Apple Deprecates OpenGL and OpenCL from MacOS

[btarunr]

Apple, at WWDC 2018, announced that with the latest update to MacOS, its operating system for iMac desktops and MacBooks, the company is deprecating two of the industry's leading APIs, OpenGL and OpenCL, in a bid to boost adoption of its own Metal API. OpenGL and OpenCL applications will continue to function on MacOS 10.14, but the APIs themselves will be deprecated going forward. The removal of OpenGL from future MacOS releases breaks most AAA cross-platform games playable on the Mac, particularly distributed over Steam. The deprecation of OpenCL comes as a surprise to the scientific community, as several computational applications running on Mac Pros will be affected. Adobe Creativity Suite applications take advantage of both APIs. Apple is pushing for Metal's compute-shader features to replace the API.



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[R-T-B]

Ouch.

But... I mean technically OpenGL hasn't shipped with windows in like, forever. It's not "deprecated" there it just doesn't exist. But every hardware manufacturer on Windows implements it anyways in their drivers.

I'm betting they could do the same in OS X, if Apple will let hardware makers implement a "deprecated" API in their driver packages. They probably won't sadly. Walled gardens suck.

 

[dinmaster]

Walled garden. Dictatorship at it's best...

 

[lexluthermiester]

Another reason to not want MacOS. Apple, why are you trying to be like Microsoft? While "Metal API" is a good concept, it has yet to be proven on par with OGL/OCL and certainly hasn't surpassed it.

 

[Fatalfury]

Good, Another reason to hate Apple..
Now Nobody can say why games are not being developed for Mac..
its not because the developer didn't want to...it because apple choose not to

 

[T4C Fantasy]

Mac isn't even better for productivity than windows either they just get word of mouth to say such dumb things xD

 

[xkm1948]

OpenCL, meh. Pretty much everything use CUDA anyway

 

[eidairaman1]

Mac isn't even better for productivity than windows either they just get word of mouth to say such dumb things xD

Never liked anything Apple Produced other than the IIC/E

 

[Flanker]

Yeah metal. It's got a few nice things here and there. Overall it's still a filthy mofo to work with.

 

[GoldenX]

Khronos implemented Vulkan on Metal and Dota 2 now has it's Vulkan renderer working on MacOS, they can do the same for OpenGL.

 

[R0H1T]

Ouch.

But... I mean technically OpenGL hasn't shipped with windows in like, forever. It's not "deprecated" there it just doesn't exist. But every hardware manufacturer on Windows implements it anyways in their drivers.

I'm betting they could do the same in OS X, if Apple will let hardware makers implement a "deprecated" API in their driver packages. They probably won't sadly. Walled gardens suck.

This is the first step in bringing iOS & Mac together, MS is trying it with windows (ARM+x86) & then there's Google Fushcia which could replace Chrome OS & Android.

 

[R-T-B]

This is the first step in bringing iOS & Mac together, MS is trying it with windows (ARM+x86) & then there's Google Fushcia which could replace Chrome OS & Android.

So walled hardens everywhere, probably complete with "universal" app platforms that rely on inefficient JIT compilation for the target arch. Please god no...

 

[Ubersonic]

Well, it's not like OpenGL was ever not depreciated on Mac OS lol (OSX always used outdated versions of OGL, it lead to many a compatibility issue)

 

[R0H1T]

So walled hardens everywhere, probably complete with "universal" app platforms that rely on inefficient JIT compilation for the target arch. Please god no...

About that ~ https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/29/digi...y-to-manufacture-apple-macbook-with-arm-chip/

Longstanding rumor I suppose, but if there's a universal OS or a cross between iOS & Mac anytime soon then this makes sense. What you're saying applies more to Windows & possibly Fuchsia.

 

[R-T-B]

What you're saying applies more to Windows & possibly Fuchsia.

True. But the dystopian vision of where I see this all leading is pretty much what I stated. I'm sure OS vendors would love it. But it'd be good for pretty much nothing else...

 

[R0H1T]

True. But the dystopian vision of where I see this all leading is pretty much what I stated. I'm sure OS vendors would love it. But it'd be good for pretty much nothing else...

Let's hope you're wrong for the sake of mankind, frogs have other things to worry about ~ like melting ice caps

 

[Athlonite]

Ouch.

But... I mean technically OpenGL hasn't shipped with windows in like, forever.

my windows install begs to differ you'll find it in the Windows\System32 folder labeled OpenGL32.dll

 

[R-T-B]

my windows install begs to differ you'll find it in the Windows\System32 folder labeled OpenGL32.dll

Seems you are correct. It is even signed by MS. Could've sworn I remembered reading what I said above somewhere. Clearly I must recant, thanks.

Khronos implemented Vulkan on Metal and Dota 2 now has it's Vulkan renderer working on MacOS, they can do the same for OpenGL.

If true, that is probably the plan...

 

[Fluffmeister]

OpenCL, meh. Pretty much everything use CUDA anyway

It certainly flies in the face of OpenCL is teh future!!!1

 

[Octavean]

Evil,....!!!

 

[Fx]

Apple never ceases to give me more reasons to hate it.

 

[efikkan]

I try not to hate, but Apple keeps making it tougher.

Deprecating OpenGL and OpenCL is ridiculous, especially since it's used in so many professional applications. Applications have long lifecycles, and will not be rewritten in a new API whenever Apple releases a new OS. Adding abstraction layers on top of these APIs defeats the purpose of having a low-level API in the first place.

But the big elephant in the room is iOS. Apple have refused adding Vulkan support for quite some time, and when they deprecate OpenGL their market share will just continue to drop.

Anyone thinking OpenGL is "dead" is wrong, it will continue to live on for many years. Many are mistaken about the advantages of Vulkan and Direct3D 12 over OpenGL and Direct3D 11. First of all, OpenGL 4.6 already supports ~95% of the improvements in Vulkan, what's missing is features like more control over memory management. We have yet to see games really taking advantage of the new APIs because we have yet to see games which are designed to use them natively. Vulkan and Direct3D 12 gives the developer more control, control which previously were held by the driver, and can obviously be utilized to improve the performance. But giving the developers more low-level control also increases the risk of the developers doing a worse job than the driver experts at Nvidia and AMD. The gaming industry in general is unfortunately plagued by rushed development and some of the worst code out there, it's usually slapped together code which barely works, and is rarely maintained as the developer moves on to the next project. The new APIs requires more skill and more well-structured code to scale well. I'm worried that the long term consequences will be developers resorting to libraries to automatically manage the features or more games using these universal pre-made engines.

Ouch.
But... I mean technically OpenGL hasn't shipped with windows in like, forever. It's not "deprecated" there it just doesn't exist. But every hardware manufacturer on Windows implements it anyways in their drivers.

I'm betting they could do the same in OS X, if Apple will let hardware makers implement a "deprecated" API in their driver packages. They probably won't sadly. Walled gardens suck.

What you're thinking of is the old legacy OpenGL support which has been present in Windows since the 90s. But Microsoft haven't done anything to prevent graphics drivers from extending that support, unlike Apple who dictates what the official support should be.

I've never seen any OpenGL problems caused by Windows, despite having run OpenGL code there since the early 2000s. I've seen plenty of driver issues though, but none of which I blame Microsoft for.

 

[T4C Fantasy]

I try not to hate, but Apple keeps making it tougher.

Deprecating OpenGL and OpenCL is ridiculous, especially since it's used in so many professional applications. Applications have long lifecycles, and will not be rewritten in a new API whenever Apple releases a new OS. Adding abstraction layers on top of these APIs defeats the purpose of having a low-level API in the first place.

But the big elephant in the room is iOS. Apple have refused adding Vulkan support for quite some time, and when they deprecate OpenGL their market share will just continue to drop.

Anyone thinking OpenGL is "dead" is wrong, it will continue to live on for many years. Many are mistaken about the advantages of Vulkan and Direct3D 12 over OpenGL and Direct3D 11. First of all, OpenGL 4.6 already supports ~95% of the improvements in Vulkan, what's missing is features like more control over memory management. We have yet to see games really taking advantage of the new APIs because we have yet to see games which are designed to use them natively. Vulkan and Direct3D 12 gives the developer more control, control which previously were held by the driver, and can obviously be utilized to improve the performance. But giving the developers more low-level control also increases the risk of the developers doing a worse job than the driver experts at Nvidia and AMD. The gaming industry in general is unfortunately plagued by rushed development and some of the worst code out there, it's usually slapped together code which barely works, and is rarely maintained as the developer moves on to the next project. The new APIs requires more skill and more well-structured code to scale well. I'm worried that the long term consequences will be developers resorting to libraries to automatically manage the features or more games using these universal pre-made engines.


What you're thinking of is the old legacy OpenGL support which has been present in Windows since the 90s. But Microsoft haven't done anything to prevent graphics drivers from extending that support, unlike Apple who dictates what the official support should be.

I've never seen any OpenGL problems caused by Windows, despite having run OpenGL code there since the early 2000s. I've seen plenty of driver issues though, but none of which I blame Microsoft for.

the problem is Apple doesn't need to follow any standard anymore, believe it or not apple can cut off AMD and intel and nvidia and make their own gpus and cpus and still be the richest company in the world, their goal is to make their own ecosystem so closed in that everything is apple even the very screens they produce in the future, the plastics will be apple plastics. just everything will be apple even the memory chips xD at this point apple is just "using" companies until they can create their own standard... i hate apple xD

 

[efikkan]

the problem is Apple doesn't need to follow any standard anymore, believe it or not apple can cut off AMD and intel and nvidia and make their own gpus and cpus and still be the richest company in the world, their goal is to make their own ecosystem so closed in that everything is apple even the very screens they produce in the future, the plastics will be apple plastics. just everything will be apple even the memory chips xD at this point apple is just "using" companies until they can create their own standard... i hate apple xD

I understand what they're trying to do. But Apple are forgetting that the important thing selling hardware have always been software, for consumer PCs, workstations and even gaming consoles. The only exception to this is probably iOS, how long can they keep on selling overpriced "jewelry"?

 

[trparky]

The only exception to this is probably iOS, how long can they keep on selling overpriced "jewelry"?

As long as they continue to support their older iOS devices for as long as they have been I will continue to buy iOS devices. iOS 11 runs on devices dating back to five years ago (iPhone 5S and iPad Air), that's seriously impressive. iOS 12 is said to support as far back as six years. Yes, you read right... six years!!! The only time I've seen support life cycles that long is with Windows 7. Not everyone can afford the latest and greatest device that the market has to offer, why should they be stuck running ancient and insecure software?