Unlikely for the near- to mid-term future, but not impossible long-term. Since the recent switch to OpenGL 4.1 on the Mac 64-bit client, OpenGL support on Windows seems to have been dropped for good; I don't know how much code is shared between OS X and PS4 branches, if any, but platform interdependency has decreased with that step.

Still, going full Metal means yet another rewrite of the rendering engine, while it just had one very recently. So I doubt that we'll see Metal anytime soon, as long as Apple supports OpenGL for backward compatibility reasons, i.e., for a long time coming.

Alright, I'm curious. Where does it say that Apple is going drop support for the OpenGL API completely? Do you have any reliable sources that you can link?

All I have seen is pure, if educated, speculation: while it's true that there is a backlog of bringing OpenGL up to par in OS X -- 10.11 still supports only OGL 4.1 feature levels, which were finalized in 2010, with some 4.2 extensions -- it could be an indication that internal components and higher-level APIs like Quartz/Core Graphics are going to increasingly rely on Metal to handle the lower-end of things. If I remember correctly, this is already the case with the Core Graphics/Core Animation APIs on iOS 8 and up, i.e, if an App calls these, it's already using Metal -- OTOH, if it's using OpenGL ES calls, it's not.

Dropping APIs is never done rashly -- just like when back in 2005 (Intel transition), support for Carbon was announced to be faded out, in favor for Cocoa. Carbon has finally been deprecated in 2012, but it's still there: it doesn't get updated anymore, but binaries that are linked against it will still run, even today on current versions of OS X.

If OpenGL ever goes the way of the Dodo on future macOS versions in favor for Core Graphics/Metal, there will be ample time for developers to rewrite their code; it just won't happen anytime soon.

Niastissa wrote: »

I'm simply asking is work being done on Metal in beta or alphas or has no work been done with it?

You mean specific to ESO's code? It's impossible to tell as an outsider. My guess would be no, not yet, and not for the foreseeable future, because it would be uneconomic from a project management point of view to do so. The engine has just been rewritten to support OpenGL 4.1, there are plenty of bugs to fix, optimizations to be found and tested, and general kinks to be ironed out. So I'm sure the Mac developers have their hands full of work. I guess Metal is on their radar somewhere, there's just no (urgent) need to act on it yet, because there will be sufficient time anyway.

Niastissa wrote: »

I'm just trying to gauge if in the next few years I'll still be able to play the game on my Mac without having to use bootcamp if Apple where to pull the plug.

Modifying a engine to run a new API isn't going to be something done quickly so I'm just hoping that ZOS isn't going to get caught with their pants down.

MMOs are extremely long-lived games, so their need to move with the times (i.e., newer tech) is almost a given. As long as ZOS is committed to support the OS X/macOS platform, the game's code will be adapted to support newer APIs as old ones are faded out of use. But, as I have said above, this will be done over the space of years. There hasn't been a deprecation notice for OpenGL from Apple yet, and when it eventually arrives (say, within the next 10 years), that doesn't mean that applications using OGL will stop working overnight. As in the case of Carbon, APIs do survive for very long times for compatibility reasons, even if active development with them has long been discouraged.

Take the case of WoW, back in 2004 when it was first released, the client was a 32-bit PowerPC binary on the Mac. Now, I don't know whether it was a Cocoa app from the get-go, but even if so, there was plenty of work to be done on its code when Apple announced the switch to Intel CPUs, and eventually dropped support for PowerPC binaries in OS X 10.7 Lion (released 2012, 7 years after the Intel announcement). As slow as things move in information technology, no-one is going to be caught with their pants down, unless they wanted to (the "Suddenly it's Christmas" syndrome ).

I tested Metal on WoW today and sadly I must say that the results aren't good, at least in my case less fps, worse performance and lots of hanging and crashing.

On the forums many people complain of the same issues, some can't even start the game. This after months of beta testing... I can understand it though. There have been improvements and I think Blizzard is working hard to make it better but it still needs a lot of work.

Really wish Metal came to ESO too but in that state I'd just stick with OpenGL.

I'm having a very different experience with WoW and Metal than Aenvar. On my iMac with m395 (no x) graphics, Metal API is giving me 30-40% faster frame rates than Open GL depending on the location. I didn't notice any visual differences between the two APIs. Also, running at 5k resolution with 50% render scale seems like a great solution for retina displays. The UI is super sharp while the rendering of the world looks good (if not as great as 5k of course).

Amazingly, WoW in Windows 10 under Bootcamp is actually 10-20% slower than on Mac with Metal at the same settings, which really surprised me. So for me at least, Metal is an amazing boost for WoW. I really hope ESO will go the same route. Right now ESO frame rates are a lot higher in Bootcamp than and the Mac side, which I hate, as it makes me boot into Windows.

As of July 24th, the client has been patched and is also working great for me. Such a great relief!

Thanks for post out the thread discussing the topic KhajitFurTrader

Hi ZOS
Any update about this topic
Many thanks in advance

Now with High Sierra Metal 2 is on the way, Update possible?

Any news?

Update 17 in early 2018 will move to a 64-bit client only and it is rumored to bring Vulkan API support for Windows. Could this mean anything for us Mac users?

I play on integrated graphics (Intel Iris) and most Metal games - including WoW - can go up to medium settings, 40-50fps on a 2560x1080 display. ESO lags far behind, as I'm playing with the lowest possible settings and I average at 25fps.

Please ZoS, we need proper Metal 2 support!

Please ZOS, in this case, can you please atleast comment somthing on this? Have you atleast thought about metal API Support?

Thank you