Some Apple support documentation indicates that Apple might drop support for non-Apple GPUs in its transition to Apple Silicon processors.
In a recent WWDC 2020 developer session focused on porting Metal apps to the new architecture, the company made it clear that Apple Silicon Macs will feature customer Apple GPUs.
“Apple Silicon Mac contains an Apple-designed GPU, whereas Intel-based Macs contain GPUs from Intel, AMD and NVIDIA,” said Gokhan Avkarogullari, Apple’s director of GPU software.
Where Apple hasn’t detailed exactly which GPUs will be compatible for the new generation of Macs, it could indicated that an ARM-based version of macOS could also drop support for Intel, NVIDIA and AMD graphics chips. It is similarly unclear what that means for eGPU support, although that may be more dependent on Thunderbolt 3 and driver compatibility.
A recent developer support document also advised developers not to underestimate an integrated Apple GPU.
“Don’t assume a discrete GPU means better performance,” Apple wrote. “The integrated GPU in Apple processors is optimized for high performance graphics tasks.”
It’s unknown as to which GPUs will be supported, or if there may be an avenue for third-party PCI-E GPU support going forward.
The Cupertino tech giant is also giving developers other advice amid the switch to Apple Silicon, including on porting just-in-time (JIT) compilers.
“Always call before you execute any instructions from your threads. Instruction caches aren’t coherent with data caches on Apple Silicon, and unexpected results may occur if you execute instructions without invalidating the caches,” a JIT document reads.
Apple has also released a Developer Transition Kit for app makers to work on Apple Silicon hardware prior to a consumer release. The company has also implemented new virtualization and emulation software to ensure that ARM Macs can run Intel-based apps.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via AppleInsider and developer.apple.com