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An Update on Apple M1/M2 GPU Drivers

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Re: An Update on Apple M1/M2 GPU Drivers

#261

Post by a_vanderbilt »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #150
kristianp wrote: post #127

I was going going to say she should work for Valve to help get Steam working on Linux on Macs, but it seems she already does? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alyssa_Rosenzweig#Career

Nice; that raises some interesting questions as to what Valve is planning here. Steam/Proton on macs would make a lot of sense for them hard as it may be. People booting linux on their macs to play games would really annoy Apple probably.

I have a bet going that their next Steam Deck is going to have an ARM processor.

Allegedly NVidia is working on a WoA SoC, now that Qualcomm's contract with MS has ended. If NVidia puts their recent capital gains into a performant ARM chip like Apple (tapeout alone would likely run in the billion-dollar range), we can hopefully expect AMD to respond with something soon after. Once the chipsets are available, it's a matter of getting Linux to work with mixed page-size processes.

I have no idea how possible that is, but if the emulation performance is anything like Rosetta and the M1 proved possible, most users won't even notice.

Re: An Update on Apple M1/M2 GPU Drivers

#262

Post by a_vanderbilt »

GeekyBear wrote: post #227
jillesvangurp wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice; that raises some interesting questions as to what Valve is planning here. Steam/Proton on macs would make a lot of sense for them hard as it may be. People booting linux on their macs to play games would really annoy Apple probably.

> People booting linux on their macs to play games would really annoy Apple probably. You dont have to boot Linux to play PC games on Mac. Apple already provides the tools you need to build a Mac native equivalent to Proton. There are several options built using those tools, both paid {Crossover) and free/open source (Whisky). Whisky combines the same ooen source Wine project that Proton leverages with Apple's Rosett…

The problem is that Whisky is not for the casual user.

I used it and found it confusing at first. Imagine your average gamer, they'd never get past dragging in the app. The Steam Deck (and Proton) have been so successful because you can just power on the Deck and use it. No tinkering or third-party tools to do what you want.

Re: An Update on Apple M1/M2 GPU Drivers

#263

Post by jpurnell »

outworlder wrote: post #251
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I noticed in the M4 macbook announcement comments was how many people were happy with their M1 laptop, and second, how many people kept their Macbooks for nearly a decade; these devices are built to last, and I applaud long-term support from Apple itself and the Linux community. Second, since it's open source, Apple themselves are probably paying attention; I didn't read the whole thing because it's going o…

> how many people kept their Macbooks for nearly a decade; these devices are built to last, and I applaud long-term support from Apple itself and the Linux community. Anecdotal but I have a White Macbook from 2010. It's sitting on a shelf not because it doesn't work (minus the battery), but because it's too outdated to be of much use. And there's a small crack in the case. I have a Macbook Pro from 2016. I still whip…

I power up my Titanium Powerbook at least once a year or so. 23 years old and works just fine. I last opened it July 4, 2023, and there was a software update waiting for me.

Re: An Update on Apple M1/M2 GPU Drivers

#264

Post by 6SixTy »

bri3d wrote: post #228
Twisell wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is barring Apple from supporting Vulkan natively on MacOS. This is essentially the closing statement of Alyssa Rosenzweig´s talk. With Apple knowledge of internal documents they are the best positioned to produce an even better low level implementation. At this point the main blockroad is the opinionated point that Metal porting is the only official supported way to go. If Valve pull up a witch-crafted way to…

> If Valve pull up a witch-crafted way to run AAA games on Mac without Apple support that would be an interesting landscape. And maybe would force Apple to re-consider their approach if they don't want to be cornered on their own platform... Right, except that Game Porting Toolkit and D3DMetal was an exact response to this scenario. Whether it's the right approach, time will tell, but Apple definitely already headed…

Game Porting Toolkit isn't a response in this scenario. All advertising for GPTK is aimed squarely at publishers, and even Whiskey has to pull a binary out of a back alley for D3DMetal. Apple is essentially doing nothing and hoping it works.

Re: An Update on Apple M1/M2 GPU Drivers

#265

Post by Nullabillity »

talldayo wrote: post #222
Nullabillity wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all built on the, frankly, nonsensical assumption that photorealism is the , let alone a , primary goal.

Not really. Tiny Glade is a recent ray-traced title that has no goal of photorealism whatsoever, and it looks gorgeous with RT lighting and shadows: https://youtu.be/QAUSBxxgIbQ You can scale these same principles to even less photorealistic games like the Borderlands series or a Grand Theft Auto game. Ray tracing is less about photorealism (although it is a potent side effect) and more about creating dynamic lightin…

The question isn't "can you achieve your look with RT?" but "do you need RT to achieve your look?".

As long as traditional lighting is enough (and given that it has for the last 2 decades or so), RT remains a gimmick.

Re: An Update on Apple M1/M2 GPU Drivers

#266

Post by jjmarr »

saagarjha wrote: post #129
jjmarr wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't even know this until now. I looked at her resume and I can't grasp how she's been doing an undergraduate degree from 2019-2023, meaning that writing an entire GPU driver is the side project she made during her degree.

There’s a lot of free time when you’re in college.

Depends on major. I'm in engineering so it's more work than a full time job for whatever reason.

Re: An Update on Apple M1/M2 GPU Drivers

#267

Post by GeekyBear »

a_vanderbilt wrote: post #262
GeekyBear wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People booting linux on their macs to play games would really annoy Apple probably. You dont have to boot Linux to play PC games on Mac. Apple already provides the tools you need to build a Mac native equivalent to Proton. There are several options built using those tools, both paid {Crossover) and free/open source (Whisky). Whisky combines the same ooen source Wine project that Proton leverages with Apple's Rosett…

The problem is that Whisky is not for the casual user. I used it and found it confusing at first. Imagine your average gamer, they'd never get past dragging in the app. The Steam Deck (and Proton) have been so successful because you can just power on the Deck and use it. No tinkering or third-party tools to do what you want.

That's certainly not what the reviews of Whisky had to say, although I have seen it said that buying a Crossover license gets you more hand holding than a free copy of Whisky does.

Re: An Update on Apple M1/M2 GPU Drivers

#268

Post by BirAdam »

bluGill wrote: post #208
bityard wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-trivial environmental damage of building the new computer AND disposing of the old one should not be ignored. There are plenty of us who would rather pay a few extra bucks on our power bill rather than send e-waste to the landfill before it needs to be.

You are instead sending CO2 into the atmosphere. (depending on how your get your power, but for most of us burning things is how we get our power. Renewables are coming online fast though)

Ewaste will create CO2 and physical environmental pollution. Much of it is just dumped on the third world where some parts will be burnt, some melted down, and some subjected to chemical baths for metals extraction. Those chemicals will then be dumped.

Re: An Update on Apple M1/M2 GPU Drivers

#269

Post by hurutparittya »

School-Cotton wrote: post #258
hurutparittya wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always surprised when people speak highly of Apple devices here. While they do have certain advantages, there are some issues that should be dealbreakers for tech literate people. (in my own, possibly biased opinion at least) In case of Macbooks, it's the fact that they refuse to provide an official GPU driver for Linux and general poor support for things outside the walled garden. The Asahi stuff is cool and all…

> there are some issues that should be dealbreakers for tech literate people. (in my own, possibly biased opinion at least) I know you admit right after that your opinion is biased, but it's almost ludicrous to assert that all the programmers and engineers using Macs and iPhones by choice must just not be tech literate. > In case of Macbooks, it's the fact that they refuse to provide an official GPU driver for Linux…

I agree, "tech-literate" was a poor choice of words on my part. Tech enthusiast or tinkerer would have been much better options to convey my opinion.

I feel like there used to be a higher concentration of those people here.

Re: An Update on Apple M1/M2 GPU Drivers

#270

Post by bluedino »

ho_schi wrote: post #252
bluedino wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never kept my ThinkPads around long because of the screens (which they have fixed, somewhere around the T450 timeframe. The X220/230 had that godawful 1366x768 panel. A shame when the 13" Air at the time had a 1440x900 panel, which while it wasn't amazing with the viewing angles and colors, it was light years ahead of the screen in something like a T430.

ThinkPads come usually with two panel options: The cheap one and the good one. Often even a third or fourth. Lenovo should only ship the good ones! If I buy a ThinkPad I want the good one. I struggled to get the HiDPI panel for the X13 and ordered it from the replacement parts. Same for the X220, I replaced the TN panel by drumroll IPS panel. Apple takes ridiculous amounts for memory or disk but you always get the go…

The Carbon X1 2560x1440 screen was _fantastic_.
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