„Metal (API)“ – Versionsunterschied

Vorlage:Confused Vorlage:Short description Vorlage:Use mdy dates Vorlage:Infobox software Metal is a low-level, low-overhead hardware-accelerated 3D graphic and compute shader API created by Apple. It debuted in iOS 8. Metal combines functions similar to OpenGL and OpenCL in one API. It is intended to improve performance by offering low-level access to the GPU hardware for apps on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS. It can be compared to low-level APIs on other platforms such as Vulkan and DirectX 12.

Metal is an object-oriented API that can be invoked using the Swift or Objective-C programming languages. Full-blown GPU execution is controlled via the Metal Shading Language. According to Apple promotional materials: "MSL [Metal Shading Language] is a single, unified language that allows tighter integration between the graphics and compute programs. Since MSL is C++-based, you will find it familiar and easy to use."

Features

Metal aims to provide low-overhead access to the GPU. Commands are encoded beforehand and then submitted to the GPU for asynchronous execution. The application controls when to wait for the execution to complete thus allowing application developers to increase throughput by encoding other commands while commands are executed on the GPU or save power by explicitly waiting for GPU execution to complete. Additionally, command encoding is CPU independent thus applications can encode commands to each CPU thread independently. Lastly, render states are pre-computed beforehand, allowing the GPU driver to know in advance how to configure and optimize the render pipeline before command execution.

Metal improves the capabilities of GPGPU programming by using compute shaders. Metal uses a specific shading language based on C++14, implemented using Clang and LLVM.

Metal offers application developers the flexibility where to create Metal resources (buffers, textures). Resources can be allocated on the CPU, GPU, or both and provides facilities to update and synchronize allocated resources. Metal can also enforce a resource's state during a command encoder's lifetime.

On macOS, Metal can provide application developers the discretion to specify which GPU to execute. Application developers can choose between the low-power integrated GPU of the CPU, the discrete GPU (on certain MacBooks and Macs) or an external GPU connected through Thunderbolt. Application developers also have the preference on how GPU commands are executed on which GPUs and provides suggestion on which GPU a certain command is most efficient to execute (commands to render a scene can be executed by the discrete GPU while post-processing and display can be handled by the integrated GPU).

Metal Performance Shaders

Metal Performance Shaders is a highly optimized library of graphics functions that can help application developers achieve great performance at the same time decrease work on maintaining GPU family specific functions. It provides functions including:

• Image filtering algorithms
• Neural network processing
• Advanced math operations
• Ray tracing

History

Metal has been available since June 2, 2014 on iOS devices powered by Apple A7 or later, and since June 8, 2015 on Macs (2012 models or later) running OS X El Capitan.

On June 5, 2017 at WWDC, Apple announced the second version of Metal, to be supported by macOS High Sierra, iOS 11 and tvOS 11. Metal 2 is not a separate API from Metal and is supported by the same hardware. Metal 2 enables more efficient profiling and debugging in Xcode, accelerated machine learning, lower CPU workload, support for virtual reality on macOS, and specificities of the Apple A11 GPU, in particular.

At the 2020 WWDC, Apple announced the migration of the Mac to Apple silicon. Macs using Apple silicon will feature Apple GPUs with a feature set combining what was previously available on macOS and iOS, and will be able to take advantage of features tailored to the tile based deferred rendering (TBDR) architecture of Apple GPUs.

Supported GPUs

On iOS, tvOS, and macOS, Metal supports Apple-designed SoCs from the Apple A7 or newer. On macOS, Metal also supports Intel HD and Iris Graphics from the HD 4000 series or newer, AMD GCN, and AMD RDNA GPUs. NVIDIA GPUs are supported but Metal drivers for newer devices (10 Series and newer) are not available since macOS Mojave.

Adoption

According to Apple, more than 148,000 applications use Metal directly, and 1.7 million use it through high-level frameworks, as of June 2017. macOS games using Metal for rendering are listed below.

Title	Developer (macOS version)	Game engine	MacOS release date (OpenGL)	Metal-based release date	Metal support notes
Civilization VI	Aspyr Media	LORE			Metal support since 5 April 2019Vorlage:Citation needed
Batman: Arkham City	Feral Interactive	Unreal Engine 3			Metal support since 21 February 2019 with v1.2Vorlage:Citation needed
Dota 2	Valve	Source 2			MoltenVK was announced on . The option to use this became available on .
Quake II	id Software	Quake II engine			A port using MoltenVK was released as vkQuake2.
Tomb Raider	Feral Interactive	Foundation Engine			Metal support with v1.2 in July 2019Vorlage:Citation needed
Rise of the Tomb Raider	Feral Interactive	Foundation Engine
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	Feral Interactive	Foundation Engine		2019
F1 2016	Feral Interactive	EGO Engine 4.0
Life Is Strange 2	Feral Interactive	Unreal Engine 4		2019
Life Is Strange: Before the Storm	Feral Interactive	Unity Engine
Divinity: Original Sin II	Elverils	Divinity Engine 2
Baldur's Gate III	Elverils	Divinity Engine 4.0	N. N.		Metal support in early access since Vorlage:Citation needed
Company of Heroes 2	Feral Interactive	Essence Engine 3			Metal support since Vorlage:Citation needed
Hitman	Feral Interactive	Glacier 2
Sid Meier's Railroads!	Feral Interactive	Gamebryo			Metal support since Vorlage:Citation needed
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III	Feral Interactive	Essence Engine 4
Total War: Rome Remastered	Feral Interactive	TW Engine 2
Total War: Three Kingdoms	Feral Interactive	TW Engine 3
Total War: Warhammer	Feral Interactive	TW Engine 3
Total War: Warhammer II	Feral Interactive	TW Engine 3
Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia	Feral Interactive	TW Engine 3
Total War Saga: Troy	Feral Interactive	TW Engine 3
Medieval II: Total War	Feral Interactive	TW Engine 2			Metal support since 25 October 2018Vorlage:Citation needed
Empire: Total War	Feral Interactive	TW Engine 3			Metal support since 16 December 2019Vorlage:Citation needed
Napoleon: Total War	Feral Interactive	TW Engine 3			Metal support since 25 October 2019 with v1.2Vorlage:Citation needed
Total War: Shogun 2	Feral Interactive	TW Engine 3			Metal support since 4 October 2019Vorlage:Citation needed
Total War: Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai	Feral Interactive	TW Engine 3			Metal support since 4 October 2019Vorlage:Citation needed
Bioshock Remastered	Feral Interactive	Unreal Engine 2.5
Bioshock 2 Remastered	Feral Interactive	Unreal Engine 2.5
F1 2017	Feral Interactive	EGO Engine 4.0
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided	Feral Interactive	Dawn Engine
DiRT Rally	Feral Interactive	EGO Engine 2.5
Ballistic Overkill	Aquiris Game Studio	Unity Engine 5
BattleTech	Harebrained Schemes	Unity Engine 5
Mafia III	Aspyr Media	Illusion Engine
World of Warcraft	Blizzard Entertainment	WoW Engine			Metal support since August 2016Vorlage:Citation needed
Starcraft	Blizzard Entertainment	Modified Warcraft II engine			Metal support since with v1.23.5Vorlage:Citation needed
StarCraft II	Blizzard Entertainment	SC2 Engine			Metal support in beta since Vorlage:Citation needed
Heroes of the Storm	Blizzard Entertainment	SC2 Engine			Metal support in beta since (temporarily removed on Vorlage:DTS until ?)Vorlage:Citation needed
Fortnite	Epic Games	Unreal Engine 4
Obduction	Cyan Worlds	Unreal Engine 4
Everspace	Rockfish	Unreal Engine 4
Ark: Survival Evolved	Studio Wildcard	Unreal Engine 4
Observer	Bloober Team	Unreal Engine 4
Unreal Tournament	Epic Games	Unreal Engine 4	Vorlage:Cancelled		Metal support since January 2017Vorlage:Citation needed
Refunct	Dominique Grieshofer	Unreal Engine 4
Cities: Skylines	Paradox Interactive	Unity Engine 5			Metal support since Vorlage:DTSVorlage:Citation needed
Universe Sandbox	Giant Army	Unity Engine 5	N. N.		Metal support in beta since June 2017Vorlage:Citation needed
War Thunder	Gaijin Entertainment	Dagor Engine 4			Metal support added (removed in ? 2018 and reintroduced )Vorlage:Citation needed
The Witness	Thekla, Inc	Thekla Engine
Micro Machines World Series	Virtual Programming	Unity Engine 5
Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series	Telltale Games	Telltale Tool
Batman: The Enemy Within	Telltale Games	Telltale Tool
Minecraft: Story Mode - Season Two	Telltale Games	Telltale Tool
ARMA 3	Virtual Programming	Real Virtuality	N. N.		Metal support in beta since Vorlage:Citation needed
MXGP3	Virtual Programming	Unreal Engine 4
Gravel	Virtual Programming	Unreal Engine 4
X-Plane 11	Laminar Research	Custom engine			Metal support in beta since
Headlander	Double Fine Productions	Buddha Engine
The Sims 4	Maxis	SmartSim			Metal support added Vorlage:Citation needed
The Elder Scrolls Online	Zenimax Online Studios	Custom	4 April 2014	22 October 2018	OpenGL Renderer replaced with Vulkan via MoltenVK wrapper (translates Vulkan API calls to Metal) in patch 4.2.5

See also

• Direct3D – DirectX 12 introduces low-level APIs
• Mantle – low-level API by AMD
• Vulkan – low-overhead successor to OpenGL
• MoltenVK - software compatibility library to run Vulkan software on top of the Metal API
• WebGPU

External links

• Metal for Developers
• Metal Programming Guide (preliminary)
• WWDC14 demo; extended version
• Install macOS 10.14 Mojave on Mac Pro (Mid 2010) and Mac Pro (Mid 2012) - Apple article explaining what GPUs are compatible with Apple's Metal APIs on Mac OS 10.14 (Mojave) operating system