topic Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :( in Installation & update

This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

Rick Thompson — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 15:20:21 GMT

"Apple has informed developers that it will deprecate OpenGL and OpenCL in Mojave and iOS 12.

Software developers often prefer open standards like OpenGL because they make cross-platform development easier, but during its WWDC session dedicated to converting OpenGL developers to Metal, Apple rightly noted that OpenGL is woefully out of date for current needs."

"That means that other than older Mac Pros that have Metal-ready GPUs installed, no Macs released before 2012 will be supported. iOS 12 will continue to support all the same mobile devices as iOS 11, though."

The following machines will be supported by Mojave:

iMac Pro
MacBook (Early 2015 or later)
Mac Pro (2013 redesign)
Mac mini (Late 2012 or later)
iMac (Late 2012 or later)
MacBook Air (Mid 2012 or later)
MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 or later)
Mac Pro (2010 or later, provided it has a GPU that supports Metal)

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/06/the-end-of-opengl-support-other-updates-apple-didnt-share-at-the-keynote/

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

Karl Ottenstein — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 15:45:19 GMT

Had just read the same thing... Will create a challenge for Graphisoft to switch to "Metal" for future versions of ARCHICAD, I imagine.

Sounds like with Mojave, OpenGL is just 'deprecated' vs eliminated, so our old versions of AC will likely still run. (I was also glad to see that Mojave will still support 32 bit apps - although they say it will be the final version of MacOS to do so - since I have a lot of Adobe apps that are 32 bit still.)

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

Erwin Edel — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 08:17:53 GMT

I wonder if beyond mobile apps and a handful of games there are any programs fully supporting metal.

It certainly was a step up for World of Warcraft when they switched to metal for their mac client, in terms of performance, though not without its hickups along the way.

ARCHICAD without OpenGL?

stefan — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 09:24:56 GMT

With the recent announcement at WWDC, Apple announced to deprecate OpenGL and OpenCL. I know that OpenGL plays a huge role in the ARCHICAD windows (3D and IIRC also in the 2D window). It's what we see every second we are using ARCHICAD.

For 10.14 it will be supported as "deprecated" technology, but this move will also force the Mac version of ARCHICAD to move to Metal.

Good or bad? Will definitely require a lot of reengineering from Graphisoft here.

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

Ralph Wessel — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 09:09:54 GMT

The deprecation of OpenGL is kind of inevitable on all platforms anyway. It's a very old standard that isn't well suited to modern computing. And the implementation on macOS was very old and barely maintained anyway – I don't think its deprecation is really a surprise to Apple developers. I expect that it will remain in the OS in its present form for about 4-5 years yet, but the need to move is now clear.

The main bone of contention is whether Apple should have supported Vulkan instead, the open source successor to OpenGL. I don't personally have an opinion on that, but I'm guessing Apple wants more control over its future hardware/software direction.

Migration doesn't necessarily have to be seriously painful. It's possible to use a cross-platform layer to simplify development. But for great performance, targeting the platform directly is the best option. A well-designed graphics pipeline will be a focussed component within an application, not spread all over the code base, and it isn't like any of these solutions are a world apart. It will take some effort to do it well, but change like this happens all the time.

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

Karl Ottenstein — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 15:55:05 GMT

Good to know. Thanks, Ralph!

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 09:25:28 GMT

I've been messing around with Mojave the last few days and Archicad isn't usable on it. Endless spinning wheels and long waits for a wall to draw or whatever.
I have no idea if it's openGL or not.

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

mikas — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 13:01:53 GMT

Well, it seems to be the same with High Sierra and 5K iMac too (High Sierra, iMac i7 4.2GHz, RX580 8GB, 64GB RAM). Constant beachball with even trivial 2D manipulations. My 2009 Mac Pro with RX570 4GB, 48GB with two WQHD monitors does not have these problems. Currently my old Mac Pro beats the new Retina iMac.

I really can't quess which one to blame for this. It could be the combinations. It could be High Sierra. It might be the OpenGL version of High Sierra. I don't know, but this is totally frustrating to watch beachball all the time. If there is something graphisoft could do to ease this behavior, please do it.

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

Ralph Wessel — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 14:10:27 GMT

Probably best to start a new post (or contact your distributor) about bugs in AC21 on supported platforms.

With respect to Mojave, I'm not remotely surprised if early testers run into problems.

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 20:14:27 GMT

I'm running High Sierra and there are fixes. I don't exactly remember now sorry! One of them was turning off save to recovery at every step.
And yes, I'm not surprised - it's the first beta. Others are experiencing the same behaviour with Adobe products so if it's a related issue there should be some will to fix it from Apple.
Certainly not worth starting a new post or contacting my Supplier for an early beta

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

Laszlo Nagy — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 19:10:11 GMT

I have received a reply from GRAPHISOFT developers about this. Here is what they told me about the issues raised:

“I've been messing around with Mojave the last few days and Archicad isn't usable on it. Endless spinning wheels and long waits for a wall to draw or whatever. I have no idea if it's openGL or not.”

This issue is not related to OpenGL. The OS works differently than earlier, it is more sensitive to a bug in ARCHICAD. They have identified the root of the problem, and it will be fixed in a future update of ARCHICAD.

Deprecated OpenGL:
Apple deprecates OpenGL in MacOS 14 and iOS12. OpenGL applications will run without problems in that (and they think at least in the next 2 or 3) versions, but It is recommended to switch to Metal on the long run. In BIMx they are working on the transition to Metal. They have collected good knowledge on using Metal and they are going to switch to Metal in ARCHICAD later.

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Jun 2018 05:31:59 GMT

Thank you!
Nice to know I won't have to switch to Windows in the future. I use both, and the Mac version is a LOT faster. More efficient I think.

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

mikas — Sun, 01 Jul 2018 09:46:21 GMT

mikas wrote:
..this is totally frustrating to watch beachball all the time. If there is something graphisoft could do to ease this behavior, please do it.

Ok, it seems this fixed it. It was the new file system acting up with the remainings of older file system.
Close ARCHICAD then rename the /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/GRAPHISOFT folder (e.g.: _GRAPHISOFT).
I'm happy again with the speed.

Re: This should be interesting.. Apple dropping OpenGL and pre 2012 macs :(

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 12:21:17 GMT

Regarding other programs and Metal 2 : https://greyscalegorilla.com/2018/08/cinema-4d-r20-announcement/

Great that the industry will get a nudge away from openGL, never really was fan besides the open source nature of it.

These technologies are now so vital and used all over the OS that no-one in their right mind would base that on an external project. Pretty sure that's why Apple did no go with Vulkan.

Microsoft have been somewhat ahead of their time with Direct-X albeit for other reasons than Apple.

Don't know many Metal apps and none Metal 2 ones but use Pixelmator Pro (Metal) all the time and that is really really fast.

Btw. Guess most of you have already seen the performance in BIMx Lab with realtime shadows and shading? Would love to have a viewport like that in ARCHICAD