I know I am an idiot but I am still hoping and waiting for apples next mac pro coming hopefully in 2019.
At wwdc18 they finally confirmed opengl and opencl will be left to “die” in favor of metal2 or something like that.

Now as far as I know houdini relies heavily on those technologies for computing etc.

Interestingly enough Apple advertised their iMac Pro a lot with showing stuff in houdini.

For now I am stuck on windows but I really wanna go back to the mac and if the new mac pro comes out and if it is the beast I/we where hoping for.
In another thread there was said that sidefx doesn't plan to support metal2. At least for now.
Will the fact that Apple won't support certain technologies any more be a bottleneck?

Linux is the best OS for Houdini

In other forums there are other post and it sounds that the api is not the problem it's more the shader part and the maintenance of two graphics interface that makes the task huge. the worst part is for the customer the benefit of the porting is ZERO. Whats also you need more human resources for porting and testing the code that results in slower development.

Don't worry there is always a solution and SESI is not alone maybe there is coming a solution in the future.

A statement from Mark Alexander for Houdini:
https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/50217/?page=4#post-252296 [www.sidefx.com]

General information about Graphics Interfaces / History also from Mark Alexander:
http://forums.odforce.net/topic/39072-opengl-vulkan-and-metal/?tab=comments#comment-189637 [forums.odforce.net]

A Video from a Programmer about this decision:

Yeah I also think it is a bit early to panic. In this state OpenGl is still usable on OSX, and it will be for 2 years for sure, by than there is going to be some solution.
Even though I gave up on it. Ubuntu rocks for me.

vux
Linux is the best OS for Houdini

yeah heard that a couple times and will consider it
BUT
I am also still a C4D User and there is never going to be a linux version of that

what about open cl?
is vulkan/metal combining both?
I never quite understood the differences..

Yes, Vulkan and Metal have compute capabilities built in. OpenGL 4.4 also has Compute Shaders built in. There are some minor differences between CL and GL's compute (precision of math functions, for one, CL is more accurate, GL is “good enough for graphics”).

And indeed - too soon to panic.

It's just a case of “Apple being Apple”.

They still think their U.S. users numbers are the same all over the world. /s

And for ‘professional hardware and software’ from Apple, don't hold your breath for too long.
Apple's ‘bread and butter’ is mobile, not desktop.

twod
Yes, Vulkan and Metal have compute capabilities built in. OpenGL 4.4 also has Compute Shaders built in. There are some minor differences between CL and GL's compute (precision of math functions, for one, CL is more accurate, GL is “good enough for graphics”).

And indeed - too soon to panic.

my question is could you take (if you were willing to put in all that effort) metal and build houdini around it? both in terms of viewport and accelerating certain simulations now accelerated by opencl?


Concerning the time to panic.. I don't think there is hardly ever a time to do so.. there are always alternatives.
When Apple decided to screw most of the pro sector and I couldnt do the work I wanted to do on a mac I got (granted I was a bit frustrated and sad) a hp workstation.

I am still very curious if, after all the time, and so “close to” the release of a new workstation mac it will all be for nothing (in the 3D sector at least) because most major 3D software will cease to work on their plattform.
And to that end I wanted to understand the ramifications of this decision a bit better.

Christoph F
I am still very curious if, after all the time, and so “close to” the release of a new workstation mac it will all be for nothing (in the 3D sector at least) because most major 3D software will cease to work on their plattform.
And to that end I wanted to understand the ramifications of this decision a bit better.

I think you're asking the unanswerable from SideFX, basically that they reveal to you and the public their internal plans for the next 4 years. They themselves probably haven't quite thought it fully out.

OS X is a sturdy platform, and there is obviously enough of a market to justify SideFX continuing to develop for it. I think at the moment we're at the very bottom of Apple's pro market offerings. What I mean by that is for the past 10 years, they have focused much more of their product lines to consumers and portables in particular. This has led to a number of users to abandon ship, and many other users like myself to use a Hackintosh as a means to still continue to work within an OS that we feel comfortable with, while having access to CPU's and GPU's that Apple wasn't offering.

I get the feeling Apple got the message. This is evidenced both by them releasing a very powerful iMac last year, and doing the closest thing to admitting a mistake by basically renouncing their Mac Pro design in favor of a completely new Mac Pro which (they say) will address the pro user market.

I am looking forward to seeing what they have in store with the new Mac Pro. Perhaps it will be a turning point?

In the meantime, I'm quite happy with my Hackintosh experience. Working with Houdini and Redshift on it is very productive for me and allows me to make a living doing what I love. The best part of it is that should there be a time when I really have no other option than to adopt Windows, all of my components will work!