Hi,
where can I find information about renderer types and differences between these (Metal, OpenGL, software)?
I can explain it a little bit right here.
OpenGL and Metal are both technologies that Apple provides to developers which allow for programming against the GPU in your computer (ie- the “graphics card”). GPUs are pretty fast at doing graphics things (after all, that’s what they are designed for).
OpenGL is an older technology for addressing the GPU, and Apple is telling developers not to use it anymore. Metal is a newer technology and Apple wants developers to move it it. However- there’s a rub! Some older computers, especially ones with GPUs created by Nvidia, don’t work with Metal very well (Apple isn’t doing a good job maintaining support for those older computers). So Acorn will try and detect which technology to use based on the GPU in your computer.
And this is all dependent on which version of MacOS you’re running! In some versions of MacOS, Metal is better than OpenGL and the reverse is true as well.
The Software option option skips the GPU all together, and uses the Intel processor in your computer. It quite a bit slower and you wouldn’t want to use it except for very specialized situations.
Hi,
thx for the reply - I know a little about these technologies. I’m working with 3D sometimes. I’m using Mac Pro 2013 with macOS Mojave and I feel OpenGL mode is working something smooth than Metal. Maybe I’m wrong…
That’s a pretty old machine, and probably an Nvidia card. Most likely it’s better off running OpenGL.
Old? It is much better than all Mac hardware except new Mac Pro 2018 and probably iMac Pro. It has AMD FirePro video card
I had one of those! How about we call the Mac Pro “not recently updated”. OpenGL is probably the best bet for that model.