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Valve drops VR support for macOS

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Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#51
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately due to the mobile architecture you can’t sync frames. This is true on the windows side too but there you can get a “gamer” laptop which has a desktop cpu and video architecture. We could only demo castar for example On a gamer laptop or a desktop. Even a cheap desktop worked great. I’m a Mac user and develop on the Mac so you might think I’d bend over backwards to make an excuse, but...not possible in t…

>can’t sync frames What does this mean?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBF, Apple’s Metal was developed before Bulkan while tackling the same problem, and for the NVidia chips, the reason on the bad relationship of NVidia/Apple is mostly on NVidia, right?

Does it really solve the same problem? Can I run metal API on my windows or linux machines? Also, to answer your question: no. Nvidia is in the GPU selling business. They wouldn’t mind having their high priced GPUs in high priced laptops. Apple keeps control of what hardware they sell, which dictates what software gets developed. Why would Nvidia or Apple spend resources to make software for a computer that no one is…

Can you run direct3d on your Linux and Mac systems?

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#54
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously I have not tried beat saber. If it’s that amazing, I wouldn’t be posting cynical takes on VR. I think one of the problems of VR is one of cost and credibility. Even if I knew you personally and trusted you, there is no way in hell I’m going to float thousands of dollars getting a new gaming PC, VR headset, and customizing my room for the full setup just because someone said it’s amazing. The risk/reward rat…

> If it was $200, I’d consider it. Wait 10 years and then ask. It's brand new, genuinely computationally intensive, tech - it's going to be expensive. The Original PlayStation cost more in today's money than I bought my Vive for. Also, if you can get a used Vive or similar there is almost no risk. If you genuinely don't like VR then maybe its not for you but I've played a lot different games and I can't think of anyt…

Not 10 years.. 2 years at most. Budget headsets right now are as good as the Vive. If we have to wait 10 years it'll be dead.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#55
post #32
post #6

Mac is a horrible platform to support for video game developers. Speaking from experience the issues are: 1. No cross platform builds allowed. We can compile to Windows, Linux, Android, Switch, PS4, Xbox One all from one windows build machine. 2. Shifting sand of non-backwards compatibility. Notice how of the above list everyone except Linux and Android have solid back compat stories. Video games are in development f…

> 1. No cross platform builds allowed. This is SO annoying. I can cross compile to Windows from GNU/Linux quite easily. In fact with Wine I can even get MSVC running. But Apple, even though they employ many of the Clang/LLVM developers, believes that you must use their OS to target any Apple product. Your only reprieve outside of buying their extremely expensive hardware is using CI services like Travis or Github act…

Even if you DO buy a lot of expensive hardware, it’s a giant pain in the ass. There are no good rackmount solutions and so we ended up with a room full of expensive “trashcan” macs and they were STILL the biggest drag on our build infra.

This has been an issue for decades. Twenty years ago I was doing grid/HPC computing at Sun and there were a lot of bioinformatics firms that used macs and wanted compute clusters of them. It was a huge problem even then.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#56

I remain skeptical of the long term viability of VR; I’m old enough to remember when 3D TVs and monitors were going to change the face of both TV and video games, and yet here we are. I priced out VR recently and I was unimpressed with the price per value available, with most systems adding $500-$1,000 to my gaming system’s cost, and some requiring that I modify my room to work properly. And that’s not even accountin…

I never heard anyone really passionately speak about the 3D experience. It was always marketing speech with movie-goers sometimes buying into the expectation. But after experiencing it, no one ever was really passionate about it. At most they would slightly prefer, and even so I think it was because the confounding factor that 3D sessions are also played in the largest screens and the best sound system.

But for VR? It is a niche, for sure, but I know a few people really enjoy it.

It can be a niche forever (like high end sound equipment) or it can grow into mainstream (like TV), I have no idea, but I doubt it will fade away.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#57
post #6

Mac is a horrible platform to support for video game developers. Speaking from experience the issues are: 1. No cross platform builds allowed. We can compile to Windows, Linux, Android, Switch, PS4, Xbox One all from one windows build machine. 2. Shifting sand of non-backwards compatibility. Notice how of the above list everyone except Linux and Android have solid back compat stories. Video games are in development f…

I will say that the newer MBPs have decent video cards. They’re not great, but they’re ok-ish.

How is the proportion of MBPs in the macOS users?

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#58
post #50
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. No cross platform builds allowed. This is SO annoying. I can cross compile to Windows from GNU/Linux quite easily. In fact with Wine I can even get MSVC running. But Apple, even though they employ many of the Clang/LLVM developers, believes that you must use their OS to target any Apple product. Your only reprieve outside of buying their extremely expensive hardware is using CI services like Travis or Github act…

Sorry, since when is a few hundred dollars “extremely expensive”?

Maybe you should ask "where", not "when".

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#59
post #49
post #6

Mac is a horrible platform to support for video game developers. Speaking from experience the issues are: 1. No cross platform builds allowed. We can compile to Windows, Linux, Android, Switch, PS4, Xbox One all from one windows build machine. 2. Shifting sand of non-backwards compatibility. Notice how of the above list everyone except Linux and Android have solid back compat stories. Video games are in development f…

What things have have Macs had in terms on non-backwards compatibility? Genuinely curious here - don’t say 32 bit, they released the last desktop Mac OS that ran on 32bit hardware more than a decade ago. (I’m not saying that I disagree with some of the other issues)

Metal?

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#60
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is using something like unreal engine not able to compile to all operating systems. I'm not a game developer so pardon my ignorance but can you not just run macOS on a VM from Windows to compile? Hardware isn't horrible from Apple. It's just more expensive for macOS and the complete build quality that has been slipping over the years. All Apple users know we're paying more for the hardware than machines preinstal…

> Did Steve Jobs really dislike games? Dislike may be a bit strong, but John Carmack described him as indifferent: > Over the years I've been through a number of initiatives where Apple wants to get serious about games, and we've done things with them. The idea way back with Quake 3 on there, that was my deal with Steve Jobs: if Apple adopts OpenGL rather than going off and doing QuickTime3D or something else of thei…

This always struck me as highly shortsighted of Jobs and other Apple leadership. Games helped to drive and define the Apple II and Macintosh successes, and the virtuous cycle of gamers growing up on those platforms and then wanting to try their hands at developing their own games for them is how many, many software developers got their start, including some who later found themselves at Apple. What's especially strange is that that list of former videogame developers includes Jobs and Wozniak.

Apple later lucked into a gaming market with iPhone, but they're still awkward at it (just see the games they choose to showcase onstage) and there is very little cross-pollination that considers the Mac as a gaming platform.

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