WWDC 2015: Apple Metal API looks to improve games on Mac

By Martin Benn | Jun 8, 2015

Today was the kickoff to Apple’s annual WorldWide Developer’s Conference, also known as WWDC. Every year, Apple unites app developers, reporters, and their engineers to show off the latest updates to their OS’ across devices. Last year, Apple announced the inclusion of their Apple Metal API with the iOS update, but this year Apple introduced Apple Metal for Mac.

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The Apple Metal API allowed for faster rendering performance on the iPhone and iPad and now will provide the same to Mac. Apple boasts as much as 10x gains from the OpenGL that was previously used on Macs.

What does this mean for Apple in the gaming space? Well, they have partnerships with 2K Games, Blizzard, Unity, and Unreal to build the API into their engines making the compatibility and ability to develop for OS X easier in some of the biggest engines in game development. The best thing Apple and Mac users can hope for is that more developers choose to make their games go to the Mac user base.

Epic Games Fortnite

Epic Games came up on stage to show off their upcoming game Fortnite running on the Apple Metal API and let us all have a look at the game. I still do not know what that game is, but it showed that Apple Metal was very capable of running their games and they said they were seeing over 70% efficiency gains on the CPU. This allowed for them to be able to add in more draw calls, textures, and other development scenarios on Mac computers than they were before.

It all sounds a bit promising for Mac gamers in the future with the upcoming OS X El Capitan.

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