MoltenVK
Developer(s)The Brenwill Workshop Ltd., Khronos Group
Initial releaseFebruary 26, 2018 (2018-02-26)[1]
Stable release
1.2.6[2] / 23 October 2023 (2023-10-23)
Repositorygithub.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK
Written inObjective-C++, Objective-C, C++, C[3]
Operating systemmacOS, iOS, tvOS
PlatformCross-platform
TypeWrapper library[3]
LicenseApache License 2.0
Websitemoltengl.com/moltenvk

MoltenVK is a software library which allows Vulkan applications to run on top of Metal on Apple's macOS, iOS, and tvOS operating systems. It is the first software component to be released for the Vulkan Portability Initiative, a project to have a subset of Vulkan run on platforms lacking native Vulkan drivers.

There are some limitations compared with a native Vulkan implementation.[4]

History

MoltenVK was first released as a proprietary and commercially licensed product by The Brenwill Workshop on July 27, 2016.[5]

On July 31, 2017, Khronos announced the formation of the Vulkan Portability Technical Subgroup.[6]

Open source

On February 26, 2018, Khronos announced that Vulkan became available on macOS and iOS products through the MoltenVK library.[7] Valve announced that Dota 2 will run on macOS using the Vulkan API with the aid of MoltenVK,[8] and that they had made an arrangement with developer The Brenwill Workshop Ltd to release MoltenVK as open-source software under the Apache License version 2.0.[9]

On May 30, 2018, Qt was updated with Vulkan for Qt on macOS using MoltenVK.[10] On May 31, 2018, optional Vulkan support for Dota 2 on macOS was released. Benchmarks for the game were available the following day, showing better performance using Vulkan and MoltenVK compared to OpenGL.[11] On July 20, 2018, Wine was updated with Vulkan support on macOS using MoltenVK.[12] On 29 July 2018, the first app using MoltenVK was accepted onto the App Store, after initially being rejected.[13] On 6 August 2018, Google open-sourced Filament, a crossplatform real-time physically based rendering engine with MoltenVK for macOS/iOS.[14] On November 28, 2018, Valve released Artifact, their first Vulkan-only game on macOS using MoltenVK.[15]

Version 1.0

On 29 January 2019, MoltenVK 1.0.32 was released with early prototype of Vulkan Portability Extensions. RPCS3 and Dolphin emulators were updated with Vulkan support on macOS using MoltenVK.[16] On 13 April 2019, MoltenVK 1.0.34 was released with support for tessellation. On July 30, 2019, MoltenVK 1.0.36 was released targeting Metal 3.0.[17] On July 31, 2020, MoltenVK 1.0.44 was released, adding support for the tvOS platform.[18] On January 23, 2020, MoltenVK was updated to support for some of the new features of Vulkan 1.2, as of Vulkan SDK 1.2.121.[19]

Version 1.1

On October 1, 2020, MoltenVK 1.1.0 was released, adding full support for Vulkan 1.1,[20] as of Vulkan SDK 1.2.154.[21]

On 9 December 2020, MoltenVK 1.1.1 was released, providing support for Vulkan on Apple silicon GPUs and support for the Mac Catalyst platform for porting iOS/iPadOS apps to macOS.[22]

Version 1.2

On October 18, 2022, MoltenVK 1.2.0 was released, adding full support for Vulkan 1.2[23] as of Vulkan SDK 1.3.231.

In January 2023, MoltenVK 1.2.2 added support for Vulkan as of SDK 1.3.239, while this version of Vulkan SDK fixed some issues with the interconnectivity with Metal API.[24]

References

  1. ↑ "Vulkan Applications Enabled on Apple Platforms". Khronos Group Press Release. February 26, 2018.
  2. ↑ "Release for Vulkan SDK 1.3.268". GitHub. Retrieved October 23, 2023.
  3. 1 2 "MoltenVK is an implementation of the high-performance, industry-standard Vulkan graphics and compute API, that runs on Apple's Metal graphics framework, bringing Vulkan to iOS and macOS.: Khro." December 27, 2018 – via GitHub.
  4. ↑ "MoltenVK Runtime User Guide". GitHub. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
  5. ↑ "MoltenVK brings Vulkan to iOS and macOS". The Brenwill Workshop Ltd. July 22, 2016. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  6. ↑ Larabel, Michael (July 31, 2017). "No Vulkan 1.1 Today, But There Is A New Initiative That Could Help macOS See Vulkan". Phoronix. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
  7. ↑ Bright, Peter (February 26, 2018). "Vulkan is coming to macOS and iOS, but no thanks to Apple". Ars Technica. Retrieved February 26, 2018.
  8. ↑ Larabel, Michael (February 26, 2018). "Vulkan Is Now Available On macOS/iOS By MoltenVK Being Open-Sourced, Vulkan SDK for Mac". Phoronix. Retrieved February 26, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Free and Open-Source Vulkan on macOS and iOS". Valve. February 26, 2018. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  10. ↑ says, Luciano Moffatt (May 30, 2018). "Vulkan for Qt on macOS". Qt Blog. Retrieved August 3, 2019.
  11. ↑ Larabel, Michael (June 1, 2018). "Initial Vulkan Performance On macOS With Dota 2 Is Looking Very Good". Phoronix. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Wine 3.13 Released". WineHQ. Retrieved August 3, 2019.
  13. ↑ "Apple Accepts Updated MoltenVK-Using App/Game For Vulkan API On iOS - Phoronix". www.phoronix.com. Retrieved August 3, 2019.
  14. ↑ Sugandha Lahoti (August 6, 2018). "Google open sources Filament, a physically based rendering engine". Packt Hub. Retrieved August 3, 2019.
  15. ↑ "Valve Releases Artifact As Its Cross-Platform, Vulkan-Powered Digital Card Game - Phoronix". www.phoronix.com. Retrieved August 3, 2019.
  16. ↑ Olson, Tom (May 20, 2019). "Vulkan: The State of the Union" (PDF). Khronos Group.
  17. ↑ "MoltenVK Now Supports More Vulkan Extensions, Begins Targeting Metal 3.0 - Phoronix". www.phoronix.com. Retrieved August 2, 2019.
  18. ↑ "Vulkan 1.2 Comes To macOS / iOS Via Updated MoltenVK". www.phoronix.com. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  19. ↑ "Vulkan 1.2 Comes To macOS / iOS Via Updated MoltenVK". www.phoronix.com. January 23, 2020. Retrieved April 18, 2021.
  20. ↑ "MoltenVK 1.1 Update Brings Big Improvements For Vulkan On macOS - Phoronix". www.phoronix.com. September 29, 2020. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  21. ↑ "Releases - KronosGroup MoltenVK". GitHub.com. October 2, 2020. Retrieved April 18, 2021.
  22. ↑ "Vulkan Comes To Apple Silicon GPUs / M1 By Means Of MoltenVK 1.1.1". www.phoronix.com. December 10, 2020. Retrieved April 18, 2021.
  23. ↑ "MoltenVK Updated For Vulkan 1.2 Support On Apple macOS/iOS". www.phoronix.com. October 18, 2022. Retrieved October 18, 2022.
  24. ↑ "MoltenVK Updated For Vulkan 1.2 SupportMoltenVK v1.2.2 Released For Improving Vulkan API Support On macOS/iOS". www.phoronix.com. January 24, 2023. Retrieved April 9, 2023.
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