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Valve drops VR support for macOS

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Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#131

Post by jolux »

wtallis wrote: post #72
pcr910303 wrote: post #11

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?

Vulkan is the vendor-independent derivative of AMD's Mantle, which pre-dates Apple's Metal. There were several proposed new 3D APIs around that time, but ISVs quickly converged around Vulkan. Apple's reticence to adopt or even permit it is worse than Microsoft's continued efforts to push Direct3D.

Metal's first release was 2014, one year after Mantle in 2013. Vulkan's first release wasn't until 2016, and Mantle was proprietary.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#132

Post by yellowapple »

olliej wrote: post #52
willis936 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Technically yes: http://www.nongnu.org/wined3d/

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#133

Post by wilg »

est31 wrote: post #32
Danieru wrote: 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…

I think Unity does it (sort of). But yea...

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#134

Post by wpietri »

soneca wrote: post #56
ashtonkem wrote: post #19

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? I…

Unfortunately, I don't think it can be a niche forever, assuming it's a gaming platform. As we see from game developers in this thread, a platform with a too-small audience is uneconomical. That's true even when the platforms are as similar as Windows and Mac. It'll be way more true given that VR is a very different experience.

Apparently Quest sales figures aren't public, but I see estimates that they sold a million units last year. Nintendo sold that many Switches last month. And the month before that. And the month before that. (And in December it was something like 5 million/month.)

However much niche users enjoy it, I have a hard time seeing how they'll sustain enough of a developer ecosystem to keep them entertained. High end sound equipment can draft off of every music player in the world for content. But good VR is very much VR-specific.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#135

Post by Jasper_ »

wtallis wrote: post #72
pcr910303 wrote: post #11

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?

Vulkan is the vendor-independent derivative of AMD's Mantle, which pre-dates Apple's Metal. There were several proposed new 3D APIs around that time, but ISVs quickly converged around Vulkan. Apple's reticence to adopt or even permit it is worse than Microsoft's continued efforts to push Direct3D.

The team that developed Mantle got ignored by AMD management, who then left and subsequently got hired by Apple to develop Metal. Vulkan's release was held up for over a year by AMD management and red tape, which was by then already a year later than Metal's release.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#136

Post by dgellow »

lookdangerous wrote: post #73
Danieru wrote: 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 suppose they do that so you know what using a Mac is like when you develop for it. Macs are, in my experience, different than other machines.

How are they different?

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#137

Post by ascom »

p1necone wrote: post #118
mekanicalsyncop wrote: post #61

Everyone's talking about the slower hardware. IMO the biggest hurdle to gaming is Mac OS's baked in mouse acceleration and whatever else makes 100% of mice feel absolutely terrible on a Mac. Even the magic mouse feels janky. I followed a bunch of online guides to do everything I can to disable the acceleration and everything else, but for some reason when I try to play a game it still feels terrible. Even when the ga…

That's disappointing - I've never used a Mac but the first thing I do on new Windows PCs is turn off "enhance pointer precision" (mouse acceleration) in control panel. It's awful for anything where you have to aim, I can't imagine gaming on a system with mouse acceleration that can't be disabled.

FPS games typically use raw input, which bypasses any acceleration settings in the OS. This works on both Windows and macOS, assuming the game is properly written. This is why I insist on keeping mouse acceleration enabled since it helps with everyday computing tasks and has no effect on at least the games I normally play.

Regarding the comment above, it is definitely possible there are subtle configuration differences that cause the described behavior (different acceleration curves, polling rate/DPI settings, display refresh rates, etc). FWIW, my “gaming” mouse works fine with my MBP, but it takes a moment to readjust to the different sensitivity and acceleration behavior.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#138

Post by llarsson »

rajlego wrote: post #125
est31 wrote: 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…

You could build a hackintosh instead. Pain to get software set up just right but when it is it works great.

It is not a technical problem, but a legal one. It is that they do not want to expose themselves by violating agreements with Apple.

Do you want to be the genius that saved a few dollars on hardware with a Hackintosh only to get the company sued?

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#139

Post by p1necone »

ascom wrote: post #137
p1necone wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's disappointing - I've never used a Mac but the first thing I do on new Windows PCs is turn off "enhance pointer precision" (mouse acceleration) in control panel. It's awful for anything where you have to aim, I can't imagine gaming on a system with mouse acceleration that can't be disabled.

FPS games typically use raw input, which bypasses any acceleration settings in the OS. This works on both Windows and macOS, assuming the game is properly written. This is why I insist on keeping mouse acceleration enabled since it helps with everyday computing tasks and has no effect on at least the games I normally play. Regarding the comment above, it is definitely possible there are subtle configuration differenc…

Games should use raw mouse input, but there's enough that don't support it (or that don't by default) that it's easier to just leave it turned off. I also find it annoying even on the desktop - I'd rather have mouse speed relate to hand speed linearly, but I do use higher DPI than the 800ish standard of regular mice.

Re: Valve drops VR support for macOS

#140

Post by Arelius »

ac29 wrote: post #120
wpietri wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few? I was just looking at getting MacOS hardware so I could do iPhone builds of a Flutter app. The bottom-end Mac Mini is $800 with 8 GB of RAM, and $1400 with 32 GB, which is what people on forums were recommending for running XCode properly. Is that what you'd call a few? Looking at System76's equivalent mini, it's $555 for the low end, which has the same RAM and a faster, newer processor. Going to 32 GB takes i…

I came here to say more or less the same thing... but for people who aren't native english speakers: a "few hundred" means $300, perhaps $350. Apple doesnt sell anything this cheap, and if you're comparing used Apple hardware to new PC hardware, thats a bit unfair.

well, maybe $400, $500, and maybe you could stretch it to $600 but I agree $800 is well beyond the reach of "a few hundred"
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