Christian Stueben
Level 1 (120 points)
Mac OS X

Q: el capitan and metal, test application?

Hi all,

after succesfully installing el capitan on my old Mac Pro, i would like to know if my old machine supports the new grafics engine metal.

 

Is there any test application that can tell if my machine has metal or not?

 

Thank you!

 

greetings from germany

Chris

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Oct 1, 2015 7:09 AM

by John Lockwood,Solvedanswer
John Lockwood John Lockwood
Level 6 (9,411 points)
Servers Enterprise
A:

Yes I am finding the cube demo app now also crashes. I suspect Apple made a change to the Metal programming interfaces during the beta-testing of El Capitan and the cube app needs updating to be compatible again.

 

The terminal utility also included in that zip still seems to work and reports my HD 7950 as being "AMD Metal" which knowing the cube app did previously work, to me confirms it is a metal supported card. It is my understanding this demo Metal app even when it used to work would not show a bouncing cube if your video card was not Metal capable. It is my understanding Metal is a hardware only solution, if your video card does not support Metal you cannot use Metal, developers would then have to should they choose write a second branch to use old style OpenCL/GL as a fallback. The demo cube app would have deliberately been written to only use Metal and therefore would not display anything if your card does not support Metal. (When it used to work.)

 

As per the NetKas article any GTX 400 or higher should be Metal capable. So your GTX 980 Ti should be Metal capable.

 

Apple are providing a list of Macs that are Metal capable but as I mentioned they are not including classic Mac Pro's in that list because the video cards Apple shipped them with are not Metal capable e.g. my original 5770. Apple would not comment on third-party upgrades like my HD 7950 and your GTX 980 Ti. No current  or recent Macs have upgradeable video cards.

 

I have now found a free screensaver for the Mac that is written specifically to use Metal it should not work if your video card does not support Metal. This would be another possible test. See https://github.com/nickzman/rainingcubes There also seem to be several further demo apps here http://metalbyexample.com/

 

PS. Even though you have used up all your 'helped me' points you can still award a 'solved it' reward.

Posted on Oct 6, 2015 1:53 AM

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Christian Stueben

Q: el capitan and metal, test application?

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  • by John Lockwood,Solvedanswer

    John Lockwood John Lockwood Oct 6, 2015 1:53 AM in response to Christian Stueben
    Level 6 (9,411 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Oct 6, 2015 1:53 AM in response to Christian Stueben

    Yes I am finding the cube demo app now also crashes. I suspect Apple made a change to the Metal programming interfaces during the beta-testing of El Capitan and the cube app needs updating to be compatible again.

     

    The terminal utility also included in that zip still seems to work and reports my HD 7950 as being "AMD Metal" which knowing the cube app did previously work, to me confirms it is a metal supported card. It is my understanding this demo Metal app even when it used to work would not show a bouncing cube if your video card was not Metal capable. It is my understanding Metal is a hardware only solution, if your video card does not support Metal you cannot use Metal, developers would then have to should they choose write a second branch to use old style OpenCL/GL as a fallback. The demo cube app would have deliberately been written to only use Metal and therefore would not display anything if your card does not support Metal. (When it used to work.)

     

    As per the NetKas article any GTX 400 or higher should be Metal capable. So your GTX 980 Ti should be Metal capable.

     

    Apple are providing a list of Macs that are Metal capable but as I mentioned they are not including classic Mac Pro's in that list because the video cards Apple shipped them with are not Metal capable e.g. my original 5770. Apple would not comment on third-party upgrades like my HD 7950 and your GTX 980 Ti. No current  or recent Macs have upgradeable video cards.

     

    I have now found a free screensaver for the Mac that is written specifically to use Metal it should not work if your video card does not support Metal. This would be another possible test. See https://github.com/nickzman/rainingcubes There also seem to be several further demo apps here http://metalbyexample.com/

     

    PS. Even though you have used up all your 'helped me' points you can still award a 'solved it' reward.

  • by Christian Stueben,

    Christian Stueben Christian Stueben Oct 6, 2015 9:16 AM in response to John Lockwood
    Level 1 (120 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 6, 2015 9:16 AM in response to John Lockwood

    Meanwhile i downloaded the raining cubes demo, compiled it, installed it.

     

    It´s raining cubes. Halleluja!

    (Paul Jabara and Paul Shaffer 1979, Weather Girls 1982)

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/65/Weather_Girls_-_It%27s_raining_me n.ogg

     

     

    Greetings from germany

    Chris

  • by Antonio Tejada,

    Antonio Tejada Antonio Tejada Mar 12, 2016 8:05 AM in response to John Lockwood
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mar 12, 2016 8:05 AM in response to John Lockwood

    Thanks!!!

     

    I was able to use the screen saver to verify that the AMD HD7970 that I installed in my 2008 Mac Pro is indeed using Metal on El Capitan (which probably at least partly explains why El Cap made this old Mac Pro so much faster!).

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