Comment by pjmlp
7 years ago
Only FOSS developers are upset with Metal, everyone else appreciates not having a clunky 3D API still based on C, and is already taking advantage of it on their 3D engine.
Plus, regarding the theme being discussed here, the use of Metal is transparent when using SceneKit, SpriteKit, Core Graphics,....
It is very much not the case that only open source developers prefer cross-platform standards to Metal and all the other vendor-specific APIs.
I have to say that I don't know why you dismiss open source graphics stacks. Anyone who has worked with the open source Mesa knows it is a breath of fresh air compared to the proprietary Qualcomm drivers, Mali drivers, Apple OpenGL drivers, or (horrors) fglrx.
Then you don't go much to game developer conferences, watch GDC talks, or read game development related publications like EDGE or Develop.
It doesn't take much searching to find game developers saying the exact same things I'm saying: https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/06/05/some-game-develop...
And I've spoken with the Unity engine developers, who say they still consider OpenGL ES 2 support essential. Sure, Unity uses Metal (and I use Metal) because Apple forces us to to get maximum performance, but does anyone really want to write both Vulkan and Metal? Valve wouldn't have acquired MoltenVK if they were really itching to write Metal!
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