Is the pseudocode below thread-safe? Imagine that the Main thread sets the CAMetalLayer's drawableSize to a new size meanwhile the rendering thread is in the middle of rendering into an existing MTLDrawable which does still have the old size.
Is the change of metalLayer.drawableSize thread-safe in the sense that I can present an old MTLDrawable which has a different resolution than the current value of metalLayer.drawableSize? I assume that setting the drawableSize property informs Metal that the next MTLDrawable offered by the CAMetalLayer should have the new size, right?
Is it valid to assume that "metalLayer.drawableSize = newSize" and "metalLayer.nextDrawable()" are internally synchronized, so it cannot happen that metalLayer.nextDrawable() would produce e.g. a MTLDrawable with the old width but with the new height (or a completely invalid resolution due to potential race conditions)?
func onWindowResized(newSize: CGSize) {
// Called on the Main thread
metalLayer.drawableSize = newSize
}
func onVsync(drawable: MTLDrawable) {
// Called on a background rendering thread
renderer.renderInto(drawable: drawable)
}
Delve into the world of graphics and game development. Discuss creating stunning visuals, optimizing game mechanics, and share resources for game developers.
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If I compile a compute kernel with a call to texture.read(), it fails with the following error: "Error Domain=AGXMetalG13X Code=3 "Encountered unlowered function call to air.get_read_sampler" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Encountered unlowered function call to air.get_read_sampler}."
This error occurs on both macOS and iOS 26 Beta 5, but not when running on a simulator or in a playground. It does not occur on a macOS Sequoia VM. It occurs whether I use the old metal 3 or new metal 4 compilation method.
A workaround would be to use a sampler, but according to the feature tables, all platforms support reading from textures of all formats.
Below is a minimal example which produces the error:
let device = MTLCreateSystemDefaultDevice()!
let library = device.makeDefaultLibrary()!
let computeFunction = library.makeFunction(name: "compute_test")!
do {
let pipeline = try device.makeComputePipelineState(function: computeFunction)
debugPrint(pipeline)
} catch {
debugPrint("Metal 3 failed with error:\n\(error)")
}
#import <metal_stdlib>
using namespace metal;
kernel void compute_test(uint2 gid [[thread_position_in_grid]],
texture2d<float, access::read> in [[texture(0)]],
texture2d<float, access::write> out [[texture(1)]]) {
out.write(in.read(gid), gid);
}
I filed feedback FB19530049.
After authenticating the user I'm loading my Game Center leaderboards like this:
let leaderboards = try await GKLeaderboard.loadLeaderboards(IDs: [leaderboardID])
This is working fine, but there are times when this just returns an empty array. When I encounter this situation, the array remains empty for several hours when retrying, but then at some point it suddenly starts working again.
Is this a known issue? Or am I hitting some kind of quota maybe (as I do it quite often while developing my game)?.
Edit: My leaderboards are grouped in sets if that makes any difference here.
I'm trying to build an MDLMesh then add normals
let mdlMesh = MDLMesh.newBox(withDimensions: SIMD3<Float>(1, 1, 1),
segments: SIMD3<UInt32>(2, 2, 2),
geometryType: MDLGeometryType.triangles,
inwardNormals:false,
allocator: allocator)
mdlMesh.addNormals(withAttributeNamed: MDLVertexAttributeNormal, creaseThreshold: 0)
When I render the mesh, some normals are (0,0,0). I don't know if the problem is in the mesh, or in the conversion to MTKMesh. Is there a way to examine an MDLMesh with the geometry viewer?
When I look at the variable values for my mdlMesh I get this:
Not too useful. I don't know how to track down the normals.
What's the best way to find out where the normals getting broken?
In this video, tile fragment shading is recommended for image processing. In this example, the unpack function takes two arguments, one of which is RasterizerData. As I understand it, this is the data passed to us from the previous stage (Vertex) of the graphics pipeline.
However, the properties of MTLTileRenderPipelineDescriptor do not include an option for specifying a Vertex function. Therefore, in this render pass, a mix of commands is used: first, a draw command is executed to obtain UV coordinates, and then threads are dispatched.
My question is: without using a draw command, only dispatch, how can I get pixel coordinates in the fragment tile function? For the kernel tile function, everything is clear.
typedef struct
{
float4 OPTexture [[ color(0) ]];
float4 IntermediateTex [[ color(1) ]];
} FragmentIO;
fragment FragmentIO Unpack(RasterizerData in [[ stage_in ]],
texture2d<float, access::sample> srcImageTexture [[texture(0)]])
{
FragmentIO out;
//...
// Run necessary per-pixel operations
out.OPTexture = // assign computed value;
out.IntermediateTex = // assign computed value;
return out;
}
In the CanyonCrosser example project, some RealityKit systems are implemented as classes while others are structs. What’s the reason for using different types?
Hello, when I'm looking to customize the icons of my phone, the applications that are in the grouping genres without replacing with all-black images, I don't know what happens by changing the color of the applications in group of change no color throws just listen not the black stuff
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
General
I am trying the simplest use of attachment in realityKit and get Contextual closure type @MainActor, @Sendable (inout RealityViewCameraContent) async -> void expects 1 argument, but 2 were used in closure body.
Also i get cannot find Attachment in scope
Hello, I am quite new to using the metal API and was wondering if it was common (or even possible) if you knew that, when a pipeline was created, you never needed to make another one with the same shaders again, if it is safe to release the library the was used to reference the shaders? Only asking because this is possible in other apis, but apple never mentions (as far as I have found) if this is safe or not safe to do.
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
Metal
Starting with iOS 18.0 beta 1, I've noticed that RealityKit frequently crashes in the simulator when an app launches and presents an ARView.
I was able to create a small sample app with repro steps that demonstrates the issue, and I've submitted feedback: FB16144085
I've included a crash log with the feedback.
If possible, I'd appreciate it if an Apple engineer could investigate and suggest a workaround. It's awkward to be restricted to the iOS 17 simulator, which does not exhibit this behavior.
Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help.
Thank you.
Like many folks here, I've recently attempted to build Apple's Game Porting Toolkit on my machine and ran into compiler errors, but instead of going the usual route of downloading the prebuilt package (kindly provided by GCenX), I decided to see if I could force it to build (since it was obviously buildable at some point). Down below is the list of things I had to do to make it work.
Disclaimer: There are several dirty hacks I had to attempt to force the system to do what I needed. Use at your own risk.
Don't forget to run all brew commands from a Rosetta prompt:
arch -x86_64 zsh
Install openssl
This one is easy. Just run
brew tap rbenv/tap
brew install rbenv/tap/openssl@1.1
Install Command Line Tools 15.1
This specific version is required since newer versions come with the linker that is not compatible with the custom compiler (game-porting-toolkit-compiler) that GPTK is using. However, by default 15.1 tools won't install on Sequoia since the installer complains that macOS version is too new. Obviously, Apple has their reasons to not allow this, but all we need is a compiler which should be mostly indifferent to the OS version.
To trick the installer, we need to change OS requirement of the installer package. You can do it in four easy steps:
Copy Command Line Tools.pkg from the mounted Command_Line_Tools_for_Xcode_15.1.dmg to some other directory.
Expand the installer package:
pkgutil --expand "Command Line Tools.pkg" CLT
You might be prompted to install Command Line Tools when you call pkgutil, just install any version.
Go to the newly created CLT folder and edit the Distribution file (it may appear as executable but it's just an xml). You would want to change allowed-os-versions to something greater than 15. Removing this section altogether might also work.
When done, re-wrap the package:
pkgutil --flatten CLT "Command Line Tools 2.pkg"
Congratulations, now you should be able to install 15.1 tools on your OS! If you had to install newer Command Line Tools for pkgutil, delete them before installing 15.1:
sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools
Next step is to make Homebrew accept the outdated 15.1 tools, as by default it'll complain that they're outdated or corrupted. To shut it up, open
/usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/extend/os/Mac/diagnostic.rb
and remove references to check_if_supported_sdk_available from a couple of fatal build check collections.
Note - by default, Homebrew will auto-update on any invocation, which will overwrite any changes you've made to its internals. To disable this behavior, before running any brew commands in the terminal, run
export HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1
After these manipulations, Homebrew might still complain about outdated Command Line Tools, but it won't be a fatal error anymore.
Finally, we need to downgrade MinGW to 11.0.1, since the latest version spits out compiler errors when compiling Wine. Unfortunately, Homebrew does a bad job tracking versions of MinGW, so there is no automatic way to do it. Instead, you have to manually download and install old MinGW 11.0.1 formula from the Homebrew git repository. I used the commit from Sep 16, 2023:
https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/b95f4f9491394af667943bd92b081046ba3406f2/Formula/m/mingw-w64.rb
Download the file above, save it in your current working directory, and then run
brew install ./mingw-w64.rb
If you had a newer version of MinGW already installed from the previous build attempts, you can unlink it before installing the one above:
brew unlink mingw-w64
With Command Line Tools 15.1 and MinGW 11.0.1 you should now be able to build GPTK without errors:
brew -v install apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit
In the end, steps above worked for me, although more things could break in the future. I'm leaving the instructions here just to show that it's still possible to build GPTK manually instead of relying on third parties, but with all the hoops I had to jump through I can't really recommend it.
The maximumExtendedDynamicRangeColorComponentValue should provide some value between 1.0 and maximumPotentialExtendedDynamicRangeColorComponentValue depending on the available EDR headroom if there is any content on-screen that uses EDR.
This works fine in most scenarios but in macOS 26 Tahoe (including in 26.2) this seemingly breaks down when a third party external display is in HDR mode and the Mac goes to sleep and wakes up. After wake only a value of 1.0 is provided by the third party external display's NSScreen object, no matter what (although when the SDR peak brightness is being changed using the brightness slider, didChangeScreenParametersNotification is firing and the system should provide a proper updated headroom value). This makes dynamic tone-mapping that adapts to actual screen brightness impossible.
Everything works fine in Sequoia. In Tahoe the user needs to turn off HDR, then go through a sleep/wake cycle and turn HDR back on to have this fixed, which is obviously not a sustainable workaround.
I’m building an app that uses RealityKit and specifically ARConfiguration.FrameSemantics.personSegmentationWithDepth.
The goal is to insert an AR object into the scene behind a person, and an additional AR object in front of the person, while being as photo realistic as possible.
Through testing, I’ve noticed that many times, the edges of the person segmentation mask are not well matched to the actual person, and parts of the person are transparent, with the AR object bleeding through. It’s sort of like a “bad green screen” effect, which I’d expect to see a little bit, but not to this extent. I’ve been testing on iPhone 16, iPhone 14 Pro, iPad Pro 12.9 inch 6th Generation, and iPhone 12 Pro, with similar results across all devices.
I’m wondering what else I can do to improve this… either code changes, platform (like different iPhone models), or environment (like lighting, distance, etc).
Attaching some example screen grabs and a minimum reproducible code sample. Appreciate any insights!
import ARKit
import SwiftUI
import RealityKit
struct RealityViewContainer: UIViewRepresentable {
func makeUIView(context: Context) -> ARView {
let arView = ARView(frame: .zero)
arView.environment.sceneUnderstanding.options.insert(.occlusion)
arView.renderOptions.insert(.disableMotionBlur)
arView.renderOptions.insert(.disableDepthOfField)
let configuration = ARWorldTrackingConfiguration()
configuration.planeDetection = [.horizontal]
if ARWorldTrackingConfiguration.supportsFrameSemantics(.personSegmentationWithDepth) {
configuration.frameSemantics.insert(.personSegmentationWithDepth)
}
arView.session.run(configuration)
arView.session.delegate = context.coordinator
context.coordinator.arView = arView
}
func makeCoordinator() -> Coordinator {
Coordinator(self)
}
class Coordinator: NSObject, ARSessionDelegate {
var parent: RealityViewContainer
var floorAnchor: ARPlaneAnchor?
init(_ parent: RealityViewContainer) {
self.parent = parent
}
func session(_ session: ARSession, didAdd anchors: [ARAnchor]) {
if let arView,floorAnchor == nil {
for anchor in anchors {
if let horizontalPlaneAnchor = anchor as? ARPlaneAnchor,
horizontalPlaneAnchor.alignment == .horizontal,
horizontalPlaneAnchor.transform.columns.3.y < arView.cameraTransform.translation.y { // filter out ceiling
floorAnchor = horizontalPlaneAnchor
let backgroundEntity = BackgroundEntity()
let anchorEntity = AnchorEntity(anchor: horizontalPlaneAnchor)
anchorEntity.addChild(background)
let foregroundEntity = ForegroundEntity()
backgroundEntity.addChild(foregroundEntity)
arView.scene.addAnchor(anchorEntity)
arView.installGestures([.rotation, .translation], for: backgroundEntity)
break // Stop after adding the first horizontal plane (floor)
}
}
}
}
}
}
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
RealityKit
Hello,
I am experiencing an issue with programmatically capturing a GPU trace using MTLCaptureManager. The .gputrace file that is generated appears to be corrupted, and I'm looking for guidance or a solution.
Description of the Problem:
I am using MTLCaptureManager.sharedCaptureManager to capture a Metal frame and save it to disk.
The generated .gputrace file is consistently reported as 0 bytes in size by the file system.
Crucially, when I compress this 0-byte .gputrace file into a .zip archive, the resulting archive contains the full, expected data. After unzipping, the file can be opened and viewed correctly in Xcode.
However,When inspecting the file's contents using NSFileManager in Objective-C (treating it as a directory), the internal structure is different from a .gputrace file captured directly from Xcode's Metal Debugger.
capture in xcode
capture in file
Finally,When capturing multiple frames programmatically, the first captured frame contains valid buffer data. However, for subsequent frames (starting from the second frame), the corresponding buffer contents are all zero-filled.
Frame 1: All MTLBuffer data is correctly captured and populated.
Frame 2 and onward: The same MTLBuffer objects are present in the trace, but their contents are entirely 0 (i.e., the data is not captured or is corrupted).
In this case, the on-screen display is normal, but the captured frame is incorrect. The frame captured directly in Xcode is also correct. Only the frame captured to a file is abnormal.
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
Metal
Hey, I've been struggling with this for some days now.
I am trying to write to a sparse texture in a compute shader. I'm performing the following steps:
Set up a sparse heap and create a texture from it
Map the whole area of the sparse texture using updateTextureMapping(..)
Overwrite every value with the value "4" in a compute shader
Blit the texture to a shared buffer
Assert that the values in the buffer are "4".
I have a minimal example (which is still pretty long unfortunately).
It works perfectly when removing the line heapDesc.type = .sparse.
What am I missing? I could not find any information that writes to sparse textures are unsupported. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
import Metal
func sparseTexture64x64Demo() throws {
// ── Metal objects
guard let device = MTLCreateSystemDefaultDevice()
else { throw NSError(domain: "SparseNotSupported", code: -1) }
let queue = device.makeCommandQueue()!
let lib = device.makeDefaultLibrary()!
let pipeline = try device.makeComputePipelineState(function: lib.makeFunction(name: "addOne")!)
// ── Texture descriptor
let width = 64, height = 64
let format: MTLPixelFormat = .r32Uint // 4 B per texel
let desc = MTLTextureDescriptor()
desc.textureType = .type2D
desc.pixelFormat = format
desc.width = width
desc.height = height
desc.storageMode = .private
desc.usage = [.shaderWrite, .shaderRead]
// ── Sparse heap
let bytesPerTile = device.sparseTileSizeInBytes
let meta = device.heapTextureSizeAndAlign(descriptor: desc)
let heapBytes = ((bytesPerTile + meta.size + bytesPerTile - 1) / bytesPerTile) * bytesPerTile
let heapDesc = MTLHeapDescriptor()
heapDesc.type = .sparse
heapDesc.storageMode = .private
heapDesc.size = heapBytes
let heap = device.makeHeap(descriptor: heapDesc)!
let tex = heap.makeTexture(descriptor: desc)!
// ── CPU buffers
let bytesPerPixel = MemoryLayout<UInt32>.stride
let rowStride = width * bytesPerPixel
let totalBytes = rowStride * height
let dstBuf = device.makeBuffer(length: totalBytes, options: .storageModeShared)!
let cb = queue.makeCommandBuffer()!
let fence = device.makeFence()!
// 2. Map the sparse tile, then signal the fence
let rse = cb.makeResourceStateCommandEncoder()!
rse.updateTextureMapping(
tex,
mode: .map,
region: MTLRegionMake2D(0, 0, width, height),
mipLevel: 0,
slice: 0)
rse.update(fence) // ← capture all work so far
rse.endEncoding()
let ce = cb.makeComputeCommandEncoder()!
ce.waitForFence(fence)
ce.setComputePipelineState(pipeline)
ce.setTexture(tex, index: 0)
let threadsPerTG = MTLSize(width: 8, height: 8, depth: 1)
let tgCount = MTLSize(width: (width + 7) / 8,
height: (height + 7) / 8,
depth: 1)
ce.dispatchThreadgroups(tgCount, threadsPerThreadgroup: threadsPerTG)
ce.updateFence(fence)
ce.endEncoding()
// Blit texture into shared buffer
let blit = cb.makeBlitCommandEncoder()!
blit.waitForFence(fence)
blit.copy(
from: tex,
sourceSlice: 0,
sourceLevel: 0,
sourceOrigin: MTLOrigin(x: 0, y: 0, z: 0),
sourceSize: MTLSize(width: width, height: height, depth: 1),
to: dstBuf,
destinationOffset: 0,
destinationBytesPerRow: rowStride,
destinationBytesPerImage: totalBytes)
blit.endEncoding()
cb.commit()
cb.waitUntilCompleted()
assert(cb.error == nil, "GPU error: \(String(describing: cb.error))")
// ── Verify a few texels
let out = dstBuf.contents().bindMemory(to: UInt32.self, capacity: width * height)
print("first three texels:", out[0], out[1], out[width]) // 0 1 64
assert(out[0] == 4 && out[1] == 4 && out[width] == 4)
}
Metal shader:
#include <metal_stdlib>
using namespace metal;
kernel void addOne(texture2d<uint, access::write> tex [[texture(0)]],
uint2 gid [[thread_position_in_grid]])
{
tex.write(4, gid);
}
Hello,
I'm currently working on my first SceneKit game and have encountered an issue related to moving an SCNNode using a UIPanGestureRecognizer.
When I deploy the game to my iPhone via Xcode in debug mode, all interactions are smooth. However, when I stop the debugging session and run the game directly from the device (outside of Xcode), the SCNNode movement behaves inconsistently — it works sometimes smoothly and sometimes not and the interaction becomes choppy. The SCNNode movement is controlled using a UIPanGestureRecognizer.
Do you have any ideas what might be causing the issue?
Hello, I have some confusion regarding ResidencySet. Specifically, about the requestResidency() function: how often should we call it?
I have a captureOutput(_:didOutput:from:) method that is triggered at 60 or 120 fps. Inside this method, I am calling the following code every frame:
computeResidencySet.removeAllAllocations()
сomputeResidencySet.addAllocation(TextureA)
computeResidencySet.addAllocation(TextureB)
computeResidencySet.addAllocation(TextureC)
computeResidencySet.commit()
computeResidencySet.requestResidency() // Should we call it every frame?
Please keep in mind that TextureA, TextureB, and TextureC are unique for each call (new instances are provided on every frame)."
I've recently run into an issue in Xcode where the sks editor's preview canvas just vanishes for every project on my computer. I don't think it is an issue with my sks files because this works as expected on another computer with the same files, and when it happens it happens for ALL sks files in all projects. There used to be menu items to toggle the canvas and its settings, but those are now gone for me in sks files (they show up for swift files that have previews, however).
Any idea what is going on here? How do I get the canvas back? I literally cannot get any work done on my primary computer because of this...
Hi all,
I'm encountering an issue with Metal raytracing on my M5 MacBook Pro regarding Instance Acceleration Structure (IAS).
Intersection tests suddenly stop working after a certain point in the sampling loop.
Situation
I implemented an offline GPU path tracer that runs the same kernel multiple times per pixel (sampleCount) using metal::raytracing.
Intersection tests are performed using an IAS.
Since this is an offline path tracer, geometries inside the IAS never changes across samples (no transforms or updates).
As sampleCount increases, there comes a point where the number of intersections drops to zero, and remains zero for all subsequent samples.
Here's a code sketch:
let sampleCount: UInt16 = 1024
for sampleIndex: UInt16 in 0..<sampleCount {
// ...
do {
let commandBuffer = commandQueue.makeCommandBuffer()
// Dispatch the intersection kernel.
await commandBuffer.completed()
}
do {
let commandBuffer = commandQueue.makeCommandBuffer()
// Use the intersection test results from the previous command buffer.
await commandBuffer.completed()
}
// ...
}
kernel void intersectAlongRay(
const metal::uint32_t threadIndex [[thread_position_in_grid]],
// ...
const metal::raytracing::instance_acceleration_structure accelerationStructure [[buffer(2)]],
// ...
)
{
// ...
const auto result = intersector.intersect(ray, accelerationStructure);
switch (result.type) {
case metal::raytracing::intersection_type::triangle: {
// Write intersection result to device buffers.
break;
}
default:
break;
}
Observations
Encoding both the intersection kernel and the subsequent result usage in the same command buffer does not resolve the problem.
Switching from IAS to Primitive Acceleration Structure (PAS) fixes the problem.
Rebuilding the IAS for each sample also resolves the issue.
Intersections produce inconsistent results even though the IAS and rays are identical — Image 1 shows a hit, while Image 2 shows a miss.
Questions
Am I misusing IAS in some way ?
Could this be a Metal bug ?
Any guidance or confirmation would be greatly appreciated.
I am using the latest version of the Game Center plugin for Unity and have noticed that my game will crash on launch when trying to authenticate.
I've tried this in an empty project with just the plugin and it still crashes with this exception.
GfxDevice: creating device client; threaded=1; jobified=0
Initializing Metal device caps: Apple A14 GPU
Initialize engine version: 2022.3.62f2 (7670c08855a9)
GameKitException: Code=-7 Domain=GKErrorDomain Description=The operation couldn’t be completed. (GKErrorDomain error -7.) (UnsupportedOperationForOSVersion)
at Apple.GameKit.DefaultNSErrorHandler.ThrowNSError (System.IntPtr nsErrorPtr) [0x00000] in <00000000000000000000000000000000>:0
Rethrow as TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'Apple.GameKit.GKGameActivity' threw an exception.
And the area in the native code that is triggering the crash is this inside the GKLocalPlayer_SetAuthenticateHandler function
`_onAuthenticate!(tid, _mostRecentAuthenticatePlayer!.passRetainedUnsafeMutablePointer());
I am using Unity 2022.3.62f2 and MacOS 15.6 with iOS 18.6.2 which based on the min specs for the plugin we should be within spec.
I have also included this message because I thought it might help too
`terminating due to uncaught exception of type Il2CppExceptionWrapper
Could not import Swift modules for translation unit: failed to get module "GameKitWrapper" from AST context:
error: 'GKErrorCodeExtension.h' file not found
in file included from :1:
error: could not build Objective-C module 'GameKitWrapper'
warning: Ignoring missing VFS file: /Users/james/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/GameKitWrapper-dzawbtxqdxdviiakfxmfunexppqv/Build/Intermediates.noindex/GameKitWrapper.build/Release-iphoneos/GameKitWrapper-bc72bd3638f4d2956cac9b00e84c1a7d-VFS-iphoneos/all-product-headers.yaml
This is the likely root cause for any subsequent compiler
errors.warning: Ignoring missing VFS file: /Users/bill/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/GameKitWrapper-dzawbtxqdxdviiakfxmfunexppqv/Build/Intermediates.noindex/GameKitWrapper.build/Release-iphoneos/GameKitWrapper iOS.build/unextended-module-overlay.yaml
This is the likely root cause for any subsequent compiler errors.warning: TypeSystemSwiftTypeRef::GetNumChildren: had to engage SwiftASTContext fallback for type $syyXCD
I've also attached the script that I am using for authentication, this script runs on the first scene.
GameCenterManager.cs