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Building Game Porting Toolkit on Sequoia
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them before installing 15.1: sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools Next step is to make Homebrew accept the outdated 15.1 tools, as by default it'll complain that they're outdated or corrupted.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.
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743
Feb ’25
Metal: Non-uniform thread groups unsupported in Simulator? Is it?
My app is running Compute Shaders that use non-uniform thread groups. When I run the app in the debugger with a simulator target the app crashes on encoder.dispatchThreads and the error message is: Dispatch Threads with Non-Uniform Threadgroup Size is not supported on this device. Previously the log output states that: Metal Shader Validation is unsupported for Simulator. However: When I stop the debugger and just run the app in the simulator without the debugger attached, the app just runs fine and does not crash. The SwiftUI Preview that also triggers the Compute Shader when preparing data also just runs fine without a crash. I can run and debug on a real device no problem - I just don't have all sizes available. Is there anything I need to check in my lldb/simulator configuration? It obviously does work, just the debugger cannot really deal with it? Any input would be nice as this really slows my down as I have to be extremely careful when debugging on the simulator.
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602
Feb ’25
GKObstacleGraph<GKGraphNode2D> copy() not work (Bad ACCESS) (SpriteKit)
Given a graph with added obstacles I want to make a copy of it. When I make the copy: currentGrath added 20 obstacles. var newGrapth = currentGrath.copy() as? GKObstacleGraph newGrapth2.removeObstacles([newGrapth!.obstacles.first!]) This returns a BAD ACCESS. I don't understand what's going on or what the problem is. If I do this same thing with the main network there is no problem: currentGrath.removeObstacles([currentGrath!.obstacles.first!]) Thanks for the help
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475
Feb ’25
Game Center save game data to iCloud
We are trying to implement saving and fetching data to and from iCloud, but it have some problems. MacOS: 15.3 Here is what I do: Enable Game Center and iCloud capbility in Signing & Capabilities, pick iCloud Documents, create and select a Container. Sample code: void SaveDataToCloud( const void* buffer, unsigned int datasize, const char* name ) { if(!GKLocalPlayer.localPlayer.authenticated) return; NSData* data = [ NSData dataWithBytes:databuffer length:datasize]; NSString* filename = [ NSString stringWithUTF8String:name ]; [[GKLocalPlayer localPlayer] saveGameData:data withName:filename completionHandler:^(GKSavedGame * _Nullable savedGame, NSError * _Nullable){ if (error != nil) { NSLog( @"SaveDataToCloud error:%@", [ error localizedDescription ] ); } }]; } void FetchCloudSavedGameData() { if ( !GKLocalPlayer.localPlayer.authenticated ) return; [ [ GKLocalPlayer localPlayer ] fetchSavedGamesWithCompletionHandler:^(NSArray<GKSavedGame *> * _Nullable savedGames, NSError * _Nullable error) { if ( error == nil ) { for ( GKSavedGame *item in savedGames ) { [ item loadDataWithCompletionHandler:^(NSData * _Nullable data, NSError * _Nullable error) { if ( error == nil ) { //handle data } else { NSLog( @"FetchCloudSavedGameData failed to load iCloud file: %@, error:%@", item.name, [ error localizedDescription ] ); } } ]; } } else { NSLog( @"FetchCloudSavedGameData error:%@", [ error localizedDescription ] ); } } ]; } Both saveGameData and fetchSavedGamesWithCompletionHandler are not reporting any error, when debugging, saveGameData completionHandler got a nil error, and can get a valid "savedGame", but when try to rebot the game and use "fetchSavedGamesWithCompletionHandler" to fetch data, we got nothing, no error reported, and the savedGames got a 0 length. From this page https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/718541?answerId=825596022#825596022 we try to wait 30sec after authenticated , then try fetchSavedGamesWithCompletionHandler, still got the same error. Checked: Game Center and iCloud are enabled and login with the same account. iCloud have enough space to save. So what's wrong with it.
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719
Feb ’25
3D Skeletal animation in metal-cpp?
Hey all! I'm got my hands on a refurbished mac mini m1 and already diving into metal. At the moment, i'm currently studying graphics programming with opengl and got to a point where I can almost create a 3d cube. However, I noticed there aren't many tutorials for metal cpp but rather demos. One thing I love about graphic programming, is skinning/skeletal animation. At the moment, I can't find any sources or tutorials on how to load skeletal animations into metal-cpp. So, if I create my character in blender and had all types of animations all loaded into a .FBX or maybe .DAE and load this into metal api with metal-cpp, how can I go on about how this works?
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501
Feb ’25
Xcode Playground - The LLDB RPC server has crashed.
I am trying to learn Metal development on my MacBook Pro M1 Pro (Sequoia 15.3.1) on Xcode Playground, but when I write these two lines of code: import Metal let device = MTLCreateSystemDefaultDevice()! I get the error The LLDB RPC server has crashed. Any ideas as to what I can do to solve this? I have rebooted the machine and reinstalled Xcode...
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526
Feb ’25
Metal-CPP Errors
After following the instructions here: https://developer.apple.com/metal/cpp/ I attempted building my project and Xcode presented several errors. In essence it's complaining about some redeclarations in the Metal-CPP headers. NSBundle.hpp and NSError.hpp are included in the metal-cpp/foundation directory from the metal-cpp download. Any help in getting these issues resolved is appreciated. Thanks!
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603
Feb ’25
Morphing Animation Not Playing in an Xcode VisionOS App
I have a 3D model with morphing animation that works correctly in Blender. I exported this model as a USDZ file and tried to display it in an Xcode-developed visionOS app, but the morphing animation does not play. What I Have Tried: Morphing animation works correctly in Blender. After exporting to USDZ, the morphing animation does not play in the Xcode app. Linear motion animations (such as object movement) work fine. Behavior in Reality Converter: GLB files do not display. USDZ files load, but morphing animations do not play. What I Want to Know: Is there a way to play morphing animations in an Xcode-developed app? Does RealityKit support morphing animations? Can morphing animations be played in an Xcode-developed app? If RealityKit does not support morphing animations, what alternative methods can be used to play them? I am looking for a way to use the existing animations without recreating them. Additional Information: I have both the Blender file (where animations work) and the USDZ file (where animations do not play). I am developing a visionOS app using Xcode. Any advice or solutions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
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525
Feb ’25
Photogrammetry requiring lidar-capable phones, curious why
Hello! I'm currently building an app where I feed images into a Photogrammetry session to create a USDZ. Pretty straightforward, works great. We've recently started some testing on older devices, and have discovered that Photogrammetry is requiring devices that have LIDAR (we've seen some console logs referencing LIDAR if we stumble through a photogrammetry process without checking isSupported first) Judging from @swredcam's posting about ReefScan from November 24 (https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/769221) it looks like Photogrammetry did work on those non-LIDAR devices. In my own testing on an iPhone 12 mini with iOS 17, PhotogrammetrySession says it's not supported. Since we're only feeding in a sequence of photos that have never had depth data, and they process fine on pro/max devices, we're curious why this would require a LIDAR sensor to work, when it seems like it did work without LIDAR in the past. Or is there some other limitation of non-pro devices that is causing photogrammetry to not be supported (especially on today's really powerful hardware) Thanks! ++md
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639
Feb ’25
Question about metal-cpp resource allocation
I notice some metal-cpp classes have static funtion like static URL* fileURLWithPath(const class String* pPath); static class ComputePassDescriptor* computePassDescriptor(); static class AccelerationStructurePassDescriptor* accelerationStructurePassDescriptor(); which return a new object. these classes also provide 'alloc' and 'init' function to create object by default. for object created by 'alloc' and 'init', I use something like NS::Shaderd_Ptr or call release directly to free memory. Because 'alloc' and 'init' not explicit call on these static function. I wonder how to correctly free object created by these static function? did they managed by autorelease pool?
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544
Mar ’25
RealityKit SIMD3<Float> precision decreases with distance?
The farther away the center of a large entity is, the less accurate the positioning is? For example I am changing only the y-axis position of an entity that is tens of meters long, but i notice x and z drifting slowly the farther away the center of the entity is. I would not expect the x and z to move. It might be compounding rounding errors somewhere, or maybe the RealityKit engine is deciding not to be super precise about distant objects? Otherwise I just have a bug somewhere.
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611
Mar ’25
Gestures not working correctly when setting the fov orientation to .horizontal
Hi there, I've discovered an issue with gesture handling in RealityKit when setting the camera’s fieldOfViewOrientation to horizontal. For instance, if I render a simple box at the center of the view with a collision shape that exactly matches its dimensions, the actual hit area behaves as if it's smaller than the box. Additionally, when attempting to drag the box away from the center, the hit area appears misaligned—offset slightly towards the center. Since the default fieldOfViewOrientation is vertical and everything works as expected in that mode, it seems that the gesture system might be assuming a vertical FOV. Given that the API allows setting it to horizontal, perhaps gestures should function correctly regardless of the orientation? Thank you!
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483
Mar ’25
Apple API "CGDisplayCopyAllDisplayModes provides resolution list which does not match with system resolution for the external monitors.
Our application is trying to read all resolutions of an external monitor. We have observed that, for the external monitor there is a mismatch in resolution list in our application and the resolution list in system settings. We are using the apple API "CGDisplayCopyAllDisplayModes" to read the resolutions.
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587
Mar ’25
GKMatch.chooseBestHostingPlayer(_:) always returns nil player
I'm building a game with a client-server architecture. Using GKMatch.chooseBestHostingPlayer(_:) rarely works. When I started testing it today, it worked once at the very beginning, and since then it always succeeds on one client and returns nil on the other client. I'm testing with a Mac and an iPhone. Sometimes it fails on the Mac, sometimes on the iPhone. On the device that it succeeds on, the provided host can be the device itself or the other one. I created FB9583628 in August 2021, but after the Feedback Assistant team replied that they are not able to reproduce it, the feedback never went forward. import SceneKit import GameKit #if os(macOS) typealias ViewController = NSViewController #else typealias ViewController = UIViewController #endif class GameViewController: ViewController, GKMatchmakerViewControllerDelegate, GKMatchDelegate { var match: GKMatch? var matchStarted = false override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() GKLocalPlayer.local.authenticateHandler = authenticate } private func authenticate(_ viewController: ViewController?, _ error: Error?) { #if os(macOS) if let viewController = viewController { presentAsSheet(viewController) } else if let error = error { print(error) } else { print("authenticated as \(GKLocalPlayer.local.gamePlayerID)") let viewController = GKMatchmakerViewController(matchRequest: defaultMatchRequest())! viewController.matchmakerDelegate = self GKDialogController.shared().present(viewController) } #else if let viewController = viewController { present(viewController, animated: true) } else if let error = error { print(error) } else { print("authenticated as \(GKLocalPlayer.local.gamePlayerID)") let viewController = GKMatchmakerViewController(matchRequest: defaultMatchRequest())! viewController.matchmakerDelegate = self present(viewController, animated: true) } #endif } private func defaultMatchRequest() -> GKMatchRequest { let request = GKMatchRequest() request.minPlayers = 2 request.maxPlayers = 2 request.defaultNumberOfPlayers = 2 request.inviteMessage = "Ciao!" return request } func matchmakerViewControllerWasCancelled(_ viewController: GKMatchmakerViewController) { print("cancelled") } func matchmakerViewController(_ viewController: GKMatchmakerViewController, didFailWithError error: Error) { print(error) } func matchmakerViewController(_ viewController: GKMatchmakerViewController, didFind match: GKMatch) { self.match = match match.delegate = self startMatch() } func match(_ match: GKMatch, player: GKPlayer, didChange state: GKPlayerConnectionState) { print("\(player.gamePlayerID) changed state to \(String(describing: state))") startMatch() } func startMatch() { let match = match! if matchStarted || match.expectedPlayerCount > 0 { return } print("starting match with local player \(GKLocalPlayer.local.gamePlayerID) and remote players \(match.players.map({ $0.gamePlayerID }))") match.chooseBestHostingPlayer { host in print("host is \(String(describing: host?.gamePlayerID))") } } }
4
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397
Mar ’25
How to properly pass a Metal layer from SwiftUI MTKView to C++ for use with metal-cpp?
Hello! I'm currently porting a videogame console emulator to iOS and I'm trying to make the renderer (tested on MacOS) work on iOS as well. The emulator core is written in C++ and uses metal-cpp for rendering, whereas the iOS frontend is written in Swift with SwiftUI. I have an Objective-C++ bridging header for bridging the Swift and C++ sides. On the Swift side, I create an MTKView. Inside the MTKView delegate, I run the emulator for 1 video frame and pass it the view's backing layer for it to render the final output image with. The emulator runs and returns, but when it returns I get a crash in Swift land (callstack attached below), inside objc_release, which indicates I'm doing something wrong with memory management. My bridging interface (ios_driver.h): #pragma once #include <Foundation/Foundation.h> #include <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h> void iosCreateEmulator(); void iosRunFrame(CAMetalLayer* layer); Bridge implementation (ios_driver.mm): #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> extern "C" { #include "ios_driver.h" } <...> #define IOS_EXPORT extern "C" __attribute__((visibility("default"))) std::unique_ptr<Emulator> emulator = nullptr; IOS_EXPORT void iosCreateEmulator() { ... } // Runs 1 video frame of the emulator and IOS_EXPORT void iosRunFrame(CAMetalLayer* layer) { void* layerBridged = (__bridge void*)layer; // Pass the CAMetalLayer to the emulator emulator->getRenderer()->setMTKLayer(layerBridged); // Runs the emulator for 1 frame and renders the output image using our layer emulator->runFrame(); } My MTKView delegate: class Renderer: NSObject, MTKViewDelegate { var parent: ContentView var device: MTLDevice! init(_ parent: ContentView) { self.parent = parent if let device = MTLCreateSystemDefaultDevice() { self.device = device } super.init() } func mtkView(_ view: MTKView, drawableSizeWillChange size: CGSize) {} func draw(in view: MTKView) { var metalLayer = view.layer as! CAMetalLayer // Run the emulator for 1 frame & display the output image iosRunFrame(metalLayer) } } Finally, the emulator's render function that interacts with the layer: void RendererMTL::setMTKLayer(void* layer) { metalLayer = (CA::MetalLayer*)layer; } void RendererMTL::display() { CA::MetalDrawable* drawable = metalLayer->nextDrawable(); if (!drawable) { return; } MTL::Texture* texture = drawable->texture(); <rest of rendering follows here using the drawable & its texture> } This is the Swift callstack at the time of the crash: To my understanding, I shouldn't be violating ARC rules as my bridging header uses CAMetalLayer* instead of void* and Swift will automatically account for ARC when passing CoreFoundation objects to Objective-C. However I don't have any other idea as to what might be causing this. I've been trying to debug this code for a couple of days without much success. If you need more info, the emulator code is also on Github Metal renderer: https://github.com/wheremyfoodat/Panda3DS/blob/ios/src/core/renderer_mtl/renderer_mtl.cpp#L58-L68 Bridge implementation: https://github.com/wheremyfoodat/Panda3DS/blob/ios/src/ios_driver.mm Bridging header: https://github.com/wheremyfoodat/Panda3DS/blob/ios/include/ios_driver.h Any help is more than appreciated. Thank you for your time in advance.
0
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560
Mar ’25
VRAM not freeing in Elite Dangerous
So I've been trying out GPTK with Elite Dangerous Horizons game and it looks like from what I can tell. The VRAM keeps going up until it goes over the limit where it drops the FPS to 1-3 FPS and then crashes the game. From the Performance HUD I can see that it looks like when using GPTK, the VRAM usage just keeps climbing and I never saw it drop down at all. I did some limited testing, and from that I think I can conclude that it is probably not a VRAM leak, but it might be caching it. The reason for this is because I noticed that if I went back to the area that I've been before. It won't increase the VRAM usage. So either there is something wrong with the freeing VRAM memory part, or it could be that GPTK might not be reporting the right amount of VRAM available to use? So maybe that's why it keeps allocating VRAM until it went out of memory and crashed the game. Just to test, I did try running the game with DXVK+MoltenVK combo, and I can see that it works just fine. VRAM is being freed up when it's no longer used. Is this a known issue in some games?
12
3
948
Mar ’25
MetalFx
Recently, I adopted MetalFX for Upscale feature. However, I have encountered a persistent build failure for the iOS Simulator with the error message, 'MetalFX is not available when building for iOS Simulator.' To address this, I modified the MetalFX.framework status to 'Optional' within Build Phases > Link Binary With Libraries, adding the linker option (-weak_framework). Despite this adjustment, the build process continues to fail. Furthermore, I observed that the MetalFX sample application provided by Apple, specifically the one found at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/metalfx/applying-temporal-antialiasing-and-upscaling-using-metalfx, also fails to build for the iOS Simulator target. Has anyone encountered this issue?
3
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832
Mar ’25