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Metal system requirements
- Thread starter VMukhtarov
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Not much yet. But on the URL http://www.apple.com/osx/elcapitan-preview/ you can read in the fine print:
Looks like Metal will not be available on all systems. Most likely some older GPUs are not supported—or at least not fully supported.
"Testing conducted by Apple in May 2015 using 2.7GHz Intel Core i5-based 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with 128GB of flash storage and 8GB of RAM. Tested with prerelease OS X v10.11. Not all features are available on all devices. Performance will vary based on system configuration, application workload, and other factors."
Looks like Metal will not be available on all systems. Most likely some older GPUs are not supported—or at least not fully supported.
My guess is that those computers that rely on integrated graphics will be left out of the Metal thing, in the slides that are up in the apple website states that it allows for almost immediate access to the system's GPU, not all macs have GPU.
I'm using an early 2011 mbp with 1gb GPU I really want to get this metal thing on my computer, and even more after I got my free motherboard replacement.
I'd be very surprised if the machines without discrete GPUs are left out.
The majority of the systems (Macbook Air, 13" Macbook Pro) have integrated graphics. If anything needs the performance that Metal offers, it's the machines with integrated graphics.
The majority of the systems (Macbook Air, 13" Macbook Pro) have integrated graphics. If anything needs the performance that Metal offers, it's the machines with integrated graphics.
Um yes they do. An iGPU is still a GPU.
Can anyone quickly explain how much faster Metal is?
The apparent 10x draw call performance, does that translate to 10x framerate; or how much increase in framerate can be expected?
The apparent 10x draw call performance, does that translate to 10x framerate; or how much increase in framerate can be expected?
Draw call performance is the amount of CPU required to give drawing commands to the GPU. So, an increase in draw call performance will result in less CPU usage, and this may help in getting higher frames rate however CPU performance is very often not the bottleneck.
Would it be presumptuous of me to think my HD 7970 (AKA: D700) will work fine with Metal? Since I already have it on my iPad Air 2, and my iPhone 6, it would be nice if my Mac Pro 5,1 could support it too.
Apple made their tests with Intel Haswell and Broadwell processors with iGPU.
http://www.apple.com/osx/elcapitan-preview/
See the footnotes.
So, at least Intel Haswell and Broadwell are supported.
Updated: Broadwell support.
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Metal on iOS requires an OpenGL ES 3.0-capable GPU, if I'm not mistaken. OpenGL ES 3.0 is roughly equivalent to OpenGL 4.3, so I'd wager that only Macs with OpenGL 4.3-capable GPUs (i.e. discrete GPUs from 2012 onward and Haswell/Broadwell iGPUs) will be able to take full advantage of the speed/performance improvements of Metal and, therefore, "El Capitan".
I hope I'm wrong, though. I'd love to see my 2011 MBP get a speed boost. Unfortunately, it seems as though I'll have to upgrade as soon as Skylake hits if I want to get access to all the latest bells and whistles.
I hope I'm wrong, though. I'd love to see my 2011 MBP get a speed boost. Unfortunately, it seems as though I'll have to upgrade as soon as Skylake hits if I want to get access to all the latest bells and whistles.
That is most likely. I mentioned version 4.1 as minimum just because Apple doesn't support 4.3 in OS X. Most of current hw that supports 4.1 could do also 4.3.
Is the Mac Edition (or any I guess) 7950 able to fully support and be compatible with OpenGL 4.3? I read in another forum here -
http://www.gamedev.net/topic/630748-any-idea-if-amd-radeon-7xxx-cards-will-support-opengl-43/
That if it can support 4.x then it can support 4.y etc. (4.1 cards can support 4.3)
Is that the case? If so does anyone have any idea if then the 7950 will be fully supported by Metal?
But on AMD's website it lists the 7950 as 4.2 only - but lists the R9 series cards as 4.3 - huh?
http://www.gamedev.net/topic/630748-any-idea-if-amd-radeon-7xxx-cards-will-support-opengl-43/
That if it can support 4.x then it can support 4.y etc. (4.1 cards can support 4.3)
Is that the case? If so does anyone have any idea if then the 7950 will be fully supported by Metal?
But on AMD's website it lists the 7950 as 4.2 only - but lists the R9 series cards as 4.3 - huh?
AMDs marketing material is from their release time. For my knowledge 7950 has received driver update for openGL 4.4.
Just watched a Session on Metal on it's supported on all Macs from 2012.
We won't know for sure until it gets released, but this wouldn't surprise me. Time to turn over my wife's mac.
I found this thread on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3957qu/ios_9_and_el_capitan_are_both_extremely_fast/cs0ot1v
That means that a MBP with a 6750 discrete GPU won't be able to use Metal, but a Macbook Air with a integrated Intel 4000 will? That truly sucks! A lot! And makes no sense...
I'm pretty sure that machines from 2012 onwards will support Metal. Does the 6750 support the same version of OpenGL as the 650m? If so, then I would imagine it will also support Metal.
I was referring to that post. In that reddit link it was said that a MBP from 2011 (and the op asked for a 15'', and such with a discrete gpu - 6750m) shown no support for Metal, and a MBA with a integrated graphics had. If it remains like that, it has nothing to do with OpenGL since both have the same OpenGL and OpenCL versions.
but as the previous user stated, maybe they just don't have the drivers writen for older models behind 2012.
Author of the linked post here – while it's true that the AMD Radeon HD 6000 series hardware supports OpenGL 4.x and could probably support Metal, the newer AMD GPUs (starting with the 7000 series) have a completely redesigned architecture.
AMD seems to be focusing their efforts on that new architecture when supporting the recent graphics APIs (Metal, Direct3D 12, etc.) rather than potentially doubling the work they need to do just to support legacy hardware.
Not that I'm particularly happy about it, since I own an early 2011 MBP with a Radeon 6750m...
AMD seems to be focusing their efforts on that new architecture when supporting the recent graphics APIs (Metal, Direct3D 12, etc.) rather than potentially doubling the work they need to do just to support legacy hardware.
Not that I'm particularly happy about it, since I own an early 2011 MBP with a Radeon 6750m...
I guess it is possible the drivers haven't been written yet. But IMO, Metal is only really necessary for iGPUs. Most dGPUs are fast enough for everyday kind of tasks; with the exception being games, of course (more power is always better in this case).
Author of the linked post here – while it's true that the AMD Radeon HD 6000 series hardware supports OpenGL 4.x and could probably support Metal, the newer AMD GPUs (starting with the 7000 series) have a completely redesigned architecture.
AMD seems to be focusing their efforts on that new architecture when supporting the recent graphics APIs (Metal, Direct3D 12, etc.) rather than potentially doubling the work they need to do just to support legacy hardware.
Not that I'm particularly happy about it, since I own an early 2011 MBP with a Radeon 6750m...
Thanks for clarifying. You do have a point, but I thought Apple would be in charge of implementing Metal? They have given AMD and Nvidia very little influence over OS X graphics drivers in the past.
With the OpenGL OS X drivers, the GPU vendors (nvidia, AMD, Intel) and Apple both implement different parts of the graphics stack (with Apple implementing much of the shared aspects, and the GPU vendors implementing much of the GPU-specific aspects.) I believe it's a similar case with the Metal drivers.