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Native visionOS platform support

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Re: Native visionOS platform support

#241

Post by intellix »

khazhoux wrote: post #226
arjonagelhout wrote: post #147

This indicates to me that the Apple Vision and visionOS product line and OS are not canceled internally and that Apple is still committed to its future. While the Apple Vision Pro itself is not a good or successful product, progress in display technology will enable Apple to build a more attractive consumer product, in the form of light, comfortable and unobtrusive AR glasses. In this line of thinking — not just focu…

> While the Apple Vision Pro itself is not a good product Do you own one, or have used one extensively, to dismiss it so confidently? I own one, and it's a great product. The experience watching movies/shows is unparalleled.

I had the HTC Vive quite a few years ago, using it a lot and constantly buying new games and experiences to try it out. It was a little annoying paying full whack for little 5-10min tech demos but was still encapsulated by it. Eventually got the wireless extension to avoid having to detangle the rope of a cable you were tethered to, but the base stations in the corner of the room were still annoying me cause you constantly had to re-calibrate it everytime someone nudged or moved them.

Left it for quite a few years and after seeing the reviews about the Quest 3, I bought that and was amazed by how simple it was to pickup and use and the fact that you didn't need a monster computer running it. You literally pick it up and get going. The Meta app store is filled with lots of VR Titles which aren't just tech demos and you can STILL hook it up to your computer and play a host of Steam games. The Quest 3 was like €500 and basically a full platform.

The Vision Pro got announced with a few improvements like higher resolution but it was an insane €3500... ok I was curious how much better it would be, since I was quite impressed by my Quest 3.

My friend had bought one, one of those people who loves to wear expensive watches and be seen in public having a lot of money. As with a lot of Apple products it's sometimes about being seen to have the latest thing and the Vision Pro was great for sitting in public, catching attention and showing people that you can afford a €3500 device.

He brings it on holiday and is passing it around the room, showing people the dinosaur tech demo and everyone is amazed at how brilliant it is. For all of those in amazement (including my friend) it was their very first experience getting into VR and I also went through the same feeling when I first got the HTC Vive.

He gives it to me and shows me the dinosaur tech demo and all I could really think was... how does this thing cost €3000 more than the Quest 3? I asked him: Where are the games? there are none. Can you hook it up to Steam? No... When the battery dies, can you swap it with another? No.

Unless I had bought my Quest 3 to compare them side-by-side I honestly could not feel that it was much better visually... the finger tracking to go through menus wasn't bad, but that was it.

I think the fact that Apple devices are generally in the thousands already: MBP can be like £3000, iPhone can be like £1k... it makes sense that they were able to sell them for the price of what they did, but for me it's just insanity.

Do they have a library of games yet? Do they have any VR Games yet? Someone said it wasn't priced for consumers and I guess that's fine, but again... why wouldn't you just buy a Quest 3 (unless you hate Facebook)?

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#242

Post by h2zizzle »

threeseed wrote: post #156
jeroenhd wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would insist Apple conforms to the industry standard Insisting Apple conforms to anything is useless, unless you're in control of government regulations. You can stick to Apple's ridiculous custom APIs, or you can release your software without Apple support. Luckily, VisionOS seems to have gone the way of the Apple Pippin, so I don't think many people will care much about Apple's headsets not being supported by V…

> VisionOS seems to have gone the way of the Apple Pippin There are rumours indicating that they working on multiple new models including one designed for tethering to the Mac: https://www.macrumors.com/2025/04/13/vision-pro-2-two-rumore...

There were rumors indicating that they were working on the AVP for almost a decade before it was announced. With Apple, rumors have less to do with an imminent release and more to do with marketing, particularly to investors: such gossip placates those who are getting antsy that Apple might get left behind, especially when (as with VR) other big tech names like Facebook and Google are obviously moving to box Apple out.

If VisionOS comes back, it will be in a "Prey" or "Marathon"-like manner (or, best-scenario, A User Environment Reborn).

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#243

Post by p_ing »

bigyabai wrote: post #225
p_ing wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

APIs are the last reason there aren't 'major' games on macOS. You've got architecture changes; PPC to Intel was a big loss of game compatibility, and then again when x86-32 support was removed from OS X nuked most of a user's Steam library. And there's the chicken/egg problem of gamers just not being present in large enough numbers on macOS. The platform already has a fairly small marketshare in the overall PC space,…

APIs are the exact reason. Why can't you run Proton on MacOS? WoW64 works. Rosetta and Wine work. Is there any technical limitation besides API support preventing the Macbook from working like a Steam Deck?

Proton relies on Linux sys APIs not available on macOS, but the Porting Toolkit is available. I've been able to "play" Noita on my M2 Air (granted the perf sucks, but that's what I get for owning an Air). This discussion hasn't been centered around kernel APIs, but rather graphics APIs (D3D/Vulkan), if you're going for that "gotcha!".

Crossover is another option, though I have no need to pay for it as I own a Windows PC/consoles.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/gt3fat/proton...

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#244

Post by dagmx »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #212
dagmx wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people making the latter comments are ignoring the contents of this PR however, and showing a lack of understanding of the engine itself in the process. You cannot build this as an extension. It’s a different OS and Godot needs it to be done this way, as many people in the PR have commented as well. An extension would not cover it, and people suggesting that are probably used to the PC VR development model where…

AFAIK Apple does not allow applications to render traditionally nor gives them access to the camera or other interesting effects. You are instead given a DOM (really imagine idiosyncratic SVG for 3D) API and you must facade it to your engine object model. Apple has forced library developers into a situation even worse than Metal: a single, idiosyncratic scene graph like API. None of the performance benefits of using…

Your comment is highly incorrect

You can render traditionally all you want with metal. You just don’t get some of the features like camera access, or gaze. Which does have its downsides, but is a long way from what you’re describing. I’ve ported a metal based renderer to visionOS for companies already, and you already have engines like Unreal supporting it too.

I’m not even sure what DOM you’re talking about. SwiftUI? RealityKit? The former is for Ui. The latter is an ECS like rendering engine. But neither fit what you describe.

Perhaps before being outraged by things you should be familiar with development on them first.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#245

Post by porphyra »

oofManBang wrote: post #213
arjonagelhout wrote: post #147

This indicates to me that the Apple Vision and visionOS product line and OS are not canceled internally and that Apple is still committed to its future. While the Apple Vision Pro itself is not a good or successful product, progress in display technology will enable Apple to build a more attractive consumer product, in the form of light, comfortable and unobtrusive AR glasses. In this line of thinking — not just focu…

> While the Apple Vision Pro itself is not a good ... product I must admit I'm baffled by this reaction to the first model: * It's clearly far more impressive technologically than any competitor. * The price point clearly indicates it wasn't aimed at the general consumer, which is normal for such a massive technological leap compared to their other recent consumer stuff (e.g. the apple watch). * They got loads of fee…

It is a technological tour de force and an amazing demo of what's possible and what is soon to come. But if we define a "good product" to mean a commercially successful one, then it isn't very successful. Still, I'm hoping it won't be killed and that it will continue to evolve and become successful eventually.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#246

Post by 999900000999 »

dagmx wrote: post #176
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should your distaste for a platform preclude them from having platform support that would benefit the things they want to build? They answered this in their initial comment: > If you officially support visionOS, it now requires all product and engineering innovation to take it into account, slowing down velocity for very little gain, if any.

That’s not really an answer though, anymore than any other platform. I’m not asking why they don’t want it supported, I’m asking why their distaste should overrule everyone else who does. Just because this one very angry person doesn’t want this platform supported, doesn’t mean others don’t. You could argue the exact same thing in reverse for any other platform that is niche for someone else.

Apple would need to make an ongoing commitment.

Either monetarily, or with personnel. What I would have really liked to see is for them to not only fix issues relating to their own products, but to help Godot as a whole. Maybe, even add Swift as a scripting option without a hard requirement of owning a Mac.

This looks like a one time "gift" of high maintenance code. It's not like when Microsoft assisted with C# support. I don't need to buy a Windows PC or a $3500 Microsoft headset to make use of that.

It's also really rude to just open a giant PR without a discussion first.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#247

Post by orangecat »

bigyabai wrote: post #223
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more that devs can’t be arsed to write non-mobile games in anything but DirectX unless they’re being paid to (as the console vendors do). Vulkan support is quite rare in commercial games, it’s almost entirely DirectX or Sony/Nintendo’s things. If Apple somehow flipped a switch that turned on Vulkan support, almost nothing would change. The single biggest things Apple could do to bolster gaming on their platforms…

> If Apple somehow flipped a switch that turned on Vulkan support, almost nothing would change. That's not entirely true. Whiskey being depreciated to support Codeweavers was a headline story this week - something that outright would not need to exist if Apple users could run upstream DXVK instead of GPTk. > pay studios to do it or for Apple to license DirectX from MS. That doesn't work either! Paying Eidos and Capco…

The bigger point is that the Metal-only route isn't working.

For macOS, no. For iOS, yes, and that's where Apple makes almost all their revenue. Apple wants your primary target to be iOS. If you decide to do a macOS port, that's nice but not essential. Of course this doesn't work for AAA games, but that's a sacrifice they're happy to make.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#248

Post by eikenberry »

andsoitis wrote: post #181
_mlbt wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core idea is solid. At this point it just needs to be lighter, have better battery, and a much lower price. With further refinement and increased economies of scale these issues could potentially be fixed. Nearly all of the reviews I’ve read say that it’s a good user experience overall, but it’s not worth the price.

> The core idea is solid What is the core idea?

I'd say the core idea is augmented reality. A HUD is a good place to start thinking about how this would be useful.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#249

Post by numpad0 »

vFunct wrote: post #209
numpad0 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations, you just reinvented a decade old discontinued Microsoft products, Windows MR and HoloLens, which ended up being subsidization program for SteamVR and a pure tech demo.

Did not know HoloLens had 23megapixel displays to show high resolution text for coding. It must have been really useful back then with such a high resolution display that you could use for coding all day. People really need to understand that its the details that make a product viable, not the concept.

HoloLens 2 had higher pixel density than AVP at 2K horizontal resolution at 43deg HFOV. So yeah, you just didn't know HoloLens had 23megapixel displays to show high resolution text for coding, nearly a decade ago.

The problem was the same as today. Dead numb market response to non-SteamVR VR/MR/AR/XR headsets.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#250

Post by [deleted] »

numpad0 wrote: post #203
vFunct wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't need a battery at all. Just have it connect directly to a Mac to use as a virtual Mac display. It's what I use my Vision Pro for as its primary use case, to have an ultra-wide monitor in front of me without taking up any physical space. I use it for hours every day as my primary programming platform. I really have no other use case, and don't need the VR/AR features. The virtual ultra-wide display of the l…

Congratulations, you just reinvented a decade old discontinued Microsoft products, Windows MR and HoloLens, which ended up being subsidization program for SteamVR and a pure tech demo.

[deleted]
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