User profile for user: LeightonBacon
LeightonBacon Author
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4 points

Metal HUD crashes GPU processes on Intel macOS Tahoe

On the intel build of macOS Tahoe, attempting to run a GPU-accelerated process while the Metal HUD/overlay is enabled results in the crash of said process.


I am facing the issue on the 2019 MacBook Pro i9 (MBP16,1), but I assume the issue is bound to the x86 build itself-not the hardware (and if it is hardware-bound, that suggests some INCREDIBLY questionable architectural decisions over at apple)


There was already another thread for this issue, but instead of actually putting any effort/investigation into the matter, a "credible" member of these forums ignorantly replied "Contact the developers of the games." the forum was promptly locked. 😑


It's so unfortunate that I have to bring up credentials, but: I am a game engine developer, and while I usually work from my rig running Solus, I am away from home. I am investigating a gpu resource leak within my render graph so it is CRITICAL I see current VRAM usage (from the driver's reliable perspective, not my engine's.)


Yes, the Metal HUD works fine with my engine on my M3 MacBook Air. It’s specific to the intel build.


Its apparent whoever responded "Contact the developers of the games" is absolutely unaware as to how this stack works. It should be deterministic. If it works on an Apple Silicon mac, the behavior should be identical on an Intel mac, because we are abstracting over the exact same proprietary APIs (Metal). If the result isn't deterministic, thats on Apple. Especially if its a feature as unrelated to specific implementations as the friggin Metal HUD.


Im sorry this post had to be so ridiculously long - I just don't want it getting locked like the other poor dude.

I have no clue if this should be here, or if I should be like emailing apple or something, but at the same time I'm paranoid the issue may actually be hardware/model-specific so I'd like input from others

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Dec 30, 2025 10:46 PM

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User profile for user: LeightonBacon
LeightonBacon Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Posted on Dec 31, 2025 1:42 AM

Turns out, unfortunately, it indeed is hardware specific. I found something that was buried within my engine's logs which confirms this "[libMTLHud] Failed to enable encoder counter sampling. Device does not support encoder stage counter sample." (Confirming which counters and counter sets a GPU supports | Apple Developer Documentation).


I understand using gpu counters for metrics is likely best practice with Metal but jesus christ you guys. the whole point of thoughtful architecture is to ensure deterministic behavior. Whatever. At least (optionally) expose enough so I can just write my own driver/kernel-backed metric overlay that hooks into GPU processes (which is some total Windows foolery. goes against apple's anti-power-user security model)


So to anyone who found this thread in the future, wondering if they can get the HUD to work on Tahoe on an Intel-based machine: No, unless apple adds a fallback (CPU-based metrics) in the future to ensure deterministic behavior on unsupported GPUs. There is also a solid chance that the Intel/AMD hardware actually does support GPU-based profiling but apple just hasn't implemented it on the driver-level


[Edited by Moderator]

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User profile for user: LeightonBacon
LeightonBacon Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Dec 31, 2025 1:42 AM in response to LeightonBacon

Turns out, unfortunately, it indeed is hardware specific. I found something that was buried within my engine's logs which confirms this "[libMTLHud] Failed to enable encoder counter sampling. Device does not support encoder stage counter sample." (Confirming which counters and counter sets a GPU supports | Apple Developer Documentation).


I understand using gpu counters for metrics is likely best practice with Metal but jesus christ you guys. the whole point of thoughtful architecture is to ensure deterministic behavior. Whatever. At least (optionally) expose enough so I can just write my own driver/kernel-backed metric overlay that hooks into GPU processes (which is some total Windows foolery. goes against apple's anti-power-user security model)


So to anyone who found this thread in the future, wondering if they can get the HUD to work on Tahoe on an Intel-based machine: No, unless apple adds a fallback (CPU-based metrics) in the future to ensure deterministic behavior on unsupported GPUs. There is also a solid chance that the Intel/AMD hardware actually does support GPU-based profiling but apple just hasn't implemented it on the driver-level


[Edited by Moderator]

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User profile for user: LeightonBacon
LeightonBacon Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Dec 31, 2025 12:20 AM in response to dialabrain

thanks, I submitted a bug report.


But its a 50/50 chance apple will actually care about patching a last-priority feature on a last-priority build of their most criticized release of macOS.


So I'm mainly hoping someone will reply with something like "I found X workaround!" else I will need to downgrade or replace win partition. I'm just gonna install Solus for now


Thank you

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Metal HUD crashes GPU processes on Intel macOS Tahoe

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