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Metal system requirements
- Thread starter VMukhtarov
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I have a 2007 MacBook Pro 15" with nVidia 8600GT graphics coming next week sometime -- I will have to test it out and let you folks know how it goes in terms of performance testing.
Obviously, based on the post above mine I am way behind in terms of Metal compatibility -- but hopefully other performance enhancements will still be realized.
Obviously, based on the post above mine I am way behind in terms of Metal compatibility -- but hopefully other performance enhancements will still be realized.
This is kinda rubbish... Why on earth a integrated gpu that is way worse than the 6750 and 6770 is supported and the dedicated gpus are not?
I truly hope that they write the drives for the 2011 machines until the launch date. It makes no sense in my opinion.
It makes a lot of sense. The 6750M is based on an old GPU architecture and isn't nearly as flexible as Intel HD 4000. Sure, it might be faster, but Metal needs to assume a basic level of hardware capability — the old cards just don't offer that.
Directx works on a crapload of different gpus. Same goes for OpenGL. Apple has 3-4 Different gpus in each iteration or year. I'm pretty sure they coul design drivers for each gpu they use.
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Directx works on a crapload of different gpus. Same goes for OpenGL. Apple has 3-4 Different gpus in each iteration or year. I'm pretty sure they coul design drivers for each gpu they use.
But then they would need to design different Metal specs and capability levels for outdated hardware. Which would make Metal an awful mess to develop for. I think it makes perfect sense to say "the hardware needs to support at least this and that".
Directx works on a crapload of different gpus. Same goes for OpenGL. Apple has 3-4 Different gpus in each iteration or year. I'm pretty sure they coul design drivers for each gpu they use.
But the feature set isn't 100% present on ever GPU - I'm sure we'll find out soon enough what the GPU architectural requires are because the requirements are minimum of a Mac from 2012.
Let's say they support from 2010... That's what? 15 different gpus? Is that considered an awful mess? A computer with 3-4-5 years is outdated but nowhere near incapable.
I would be ok with they escalating the metal advantages with the recent gpus, but this, in my opinion, makes no sense because we are speaking of a very small quantities of gpus.
And that would be totally understandable. We are not talking about hundreds of different gpus, we are talking, at most, of 2 dozens of differents gpus if they support the last 5 years.
You are missing the point. When you design a new graphics API, you need to decide what things can and should be part of that API. Those AMD GPUs are based on an old GPU core that does not support the features of newer GPUs. To support those GPUs, they would need to take (important) things away from Metal — or use software emulation (which is agains the entire concept). Metal is designed as a next-gen API that runs on next-gen hardware. So no wonder it requires a modern GPU core to run.
scalability?
I'm a web developer and if I design my sites thinking only in the latest browsers I will have my clients on top of me the next day I deliver a product.
Yes, the absence of support for radeonHD 5000 and 6000 series doesn't make sense. It seems that GPUs supporting openGL 4 (which also support DX11) also support Metal, except those 2 series.
As others have argued, it's probably because AMD only wrote Metal drivers for GCN cards. Hopefully, they'll produce drivers for the 2 previous series as well.
As others have argued, it's probably because AMD only wrote Metal drivers for GCN cards. Hopefully, they'll produce drivers for the 2 previous series as well.
If the 5000s and 6000s aren't supported, that would mean my 5,1 Mac Pro, a mid-2012 machine which came with the HD5770, couldn't support Metal. That seems odd but what do I know... For now I prefer staying optimistic and hopefully drivers will be inclded in future iterations of El Capitan.
There are reports that even Intel HD3000 devices have gained speed improvements.. so, maybe there are different levels of Metal services and developer can choose what to use? To have full featured Metal, you need 2012 or newer machine..?
UPDATE: When I thought about it more, it has to be like that. OS X 10.11 UI is running on top of Metal. So, if UI runs, Metal has to be there... not 100% powered, but on some level at least.
UPDATE: When I thought about it more, it has to be like that. OS X 10.11 UI is running on top of Metal. So, if UI runs, Metal has to be there... not 100% powered, but on some level at least.
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It runs more smooth on an Nvidia GT 120 also, but that's probably due to other changes in the OS.
There's almost certainly an OpenGL fallback.
For now, maybe. But it would be stupid for Apple to write two drivers for all their new upcoming devices.. I belive they either kill openGL for good in year or two, or they'll provide openGL emulator on top of Metal. For business sense these are the only solutions.
PS. What prevents for a 3rd party to not to write openGL 4.5 version on top of Metal?
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Including 2012? Then that would inlcude the HD5770 right? Which consequently would make Metal work in a 1,1 with a 5770...?
2012 and newer models. More info here https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2015/?id=603
Well, that's the point: some things are just not as simple and easy as web development.
And you thought wrong: Apple won't drop - cannot drop! - existing OpenGL support, so their Core graphics will have two back-ends: the existing OpenGL based one and the new Metal based one. In the later case OpenGL might just run "on top of" Metal - or those drivers will co-exists (for the foreseeable future).