I've been using Metal compute shaders for lattice quantum chromodynamics simulations and wanted to share the experience in case others are doing scientific computing on Metal. The workload involves SU(2) matrix operations on 4D lattice grids — lots of 2x2 and 3x3 complex matrix multiplies, reductions over lattice sites, and nearest-neighbor stencil operations. The implementation bridges a C++ scientific framework (Grid) to Metal via Objective-C++ .mm files, with MSL kernels compiled into .metallib archives during the build. Things that work well: Shared memory on M-series eliminates the CPU↔GPU copy overhead that dominates in CUDA workflows The .metallib compilation integrates cleanly with autotools builds using xcrun Float4 packing for SU(2) matrices maps naturally to MSL vector types Things I'm still figuring out: Optimal threadgroup sizes for stencil operations on 4D grids Whether to use MTLHeap for gauge field storage or stick with individual buffers Best practices for double precision — some measurements need float64 but Metal's double support varies by hardware The application is measuring chromofield flux distributions between static quarks, ultimately targeting multi-quark systems. Production runs are on MacBook Pro M-series and Mac Studio. Code: https://github.com/ThinkOffApp/multiquark-lattice-qcd

Hello, Shaders in our application is written using HLSL and we rely on Metal Shader Converter to convert DXIL to Metal IR. We ran into an issue that causes metal pipeline state creation to fail when vertex stage-in function is used on AMD GPUs. Here's the error reported by Metal in Xcode output: Compiler failed with XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INTERRUPTED XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INTERRUPTED MTLCompiler: Compilation failed with XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INTERRUPTED on 4 try. This error suggests an unexpected interruption in the connection. Possible reasons: a crash in the compiler service, termination by the OS due to resource constraints (e.g., jetsam), a timeout in the service, or an issue with IPC. Verify system stability and check the logs for more details. Compiler failed with XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INVALID XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INVALID MTLCompiler: Compiler encountered XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INVALID: failed to check-in, peer may have been unloaded: mach_error=10000003 (is the OS shutting down or process jetsammed?) Compilation failed due to an interrupted connection: XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INTERRUPTED. This error occurred after multiple retries. which seems to indicate a internal compiler error. I have a minimal repro here: https://github.com/kcloudy0717/metal_pso_fail/tree/main, simply follow the instructions in README.