That said, all of the Macs on the support list can use Metal for gaming and GPGPU tasks, integrated or dedicated. The Intel GPUs are the ones that need the most help driving OS X’s UI, but it still seems a bit odd. It’s not available on higher-end Macs with dedicated GPUs or in laptops that switch dynamically between integrated and dedicated graphics. For example, Apple tells us that the Core Graphics and Core Animation acceleration is available only on Macs that use Intel integrated graphics exclusively.
#Mac opengl 4.1 mac
AdvertisementĮven if your Mac is on the support list, there’s a chance that it doesn’t use all of Metal’s advertised features. Other than that, there aren’t big surprises, though it’s possible that Apple could have been more aggressive about supporting some older dedicated GPUs. Intel doesn’t support APIs like DirectX 12 and Vulkan on Ivy Bridge’s older HD 4000 GPU, so we’re pleasantly surprised to see Apple extend Metal support to that slightly older chip. Macs introduced in or after 2012 all support the Metal API, including: Since our first preview of El Capitan, we’ve learned more about the Metal hardware requirements and exactly what parts of the API are supported on what devices.
#Mac opengl 4.1 pro
Apple's own apps-Final Cut Pro and the like-are more than likely to pick up Metal support, too.Īside from heavy 3D applications, Apple has also integrated Metal support into Core Graphics and Core Animation-these are responsible for 2D rendering and most of the animation that happens on the OS X desktop. At WWDC, Apple boasted of an 8x rendering performance improvement in Adobe After Effects and products from companies like Adobe, The Foundry, and Autodesk.
#Mac opengl 4.1 professional
This can simultaneously speed up graphics while also leaving the CPU free to handle physics calculations, AI, or other things the GPU can't do.Īpple's sales pitch for Metal leans primarily on the gaming use case, outlined above, and for professional apps that use 3D rendering or GPU compute. Metal's primary function is to move some of the processing load from the CPU to the GPU to alleviate bottlenecks, particularly those related to draw calls. Unfortunately, it's not very intuitive, and the documentation is almost nonexistant.Metal is another feature imported from iOS, a graphics and GPU compute API designed to eliminate some of the overhead of OpenGL and OpenCL.
#Mac opengl 4.1 how to
If you can figure out how to use it, there's a fantastic amount of data in here. Nothing is completely broken, but it does seem somewhat unfinished. For example, you can only see 2 pixels width of the scrollbars on the "Extensions" tab. The screenshots show OS X 10.6, and that's probably what it was tested against. This is not an isolated case: I found myself saying "I did not expect that" a lot. There's also a (misaligned) "Search" button next to this, and when I click it, it switches to my web browser and seems to open a new tab for each extension shown in the list (in my case, about 100). Typing in there searches the list of extensions, but it's pretty slow. For example, at the bottom of the "Extensions" tab, there's a round search box, like you'd normally find at the top of a window. Now, the app itself: there's a lot of data here, but it's not the easiest to use.
I figure I need to write a new review, because the latest version (4.0.8) actually works for me! Great update. It works now! I just wish it worked better.