[mellinoe]

> No game developer in the world will write both an OpenGL/DirectX/Vulcan and Metal renderer for the purpose of staying up to date with Apple's "deprecations".

Actually, most game developers do that. Pretty much every game (even ones with a custom, "non-AAA" engine) will have some kind of abstraction layer for dealing with graphics API's. Writing an additional backend for Metal is not a monumental undertaking -- it's a tiny fraction of the overall code you will end up writing. Also game consoles, for the most part, use their own graphics API's which are not portable to desktop PC's.

[pfranz]

That's kind of true for games, but he's totally right about CAD and other software. Big 3d applications Nuke, Houdini, Maya all use OpenGL. Before OSX, Mac versions either didn't exist or were kept up about as well as IE or Word was. Over the past 5-10 years they've been reliably released for OSX at the same time Windows and Linux versions were (they all originated on IRIX). They all have a lot of other development going on and I don't see any of these companies making and maintaining a Metal version.

I'm sure the Mac version of these tools aren't used by any studio with more than 5 people, but independent contractors, small studios, and individuals working at home really benefit (or else they wouldn't have bothered to port and maintain up until now).

[rimliu]

Well, then maybe it is a good thing for wannabe pixelmators? Create a nice Mac-only tool, profit.

[pfranz]

Yeah, but that really sucks for people who use powerhouse tools that took 15 years to develop because we were able to use Macs, but it's looking less and less likely going forward.

I really like the idea of creating more space for the little guy. I want them to do well, but honestly I haven't had the best experience. As someone who uses the professional tools during the day, but has only the occasional needs for personal use I was happy to pay for a Mac-only tool. In practice, for a tool I only grab every few months I often find there was a regression in some feature that I guess is only used moderately often (selection boxes), it doesn't currently support that feature (I can't remember, but it was something like HSV color space, more than 8bpp, or some file format like TGA or PNG--not features you'd add to v1, but nothing too obscure), or there's another paid upgrade.

Even beloved Mac tools like Panic's Transmit, I feel like I can't 100% rely on. At a moment's notice I'll have to jump to something else to finish the task.

[nightski]

While that may be somewhat true (and I disagree with the tiny fraction assessment, unless you are measuring in some other metric than time investment), I feel like it would still greatly increase your QA budget. Each additional back-end that is supported now requires extensive testing through the game development process.

[mellinoe]

In my experience, trying to get OpenGL to behave the same way (and with the same performance) on a bunch of different systems is actually more work than just maintaining multiple backends. Testing OpenGL on Windows does not in any way guarantee that it's going to work on Linux, or macOS, or whatever else -- even if you don't add a crazy OpenGL extension support matrix into the mix. So your QA budget is already going to include testing OpenGL on all those platforms.