OS X MGL - OpenGL 4.6 on Metal via GitHub

[Irishman]

I learned about this project on AppleGamingWiki’s Discord.

GitHub - openglonmetal/MGL: OpenGL 4.6 on Metal

OpenGL 4.6 on Metal. Contribute to openglonmetal/MGL development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

How excited should we be about this project?

 

[GrumpyCoder]

How excited should we be about this project?

Tell me what you want to do with it, then I'll tell you how excited you should be.

 

[mi7chy]

Why though? So you can maybe play 1993 Doom? You can do that on a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero.

 

[ahurst]

Why though? So you can maybe play 1993 Doom? You can do that on a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero.

You joke, but John Carmack's insistance of using the OpenGL 4.5 spec for the original 1993 Doom engine has always been a pain point, especially for Mac users. Amazing the game was as influential as it was when no one could run it until ~2014.

Kidding aside, there are quite a few emulators with OpenGL renderers that use features added after 4.1, which is the latest version MacOS officially supports IIRC, so this is exciting for that reason alone. Additionally, having an open-source Metal compatibility layer for OpenGL is nice insurance against Apple pulling the rug on OpenGL compatibility at some later date.

 

[Irishman]

Why though? So you can maybe play 1993 Doom? You can do that on a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero.

Are you being ironic or serious?

Since Doom I can run on a pregnancy test, and since the all idTech games up through Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Rage, Doom 3, and Quake 4, all run on my Mac. Macs playing idTech games have historically been the rule, not the exception. And since those versions of idTech were made open source, then I can play every Mod you can enjoy on your PC. The current state of play with regard to not building Mac support for idTech games starting with Doom 2016, unless you are of the opinion that Apple can’t buy back that support from MS.

Oh, BTW, are you gaming on Windows 10 or Windows 11?

 

[Irishman]

Tell me what you want to do with it, then I'll tell you how excited you should be.

Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Not being a coder, I don’t know what it’s good for.

 

[Irishman]

You joke, but John Carmack's insistance of using the OpenGL 4.5 spec for the original 1993 Doom engine has always been a pain point, especially for Mac users. Amazing the game was as influential as it was when no one could run it until ~2014.

Kidding aside, there are quite a few emulators with OpenGL renderers that use features added after 4.1, which is the latest version MacOS officially supports IIRC, so this is exciting for that reason alone. Additionally, having an open-source Metal compatibility layer for OpenGL is nice insurance against Apple pulling the rug on OpenGL compatibility at some later date.

Actually, I have seen no evidence that points to John Carmack personally ensuring that OpenGL 4.5 support was added to Doom 1, much less that it has been a compatibility pain point. It’s made all the more confusing to me because I’m playing through GZDoom through the Doomsday Mod, with no pain points on my late 2012 iMac running Mojave.

Do you recall where you read that?

 

[galad]

Working out how to catch sarcasm on the Internet

"Oh, lovely. Now there's a surprise. How charitable of her. What could possibly go wrong? What a genius." These are remarks you usually read on the Internet and most of the time they are uttered with a full package of snark intended. Most of the time.

techxplore.com

 

[ahurst]

Actually, I have seen no evidence that points to John Carmack personally ensuring that OpenGL 4.5 support was added to Doom 1, much less that it has been a compatibility pain point. It’s made all the more confusing to me because I’m playing through GZDoom through the Doomsday Mod, with no pain points on my late 2012 iMac running Mojave.

Do you recall where you read that?

Don't mind me, I was just poking fun at the absurd disconnect between a discussion of modern OpenGL on macOS and mi7chy inexplicably bringing up Doom, which didn't even use hardware-accelerated 3D at all (it wasn't until Quake 1 that Id released an OpenGL-capable game). OpenGL 4.5 didn't exist as a standard until 2014, making any mention of DOS-era games a baffling non-sequitur.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Not being a coder, I don’t know what it’s good for.

I’d say it’s good for a science project. It’s not really the first try, maybe the most recent or maybe even the best, I’m not really following these type of projects. People do this because they want to, not because it’s needed.

That being said, I think it’s a nice backup for when Apple finally dumps anything pre-Metal and you just can’t get it to run, no matter how. The question is, how well does it work in the end, especially in terms of performance hit it takes.

No one will do a new project with this. If someone would provide a solution to run 32-bit apps bundled with this, it would be a nice retro throwback.

There are still new projects using scientific libraries/tools kits requiring OpenGL. Looking at VTK which I’ve used a lot 10+ years ago, there’s still a lot of OpenGL 1 and 2 in it. Which is problematic as some modern AMD drivers don’t support it anymore. They’re now jumping on Vulkan instead of a more modern version of OpenGL, which makes sense.

So in the end, it might bring a few more years of life to old OpenGL games/apps as long as they’re 64-bit. But it will be without official support and in the long run it won’t do anything for new upcoming games/apps. Metal is the future when it comes to macOS.

 

[nasmdhgf]

Why are you so interested in the compatibility layer? In fact, they are usually accompanied by a lot of bugs. This is related to the immaturity of developers. It does not mean that the game can be completely ported to the platform without obstacles. It also has to face unfamiliar environments and be compatible. It is difficult for even native APIs to do this, let alone what others wrote at the bottom of the program.
This requires a lot of work, and some open source projects have been canceled halfway. I am not enthusiastic about this. Currently, it is not available. Debugging games is the most painful thing.