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Comment by outworlder | Hacker News Reader

This is a problem that is entirely of Apple's own doing.

Microsoft could not care less about OpenGL on Windows. However, it works just fine.

You know why? As soon as you install your video card drivers, your OpenGL implementation is no longer from Microsoft. It comes from AMD, NVidia or Intel, with all needed optimizations for their hardware.

Apple insisted in not allowing this and doing the OpenGL implementation themselves (which was always crappy and outdated).

Had they allowed the GPU vendors the ability to provide their own implementation, this would have been a non issue.

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OpenGL is very much a second class citizen on Windows. Mass-market OpenGL apps like browsers currently use ANGLE to emulate OpenGL on top of D3D. Native OpenGL is used in professional apps that can make demands on GPU and driver setups.

(Many toolkits, like Qt and Cocos2d, also use ANGLE on Windows for OpenGL functionality)

Pro 3D apps from Autodesk tend to use DirectX. Certainly 3dsmax and Revit use DirectX over OpenGL and have done for a while.

The same is true for plenty of other “Pro” apps on Windows.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore...

This is to a large extent because browsers can't make the same assumptions about reasonable graphics drivers being installed as games can.

What makes you think that Apple refuses to allow GPU vendors to provide an OpenGL implementation?

The real question is why would a GPU vendor go through the expense of creating and supporting such an implementation when Apple doesn't even make a computer with slots that you can install their video cards into?

If producing an OpenGL implementation doesn't provide a competitive advantage for selling their products, why would they bother?

> What makes you think that Apple refuses to allow GPU vendors to provide an OpenGL implementation?

Because it is a fact that Apple develops their own drivers. Also, when did you last download a driver update from NVidia for your Mac?

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/vulkan-is-coming-to-...

Article is about Vulkan, but briefly mention Apple's own outdated OpenGL stack.

http://renderingpipeline.com/2012/04/sad-state-of-opengl-on-...

From 2012. Which means it is still accurate, given how out of date drivers are.

There are more references, you can look it up.

> The real question is why would a GPU vendor go through the expense of creating and supporting such an implementation when Apple doesn't even make a computer with slots that you can install their video cards into?

They still have GPUs, which can be Intel, AMD or NVidia depending on year and model. Just because they are soldered on, doesn't mean they don't need drivers.

EDIT: Some more research seems to indicate that there are drivers developed by NVidia for the NVidia Quadro GPU line.

NVIDIA has mac drivers for their whole consumer line. For example https://images.nvidia.com/mac/pkg/387/WebDriver-387.10.10.10...

Good to know. It seems that they also provide updated CUDA drivers.

It doesn't seem to change anything on the OpenGL stack, unfortunately.

It just goes to show that NVidia thinks supporting CUDA everywhere is very much in their competitive interest, while creating and supporting an OpenGL implementation simply is not.

Yes. But tell me a Mac past 2015 that you can even use an nVidia card in.

They're doubling down on eGPU support, so there's that. But not as ideal as having something actually inside your machine.

Any Mac that can use an eGPU.

> Also, when did you last download a driver update from NVidia for your Mac?

Last week.

Nvidia releases drivers for cards that the drivers which ship with macos don't support. I would also guess that the nvidia drivers which ship with macos are written by nvidia under some agreement with apple, same is likely true of AMD and intel.

Yes, but you need to switch to an older version of of Xcode/ developers tools if you want to program CUDA on a Mac. Specifically I have to switch back to last Decembers release when I want to do any CUDA development on my 2015 MacBook (I don't think there is any later Mac's that even support nVidia).

That is not a macOS specific problem. Because CUDA interacts with the compiler, you can have exactly the same problems on Linux with gcc.

(Ironically, using OpenCL avoids this problem)

Last week. Nvidia releases drivers for cards that the drivers which ship with macos don't support.

That's a tiny part of Apple's lineup though.

Yes, once upon a time both Microsoft and Apple provided an implementation of OpenGL with their OS.

When Microsoft abandoned OpenGL for DirectX, GPU vendors produced their own OpenGL implementations because doing so provided a competitive advantage that allowed them to sell more product.

The question is, why would those GPU vendors do the same thing now that Apple is following the same path?

Apple doesn't even produce a computer with slots you can install their products into.

>EDIT: Some more research seems to indicate that there are drivers developed by NVidia for the NVidia Quadro GPU line.

Keep doing research, because NVidia provides downloadable Pascal drivers even though the last time Apple produced a computer with a PCI slot was the Cheese Grater Mac Pro which came out over a decade ago.

https://9to5mac.com/2017/09/27/nvidia-pascal-drivers-high-si...

Making sure nothing diminishes CUDA is very much in NVidia's competitive interest.

Only on desktop.

In case you missed the news, only DirectX is supported on UWP and store apps.

To the point that Microsoft has their own port of Angle.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/gaming/compare-...

https://github.com/Microsoft/angle

So unless they change their mind, say goodbye to ICD drivers on Windows as well.

Is UWP/Store actually taking off? I was under the impression that it was another flop.

I run Windows at home, but wouldn't if it went Store-only. For me, an open platform is the only thing Windows had going for it.

Yes, little by little.

Quite a few apps like Adobe XD are store only.

Next Office for Windows 10 is only available via the store.

Microsoft has taken the other approach, if apps don't come to the store, the store comes to the apps.

So thanks to the outcome of Project Centennial, they are now merging the UWP and Win32 worlds into Windows containers and making the store Win32 aware as well.

https://bramwolfs.com/2018/03/13/msix-the-platform-for-all-w...

Deep down session from BUILD here, https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2018/BRK2432

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