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WWDC happened - OpenGL gone


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If I read my OpenGL extensions right, Mojave includes the same OpenGL Support and

Extensions like High Sierra before. That is why I wondering why Apple pulled so many

older Hardware with non-Metal capability GPUs in the legacy grave.

 

I think my 2009 Mac Mini Server would have been running fine with Mojave in an

OpenGL-only mode. But it looks that Apple has already thrown out all OpenGL

stuff from all their Apps and went Metal.

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Ahm, Dark Mode + Dynamic Background ?

Anyone tried that - does that work for "Retina" Displays ?

 

For me on my 2560x1440 only Wacom Display,

the Dark Mode is unreadable and looks bad when Font Antialiasing on.

And it doesn't look good when AA off.

The System Fonts seem to be "bolder" now all over the place in

Apple Apps. It is not as disturbing in Bright Mode but still noticeable.

 

Also there are now new Color Options, like for Selection Color with the ability to

even select a Custom Color. But that will be ignored anyway.

 

I tried the dynamic Dune but it doesn't fit with Dark Mode + daylight Dune

or vice versa. Also you will notice when the dynamic Background Image

switches its Frames.

 

 

I lately went less disturbing Dark-Color-only Background with Sierra's Semi-Dark

Mode Option (Top Bar and Dock only).

But now since real Dark Mode availability, I switched everything back to even

my legacy standard Bright Mode with Lake Image from 3 years ago.

 

(And what a pain to change all your 8 Screen Spaces one by one and the

need to close Settings each time in between)

 

 

 

 

Edited by zoomer
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I came a bit further now.

I was told that Apple doesn't allow 3rd parties to provide graphic drivers.

They don't like it and it may have been worse in the past but it is not

forbidden.

Like Nvidia announced their driver lately (which may not get all their love

though given the currently small amount of Nvida cards on Macs)

and I see all kind of 3rd party OpenGL extensions already existing on

my Mac Pro.

 

So it was theoretically not such a problem that Apple's OpenGL support was pure

OpenGL 3-4 only, ditching the legacy support for OpenGL 1-2.

Software developers could keep their OpenGL legacy functions

(which makes still sense in some cases) but also profit from OpenGL 4.1

low level things against bottleneck where speed is important.

 

And so Apples OpenGL deprecation may not be such an issue.

It could be basically the same the same situation like on Windows, where

Microsoft stopped OpenGL support in their OS for DirectX, long ago.

So 3rd parties could offer OpenGL support for Macs.

And, beside other reasons, if necessary, 3D Apps could theoretically go on

with OpenGL on Mac, and cross platform, forever when either :

- Apple let that unsupported OpenGL stay in future macOS releases

- AMD and/or Nvidia bring proprietary graphic drivers with OpenGL Support

- the App developer(s) bring their OPenGL support and extensions

- any 3rd party brings an OpenGL Support package for Mac

- any 3rd party brings an useful OpenGL emulation for Mac (MoltenGL)

 

And the Developers of Molten (bridging OpenGL or Vulkan over Metal)

signaled interest in making MoltenGL available and even open source if there

is enough interest and support. As it happened with Steam and MoltenVK.

 

But it may not always be a bad idea to take that chance to upgrade an App

to a newer graphics API.

Some developers of smaller Apps said they see not much problem going

with 2 graphic API and even prefer going Metal + DirectX, as these would

not be that different, over going cross platform and having to deal with

Vulkan.

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I thought that too.

And there are ways to fiddle that.

But the way how Apple supports eGPU without supporting Nvidia cards

and even ditching TB2 support from the nMac Pro makes it a bit difficult.

The only eGPU System so far that works out of the box seems to be that

soldered/glued non-upgradeable Blackmagic thing with old legacy

AMD card.

Other solutions, even with AMD Vega often need external Monitors applied,

to be able to make use of the GPU for calculations, and other things.

 

And I think especially Mac users will prefer solutions that work out of the box.

 

And from my workstation perspective I still prefer to have SSDs and GPUs

integrated in one case.

 

GPUs will help for Rendering and AI in Apps but I doubt they will replace the

typical CAD or Modeling workloads and object handing in 3D Apps.

And you still need a fast CPU to feed the GPU with data, which is a bottleneck

in Games.

And GPUs also rely on proper graphic and calculation Frameworks.

If you think about Apple's OpenCL implementation prevented VRAYs first

GPU Render solution from running on Mac but Windows OpeNCL only.

(While VRAYs and others preferred API would by CUDA anyway which will

not be available on Macs with AMD cards)

 

If Nvidia sees a market in their GPUs in eGPUs on Mac they may go and do the

support.

Edited by zoomer
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  • 1 month later...
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

An excerpt related to this topic from an interview with our CEO in Architosh, pointed out by one of our testers:

 

--------------------------------

 

"The Deprecation of OpenGL by Apple: Metal vs Vulkan and the VGM

 

With the recent news of the deprecation of OpenGL in future macOS versions, announced by Apple at WWDC 2018, I had to ask Dr. Biplab Sarkar what that might mean for its proprietary VGM technology.

 

“Actually the VGM has been set up for this possible future,” Sarkar reassures. “The calls in the VGM are established in such a way that it will be very easy to go to Vulkan or [Apple’s] Metal for that matter.” He noted that currently, the company’s programmers are leaning more towards Vulkan, the open industry standard by The Khronos Group. The open standard would simplify cross-platform development, but there are emerging technologies that will enable bridging from OpenGL to Metal directly.

 

“I would say we are at least a year away from making this decision,” adds Dr. Sarkar. He explains that they still have many parts of Vectorworks to rewrite using the VGM. “Our selection system is not using the VGM, nor our interactive graphics.” Once those items are moved over to the Vectorworks Graphics Module then and only then would the company be able to re-code parts of the VGM for either Vulkan or Metal APIs."

  • Like 2
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

If we made the decision right now, the playing field will have changed significantly by the time the changes go live. Since none of the work we are doing right now to move things over to the VGM directly affects which platform we choose to move to, the choice can be delayed as long as possible to pick the healthiest option. 

Sort of like waiting as long as possible before upgrading a computer, the longer you're able to hold off buying, the more bang for the buck you get with modern hardware. 

This is mainly because the VGM was designed to be flexible for exactly this sort of changes, we can hook it into any modern solution we choose. To clarify a bit: We don't for instance, need to migrate from the VGT TO Metal or TO Vulkan, we will simply keep working on the VGM and hook it into the replacement for OpenGL. The VGM was specifically designed to futureproof Vectorworks against exactly this kind of major platform change at the same time as it allows the use of more system hardware.

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I don't see this as alarming.

As it was said in the article, currently, with parts of VW not yet in VGM there

is no way to switch anywhere though, if I got that right.

And until that is, there may be other options to choose from.

 

Including that there may be still OpenGL support on Mac forever.

Not from Apple but by GPU Vendors by their drivers or things like MoltenGL.

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11 hours ago, Jim Wilson said:

This is mainly because the VGM was designed to be flexible for exactly this sort of changes, we can hook it into any modern solution we choose. To clarify a bit: We don't for instance, need to migrate from the VGT TO Metal or TO Vulkan, we will simply keep working on the VGM and hook it into the replacement for OpenGL. The VGM was specifically designed to futureproof Vectorworks against exactly this kind of major platform change at the same time as it allows the use of more system hardware.

 

This all makes sense. I guess the concern is if Apple announces in June that OpenGL is done with the next version of the MacOS released the following October, what happens then. Can this change be made in 4 months? We're already in a scenario where the two current versions of VW are not entirely compatible with Mojave which comes preloaded on any new hardware. As someone who's been doing this -

 

11 hours ago, Jim Wilson said:

Sort of like waiting as long as possible before upgrading a computer, the longer you're able to hold off buying, the more bang for the buck you get with modern hardware. 

 

I'm now not just waiting on hardware (hopefully announced tomorrow) but also on VW. My 2012 hardware is showing its age.....

 

Kevin

 

(Something I read in the last few days makes me nervous that Apple's push towards Metal is related to them making their own graphics hardware, which, if true, would really force the issue.....)

 

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6 hours ago, Kevin McAllister said:

 

This all makes sense. I guess the concern is if Apple announces in June that OpenGL is done with the next version of the MacOS released the following October, what happens then. Can this change be made in 4 months? We're already in a scenario where the two current versions of VW are not entirely compatible with Mojave which comes preloaded on any new hardware. As someone who's been doing this -

 

Or you can compare it with the situation with Carbon. For a 32 bit application, it is still available. For a 64 bit application, it was never available: Cocoa must be used.

 

As 32 bit applications are still supported in Mojave, that makes a conversion period of around a decade.

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I am sure 32 bit Apps will fall out with next macOS.

But I doubt that OpenGL falls out with next release.

That would be the out for the majority of cross platform

3D DCC Apps.

 

They would tell their users to not update macOS or some

would pull the switch and abandon Apple,

which Apple isn't that interested in, but maybe they won't

care anyway.

 

But there are still so many options what may happen in

(near) future for a topic that is quite essential and

tedious.

 

Looks like working with Apple Metal API is relatively easy

and cool, while the need to support different APIs for

different OS is not so cool.

Working with Vulkan not so cool but cross platform.

There are so many options and directions possible in the

future but all Softwares should agree to go one direction

to make these virtual options become real options.

 

And I think the main Problem for many Apps is to wait if

there is any future in Apple and trust being a useful

3D platform in the near future at all,

before there there starts any enthusiasm in doing any

decision or change.

Which may or may not be finally answered by Apple,

starting in 2.5 hours in New York.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
10 hours ago, Kevin McAllister said:

I guess the concern is if Apple announces in June that OpenGL is done with the next version of the MacOS released the following October, what happens then.


From all I have heard, we expect that this will not happen until at least 2 years from today.

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28 minutes ago, Nicolas Goutte said:

 

Yes, that is why I wrote "around a decade": from ca. 2007 to ca. 2019.

 

I am not sure about 32 bit Apps falling out with macOS 15 anymore.

I checked and realized that I have (and use) still a lot of 32 bit Apps.

And the only 32 bit "your App is not optimized for ..." warning

I got so far was, 1 time, for - VW 2019

😂

 

So I think in macOS 15 Apple will start to bomb us with warnings for

any 32 bit App and finally throw them out with macOS 16

Edited by zoomer
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On 10/30/2018 at 1:38 PM, zoomer said:

I am not sure about 32 bit Apps falling out with macOS 15 anymore.

 

Ouch, Update.

 

I installed the 10.14.1 update yesterday.

Now I get my 32 bit Warnings for any 32 bit App.

 

So I think Mojave will be the last macOS supporting 32 bit Apps.

Edited by zoomer
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
3 minutes ago, digitalcarbon said:

So...would a browser based CAD system make this a non-issue?

 


No, it would still be a concern, since even thought its running "in" a browser for users, it still has to run on a machine somewhere else and that machine still has to have all the bits needed to support the VGM

Apple dropping OpenGL SPECIFICALLY would be a non issue since if we did browser based anything though, it would all be Windows. Apple does not allow virtualization of macOS on cloud servers.

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So let me see if i got this correct...IF a company did a browser CAD then they would only have to worry about it if the OS they chose decided to change something.  

 

In other words IF Windows made a major change then that would upset the system IF if were on Windows.

 

Then rest of us (using browsers) it would be a non-issue. (except for other programs we may have on our machine)

 

 

It's interesting that I keep getting these emails from software people (VW, Screen Flow, and others)  trying to stay ahead of the latest issue of MAC OS 

(I'm sure Windows similar??) but i have not gotten such "we're working on the problem" emails from the 2 applications that are browser based...

 

I'm not in any way faulting VW or the team...great product & work

 

Right now my business is running heavy on 2 browser apps and 1 desktop app...this is giving me an interesting perspective...

 

Maybe it will all come crashing down on me and everyone can say "told you so"...we will see.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
1 hour ago, digitalcarbon said:

So let me see if i got this correct...IF a company did a browser CAD then they would only have to worry about it if the OS they chose decided to change something.  

  

In other words IF Windows made a major change then that would upset the system IF it were on Windows.


Correct.

At the moment the only choices for virtualized OSes are Windows and the various flavors of Linux, so we would very likely choose Windows.

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Oh, I have it never seen that way ....

I always thought about 1 Server and me in front of a browser.

Totally forgot there may be other users too at the same time .....

So a VM for each user or Project.

 

I would go with Linux,

distribute VW over Valve,

so one could maybe use Valve's WINE on steroids for running VW on Windows 🙂

Or better 20.000 mac Minis in a rack running macOS with Parallels for the Windows VMs.

(ok, each their own eGPU)

Maybe better Users will send their Workstations to VW HQ and VW takes the streaming part.

  • Laugh 1
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But I do not question these Browser based Apps in general and am always

very impressed and like what @digitalcarbondoes and shows in his videos.

 

It is just me who is too old fashioned and want my Hard and Software perpetually

and under my control.

So I think more about a Server in the basement and a Mac Mini + my Wacom Display

or better a weak Surface Studio on my desk only ....

Edited by zoomer
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5 hours ago, Jim Wilson said:


No, it would still be a concern, since even thought its running "in" a browser for users, it still has to run on a machine somewhere else and that machine still has to have all the bits needed to support the VGM

Apple dropping OpenGL SPECIFICALLY would be a non issue since if we did browser based anything though, it would all be Windows. Apple does not allow virtualization of macOS on cloud servers.

I would have thought a Web version would working by running VGM on webGL or webGPU and Python/Vectorscript on WebAssembly. No need for a VM anywhere just some nice little weight servers (like GIT hosts) somewhere to hold document and scripts and version them. 

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