Deprecation of OpenGL and OpenCL • Hacker News Board

Re: Deprecation of OpenGL and OpenCL

#461

Post by mellinoe » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 6:26 AM UTC

westoncb wrote: post #439

mellinoe wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree with that, especially with regards to Metal. It's a very approachable and well-designed API. It might not have the volume of resources that OpenGL does, but the docs themselves are good, and I have seen plenty of intro-level tutorials that are decent enough. Debuggability is also much better than OpenGL, which I think is important for newcomers. Debugging OpenGL issues is very, very painful, especial…

Any recommendations for 'good OpenGL'?

I think https://learnopengl.com/ is pretty good.

Re: Deprecation of OpenGL and OpenCL

#462

Post by megaman22 » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 6:31 AM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #460

slavik81 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qt supports multiple backends for its own rendering, but the hobbyists will still have to rewrite their rendering code to support that new backend. For a lot of my programs, that's about equivalent to rewriting in another language.

Not when the hobbyists took the right approach to use the Qt 3D APIs, like the new scene graph API. Also there is no harm in learning to write modular graphics engines with multiple backends, hobbits get to learn how professionals do it. Finally, if it is just a hobby, then what hobbyists can do best to improve productivity is to use whatever their OS offers out of the box.

I got a small kick out of the typo, with hobbits learning to write graphics engines. No doubt between second breakfast and elevensies

Re: Deprecation of OpenGL and OpenCL

#463

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 11:22 AM UTC

megaman22 wrote: post #462

pjmlp wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not when the hobbyists took the right approach to use the Qt 3D APIs, like the new scene graph API. Also there is no harm in learning to write modular graphics engines with multiple backends, hobbits get to learn how professionals do it. Finally, if it is just a hobby, then what hobbyists can do best to improve productivity is to use whatever their OS offers out of the box.

I got a small kick out of the typo, with hobbits learning to write graphics engines. No doubt between second breakfast and elevensies

Yeah, my English went downhill with auto-correction keyboards. :)

Re: Deprecation of OpenGL and OpenCL

#464

Post by taharvey » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 3:24 AM UTC

sbuk wrote: post #277

janoc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CAD on Mac is pretty much non-existent, as is any professional 3D market - the market share isn't there, the hardware support is terrible, so few major players bother with supporting Macs. All this stuff is either Windows (CAD) or Linux (3D simulation, visualization) these days. And with this deprecation Mac is pretty much dead as a platform for professional 3D.

Visualisation is largely done on Windows, mainly with 3dsmax. Has been for a while. Linux is used more in movie VFX.

Your view of visualization is a limited world: windows and Max?

Re: Deprecation of OpenGL and OpenCL

#465

Post by taharvey » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 3:45 AM UTC

sundvor wrote: post #259

_bxg1 wrote: post #32

Ugggggh. As if graphics support on macOS weren't middling enough already. It's like they're trying to become as irrelevant as possible in that area. I could understand if they were deprecating it in favor of Vulkan. That would be in-line with Apple's history of aggressively pushing forward new standards. But by no means do they have the clout to coerce developers into their own bespoke graphics API that doesn't work…

Apple must truly hate gaming, or suffer from a serious case of Not Invented Here with their Metal stuff. As if any serious gaming studio would target Metal which doesn't run on Windows. In fact, they couldn't get their act together, keep with current versions, and as a result titles like Elite Dangerous were being shut down anyway. Reason: OpenGL stuck on an old version without support of compute shaders. https://for…

While I get the concern, everybody's history here is backwards. Apple released Metal 2 YEARS before Vulkan. Why? Because OpenGL wasn't hacking it anymore and had become too asymmetric. Vulkan copied Metal, not the other way around.

I'm not sure they should have spun around and dropped Metal for Vulkan once it became available, or slow down the pace of progress til the rest of the market caught up. Doesn't make sense.

Also Apple is perhaps the largest GPU manufacturer in the world, with 200-250M GPUs shipped in 2017. That is 4-5X of Nvidia! Also Apple is investing highly in AI from tools to devices to GPUs, being able to customize may have tremendous value.

It is highly possible that Apple sees owning their interface stack as a means to keep their software-hardware warchest a couple years ahead of the competition. Which in mobile has been paying off of the last 5 years, as they constantly have crushed all others by 2-3X.

Re: Deprecation of OpenGL and OpenCL

#466

Post by pfranz » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

rimliu wrote: post #291

pfranz wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of true for games, but he's totally right about CAD and other software. Big 3d applications Nuke, Houdini, Maya all use OpenGL. Before OSX, Mac versions either didn't exist or were kept up about as well as IE or Word was. Over the past 5-10 years they've been reliably released for OSX at the same time Windows and Linux versions were (they all originated on IRIX). They all have a lot of other development g…

Well, then maybe it is a good thing for wannabe pixelmators? Create a nice Mac-only tool, profit.

Yeah, but that really sucks for people who use powerhouse tools that took 15 years to develop because we were able to use Macs, but it's looking less and less likely going forward.

I really like the idea of creating more space for the little guy. I want them to do well, but honestly I haven't had the best experience. As someone who uses the professional tools during the day, but has only the occasional needs for personal use I was happy to pay for a Mac-only tool. In practice, for a tool I only grab every few months I often find there was a regression in some feature that I guess is only used moderately often (selection boxes), it doesn't currently support that feature (I can't remember, but it was something like HSV color space, more than 8bpp, or some file format like TGA or PNG--not features you'd add to v1, but nothing too obscure), or there's another paid upgrade.

Even beloved Mac tools like Panic's Transmit, I feel like I can't 100% rely on. At a moment's notice I'll have to jump to something else to finish the task.