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Conformant OpenGL 4.6 on the M1

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Re: Conformant OpenGL 4.6 on the M1

#111
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can implement an OpenGL driver on top of Metal. But why bother dedicating so many resources for the sake of a suboptimal legacy API?

Because it's a cross-platform framework that thousands of programs (including Mac exclusives) rely on? There's so much OpenGL-only software that it should be Apple's moral imperative to support it anyways. I don't think anyone can honestly say that the graphics situation on Mac has improved in the absence of cross-platform APIs. Even Apple admits it with the Game Porting Toolkit.

And any of those Mac programs need anything more recent than 4.1? GL is legacy tech and Apple does offer legacy support. I just don’t see any reason to invest more work into this area. We should encourage people to stop using GL, not use it more. It’s bad technology.

Re: Conformant OpenGL 4.6 on the M1

#113
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a cross-platform framework that thousands of programs (including Mac exclusives) rely on? There's so much OpenGL-only software that it should be Apple's moral imperative to support it anyways. I don't think anyone can honestly say that the graphics situation on Mac has improved in the absence of cross-platform APIs. Even Apple admits it with the Game Porting Toolkit.

And any of those Mac programs need anything more recent than 4.1? GL is legacy tech and Apple does offer legacy support. I just don’t see any reason to invest more work into this area. We should encourage people to stop using GL, not use it more. It’s bad technology.

Ideally we encourage people to port to Vulkan instead of Metal and DirectX, so porting is easier and more people can run common software. Unfortunately, certain vendors have a reputation against third party Open standards.

Re: Conformant OpenGL 4.6 on the M1

#114
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've read that generally opengl is just easier to use than vulkan [here's]( https://learnopengl.com/code_viewer_gh.php?code=src/1.gettin... ) an opengl triangle rendering example code (~200 LOC) [here's]( https://vulkan-tutorial.com/code/17_swap_chain_recreation.cp... ) a vulkan triangle rendering example code (~1000 LOC) ye it's fair to say opengl is a bit easier to use ijbol

This is a bit misleading. Much of the extra code that you'd have to write in Vulkan to get to first-triangle is just that, a one-time cost. And you can use a third-party library, framework or engine to take care of it. Vulkan merely splits out the hardware-native low level from the library support layer, that were conflated in OpenGL, and lets the latter evolve freely via a third party ecosystem. That's just a sensib…

I mean you're literally suggesting that people should use a third-party framework/engine/library because writing all the Vulkan boiler plate yourself is too hard.

Re: Conformant OpenGL 4.6 on the M1

#115
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a cross-platform framework that thousands of programs (including Mac exclusives) rely on? There's so much OpenGL-only software that it should be Apple's moral imperative to support it anyways. I don't think anyone can honestly say that the graphics situation on Mac has improved in the absence of cross-platform APIs. Even Apple admits it with the Game Porting Toolkit.

And any of those Mac programs need anything more recent than 4.1? GL is legacy tech and Apple does offer legacy support. I just don’t see any reason to invest more work into this area. We should encourage people to stop using GL, not use it more. It’s bad technology.

Legacy or not, OpenGL is the best cross platform graphics API we have that's actually practical for people to write directly. Metal is reasonable to write directly but not cross platform, Vulkan is cross platform but you need thousands of LoC to put a triangle on the screen.

Re: Conformant OpenGL 4.6 on the M1

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will. One of the main issues with desktop linux is still broad hardware support. Random crap like fingerprint readers or Wi-Fi cards still don't work on certain machines. By having a very constrained set of hardware options, it makes it a lot easier to support. The snapdragon devices are also starting way behind.. both the Surface X and Lenovo X13S snapdragon devices exist today but Linux support isn't clo…

> the Surface X and Lenovo X13S snapdragon devices exist today but Linux support isn't close to Asahi. Is that necessarily true? When the X13S Snapdragon released I seem to remember it shipping with first-party Linux drivers for almost everything. Same goes for the Surface X actually. Now, both of those devices definitely don't get the same attention Macs do, but they did ship day-and-date with decent Linux support.…

> When the X13S Snapdragon released I seem to remember it shipping with first-party Linux drivers for almost everything

Nope. 2 years on there's still no webcam support for this device [1], though it is in a lot better place than it was on launch (not being able to boot at all on mainline).

The Surface Pro X still seems to be a long way off [2].

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/17tw6ag/anyo...

[2]: https://github.com/linux-surface/surface-pro-x/issues/7

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