or Linux these tools will be useless.Score: 14 Votes ( | )Metal provides a 10 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1 while Vulkan provides a 3.5 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1 ('http://www.androidauthority.com/opengl-vs-vulkan-performance-706408/').Essentially Metal is faster.You know OpenGL is a standard and it is up to each developer/manufacturer to implement it? That's why a lot of games that have native macOS clients perform much worse on macOS than in Boot Camp. Sometimes Windows (Boot Camp) client is even up to twice as fast (FPS).What I'm getting at - if Apple is comparing Metal to its own OpenGL implementation then of course it's going to be A LOT faster. You know why? Because Apple's implementation of OpenGL was lackluster since its conception. That's why this comparison is the way it is - Vulkan is compared to OpenGL on Android. It's not apples to apples comparison.In essence Vulkan, Metal and DirectX 12 should perform equally as good because they function very similarly. Vulkan has richer feature set than Metal at the moment but Metal is catching up quickly. However in reality Metal performance leaves much to be desired. There's no way to compare those two APIs fairly because there's no Vulkan for macOS (MoltenVK is just a wrapper around Metal). However there are games with native clients on macOS that use Metal renderer (World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2) and in Boot Camp they still perform much better on DirectX (11 and 12).I like Apple but let's be honest for a minute. Their graphics performance was lackluster for decades now and it's not going to change overnight. They no longer compare themselves to PCs like in 90's and early 00's. They compare their devices to previous generations of their devices.Score: 11 Votes ( | )Friday September 9, 2022 9:20 am PDT by Garmin has reacted to Apple's new rugged Apple Watch Ultra, saying in a tweet following the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch event that it measures battery life in "months" and "not hours," promoting its latest Enduro 2 watch for athletes. While the Apple Watch Ultra has the longest battery life of any Apple Watch to date, with Apple promising up to 36 hours of normal use and up to 60 hours with... • Sunday September 11, 2022 7:53 am PDT by Apple is set to release iOS 16 this Monday, September 12, as a free update for the iPhone 8 and newer. iOS 16 includes plenty of new features, ranging from a customizable Lock Screen to the ability to temporarily edit or unsend iMessages. To install iOS 16 when the update is released, open the Settings app on your iPhone and tap General → Software Update. After you update your iPhone to... • Friday September 9, 2022 1:37 pm PDT by With pre-orders for the iPhone 14 lineup now open, many iPhone customers will be weighing up whether or not now is the time to upgrade their device. The iPhone 14 models offer some substantial upgrades with Emergency SOS via satellite, Crash Detection, camera improvements, and more, but some customers will now be casting their mind forward to next year, when it may be a more appropriate time ... • Monday September 12, 2022 4:27 am PDT by The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus have seen "bad" pre-order results, indicating that Apple's positioning of the two new standard models may have failed, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In his -14-first-weekend-online-pre-order-survey-110411040b5d"&gt;latest post on Medium, Kuo explained that the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have seen "neutral" and "good" pre-order results... • Sunday September 11, 2022 2:00 am PDT by There are usually multiple features that Apple is not able to finish before the first official release of a major new version of iOS, and this year looks to be no different, with a total of nine iOS 16 features now confirmed to not be present in the first public version of the new OS. Last year, SharePlay, Digital IDs in the Wallet app, and Universal Control were among a large number of... • Sunday September 11, 2022 3:58 pm PDT by Apple does not advertise battery capacities for its new iPhone 14 lineup, but MacRumors has obtained this information from a Chinese regulatory database. Three out of four iPhone 14 models feature larger battery capacities compared to the iPhone 13 lineup, with the exception being the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which is equipped with a slightly smaller battery compared to the iPhone 13 Pro Max.... • Sunday September 11, 2022 1:20 pm PDT by Following its September event focused on new iPhone and Apple Watch models, Apple often holds another event in October focused on new iPad and Mac models, and this year will likely be no exception. October is still three weeks away, but we already have a good idea of the products that would likely be announced at an event next month. For the October event, rumors suggest that Apple plans to... • Saturday September 10, 2022 2:31 pm PDT by As was the case with iPhone 13 Pro models released last year, 4K ProRes video recording on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max still requires a model with at least 256GB of storage, according to Apple's tech specs for the devices. ProRes video recording is limited to 1080p at 30 frames per second on iPhone 14 Pro models with a 128GB storage capacity. To record ProRes video in 4K at 30... • When will iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 be released? Here's everything we know. Apple on July 20 released iOS 15.6 and iPadOS 15.6, bringing improvements to the live sports experience in the TV app and several bug fixes. How big of an upgrade are Apple's cheapest mainstream flagship phones? Apple's latest Pro phones replace the notch with an innovative "Dynamic Island," but what else is new compared to last year's models?• • • • • September 16Apple's new high-end iPhone models with Dynamic Island camera cutout, A16 chip, 48MP main camera, and more. Pre-orders available now. September 16Apple's latest mainstream iPhone models in two sizes with A15 chip, car crash detection, satellite connectivity, and more. Pre-order now ahead of iPhone 14 launch on September 16, iPhone 14 Plus on October 7. September 16New body temperature sensors, car crash detection, and more. Pre-order now. Mid–Late 2022?Updated AirPods Pro could see some design changes like elimination of the stem.• • • • • {other_blurb}

Saturday July 11, 2020 10:51 am PDT by Game developers are now able to more easily develop games for Apple devices using Windows machines, thanks to a new set of released by Apple ().Apple quietly released a set of Metal Developer Tools for Windows 10 at WWDC this year, which enables Metal Shading Language (MSL) compilation on Windows into Metal Library Objects targeting Apple platforms. This means that game production teams may now use PCs to compile games developed on Windows for macOS and other Apple operating systems.Many game development studios have established game or graphics asset...

Metal Developer Tools on Windows Offer New Gaming Opportunities

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