OpenGL and Mac: No D3D11 level functionality?

Graphics and GPU Programming Programming OpenGL

Started by Promit February 09, 2013 03:04 AM

12 comments, last by swiftcoder 11 years, 2 months ago

13,404

Author

February 09, 2013 03:04 AM

Okay, can someone just straighten this out for me clearly? Apple publishes a table of GL version and extension support. This table shows that only version 3.2 is supported, and the extensions aren't anything to write home about.

Is this a joke?

I don't have a recent Mac at hand to test with. Apple systems really can't do ANY 11 level stuff? That doesn't make sense to me. 3.2 is coming up on 4 years old now... I'm not seeing anything to contradict this state of affairs, but I am having trouble wrapping my head around it.

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Chris_F

3,030

February 09, 2013 03:14 AM

That is the case. Apple likes to handle the OpenGL implementation themselves rather than let graphics vendors do it. I believe it's because they want their software implementation and hardware implementation to match exactly, and currently there is no software implementation of OGL 4.x. It's not like Apple really considers OS X to be a gaming platform, so having driver support for high end graphics cards and support for the latest graphics API isn't necessary to them. Besides, there's always Bootcamp or Linux if you really want to get OpenGL 4 on a Mac.

L. Spiro

25,818

February 09, 2013 03:42 AM

Is this a joke?

It is not a joke and is accurate.
Even iOS devices will soon be more advanced and feature-rich than Mac OS X.

L. Spiro

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TheChubu

9,484

February 09, 2013 04:19 AM

This is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill.

"I AM ZE EMPRAH OPENGL 3.3 THE CORE, I DEMAND FROM THEE ZE SHADERZ AND MATRIXEZ"

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Aressera

3,144

February 09, 2013 07:12 AM

I believe at least some portion of the new functionality is probably available through OpenGL extensions... though I might be wrong about that. But yeah, the state of OpenGL sucks on mac.

Edit: oops, I guess not much after seeing that 10.8 OpenGL profile...

zerorepent

663

February 09, 2013 08:36 AM

Actually this was one of the greatest dissapointments for me after buying a MBP. Before buying I just looked at the hardware and not into further details about drivers :(

dougbinks

529

February 09, 2013 08:59 AM

Also you should be aware that not all features are implemented in hardware, even if they can be. So my MBA 2011 can do geometry shaders in hardware on Windows Bootcamp, but on OS X they run 20x slower and the CPU utilization goes to max on one core - so they're implemented in software!

Chris_F

3,030

February 09, 2013 03:19 PM

they run 20x slower and the CPU utilization goes to max on one core - so they're implemented in software!

Apparently only single threaded at that. The horror.

It's amazing that as bad as the GPU driver situation for Linux is, the state of OpenGL on Linux is still lightyears ahead of what Apple is offering.

swiftcoder

18,997

February 09, 2013 05:16 PM

It's not like Apple really considers OS X to be a gaming platform, so having driver support for high end graphics cards and support for the latest graphics API isn't necessary to them

How many current-generation games actually use DX11 features?

I'm not asking that rhetorically - I honestly don't know. It seems to me that pretty much any title that runs on the XBox 360 or PS3 probably doesn't use/need such features.

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TheChubu

9,484

February 09, 2013 08:45 PM

It's not like Apple really considers OS X to be a gaming platform, so having driver support for high end graphics cards and support for the latest graphics API isn't necessary to them

How many current-generation games actually use DX11 features?

I'm not asking that rhetorically - I honestly don't know. It seems to me that pretty much any title that runs on the XBox 360 or PS3 probably doesn't use/need such features.

Here you go http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_11_support

"I AM ZE EMPRAH OPENGL 3.3 THE CORE, I DEMAND FROM THEE ZE SHADERZ AND MATRIXEZ"

My journals: dustArtemis ECS framework and Making a Terrain Generator

OpenGL and Mac: No D3D11 level functionality?

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