Delve into the world of graphics and game development. Discuss creating stunning visuals, optimizing game mechanics, and share resources for game developers.

All subtopics
Posts under Graphics & Games topic

Post

Replies

Boosts

Views

Created

Xcode Metal Capture crash when using MTLSamplerState
The sample code just draw a triangle and sample texture. both sample code can draw a correct triangle and sample texture as expected. there are no error message from terminal. Sample code using constexpr Sampler can capture and replay well. Sample code using a argumentTable to bind a MTLSamplerState was crashed when using Metal capture and replay on Xcode. Here are sample codes. Sample Code Test Environment: M1 Pro MacOS 26.3 (25D125) Xcode Version 26.2 (17C52) Feedback ID: FB22031701
0
0
5
29m
vImageBuffer_InitWithCGImage fails with Xcode 26 but succeeds with Xcode 15I am
I am attempting to load a jpeg image into a vImage_Buffer. I am just trying to get the data in an ARGB format. This code works fine in the Xcode 15 build , but fails with kvImageInvalidParameter error from vImageBuffer_InitWithCGImage in the Xcode 26 build. This code is written in ObjectiveC++. Here is a code fragment: int CDib_ARGB::Load(LPCSTR pFilename) { int rc = 0; if (NULL == m_pRaw_vImage_Buffer) { NSString *pNS_filename = [[NSString alloc]initWithUTF8String:pFilename]; NSImage *pNSImage = [[NSImage alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:pNS_filename]; if (nil == pNSImage) rc = -1; else { int width = pNSImage.size.width; int height = pNSImage.size.height; if (pNSImage.representations) { NSImageRep *imageRep; int jj; width = 0; height = 0; for (jj = 0; jj < pNSImage.representations.count; jj++) { imageRep = pNSImage.representations[jj]; if (imageRep.pixelsWide > width) width = imageRep.pixelsWide; if (imageRep.pixelsHigh > height) height = imageRep.pixelsHigh; } } NSSize imageSize = NSMakeSize(width, height); NSRect imageRect = NSMakeRect(0, 0, width, height); pNSImage.size = imageSize; CGImageRef cgImage = [pNSImage CGImageForProposedRect:&imageRect context:NULL hints:nil]; if (nil == cgImage) rc = -1; else { //Alloc and load vImage_Buffer. vImage_Buffer *pvImage_Buffer = new vImage_Buffer; if (NULL == pvImage_Buffer) rc = -1; else { vImage_CGImageFormat format; format.bitsPerComponent = 8; format.bitsPerPixel = 32; format.colorSpace = nil; format.bitmapInfo = kCGImageAlphaFirst | kCGBitmapByteOrderDefault;//ARGB8888 format.version = 0; format.decode = nil; format.renderingIntent = kCGRenderingIntentDefault; memset(pvImage_Buffer, 0, sizeof(vImage_Buffer)); long status = vImageBuffer_InitWithCGImage(pvImage_Buffer, &format, nil, cgImage, kvImagePrintDiagnosticsToConsole); if (kvImageNoError != status) { //This is where Xcode 26 sends me. delete pvImage_Buffer; rc = -1; } =========================
10
0
156
4d
How to get accurate Mouse/Trackpad deltas on macOS when using CGWarpMouseCursorPosition?
I am working on a remote control application for macOS where I need to maintain two "virtual" cursors: Remote Cursor: Follows the remote user's movements. Local Cursor: Follows the local user's physical mouse/trackpad movements. To move the system cursor (for the remote side), I use CGWarpMouseCursorPosition as follows: void DualCursorMac::UpdateSystemCursorPosition(int x, int y) { CGPoint point = CGPointMake(static_cast<CGFloat>(x), static_cast<CGFloat>(y)); // Warp the cursor to match remote coordinates CGWarpMouseCursorPosition(point); } Meanwhile, I use a CGEventTap to monitor local physical movements to update my local virtual cursor's UI: CGEventRef Mouse::MouseTapCallback(CGEventTapProxy proxy, CGEventType type, CGEventRef event, void *refcon) { if (remoteControlMode) { // We want to suppress system cursor movement but still read the delta const int deltaX = static_cast<int>(CGEventGetIntegerValueField(event, kCGMouseEventDeltaX)); const int deltaY = static_cast<int>(CGEventGetIntegerValueField(event, kCGMouseEventDeltaY)); NSLog(@"MouseTapCallback: delta:(%d, %d)", deltaX, deltaY); // Update local virtual cursor UI based on deltas... return nullptr; // Consume the event } return event; } The Problem: When CGWarpMouseCursorPosition is called frequently to update the system cursor, it interferes with the kCGMouseEventDeltaX/Y values in the Event Tap. Specifically, if the local user moves the trackpad slowly (expecting deltas of 1 or 2), but a "Warp" occurs simultaneously (e.g., jumping the cursor from (100, 100) to (300, 300)), the deltaX and deltaY in the callback suddenly spike to very large values. It seems the system calculates the delta based on the new warped position rather than the pure physical displacement of the trackpad. This makes the local virtual cursor "jump" erratically and makes it impossible to track smooth local movement during remote control. My Question: Is there a way to get the "raw" or "pure" physical relative movement (delta) from the trackpad/mouse that is independent of the system cursor's absolute position or warping? Are there alternative APIs (perhaps IOKit or different CGEvent fields) that would allow me to get consistent deltas even when the cursor is being warped programmatically?
0
0
81
5d
The description of set_indices in the MSL reference seems incorrect.
I'm currently learning Metal. While reading the reference, I came across a strange description. Page 78 in Version 4 Reference (2025-10-25) says: It is legal to call the following set_indices functions to set the indices if the position in the index buffer is valid and if the position in the index buffer is a multiple of 2 (uchar2 overload) or 2 (uchar4 overload). The index I needs to be in the range [0, max_indices). void set_indices(uint I, uchar2 v); void set_indices(uint I, uchar4 v); However, it seems that the uchar4 overload should be multiple of 4. Furthermore, there is no explanation of what these methods actually do. I believe it involves setting two to four consecutive indices at once, but there is no mention of that here. I would like to know if the above understanding is correct.
0
0
43
6d
SpriteKit framerate drop on iOS 26.3
Hello, I have noticed a performance drop on SpriteKit-based projects running on iOS 26.3. The issue seems very similar to the issue reported on iOS 26.0, and later solved from iOS 26.2 beta 3: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/800952?answerId=870617022#870617022 With 26.3, it seems a regression occured. Below is the same SpriteKit scene used to test framerate on different devices: import SpriteKit import SwiftUI class BareboneScene: SKScene { override func didMove(to view: SKView) { size = view.bounds.size anchorPoint = CGPoint(x: 0.5, y: 0.5) backgroundColor = .darkGray let roundedSquare = SKShapeNode(rectOf: CGSize(width: 150, height: 75), cornerRadius: 12) roundedSquare.fillColor = .systemRed roundedSquare.strokeColor = .black roundedSquare.lineWidth = 3 addChild(roundedSquare) let action = SKAction.rotate(byAngle: .pi, duration: 1) roundedSquare.run(.repeatForever(action)) } } struct BareboneSceneView: View { var body: some View { SpriteView( scene: BareboneScene(), debugOptions: [.showsFPS] ) .ignoresSafeArea() } } #Preview { BareboneSceneView() } Running this very basic spritekit scene on my device and I can not reach an FPS of 60. Instead, it stalls around 40. I see the same in my AppStore published SpriteKit games. As you can see in the discussion of the linked forum topic, the regression has been noticed by others as well. Can you please look into this, and let us know if there is an outstanding action to resolve it already? It's very problematic for published games suddenly dropping to 40FPS on even the most modern iOS devices.
0
2
88
1w
Unity iOS Game Name Display Issue
When building a Unity iOS game, the app name displays incorrectly as "BigBall" on the iPhone home screen, despite setting the project name and bundle identifier to "Big Ball" in Unity and Apple Developer account. The correct name, "Big Ball," appears in TestFlight. I tried solutions from ChatGPT and DeepSeek, but none were satisfactory. Please help me.
0
0
48
1w
Unable to select a scene for preview in the SpriteKit actions editor
I am just starting to learn SpriteKit and I'm having trouble selecting a scene to preview an action in the actions editor. I created a new macOS Game project (Language: Swift, Game Technology: SpriteKit). When I open the generated 'Actions.sks' file, I see the message "No Preview Scene Selected" in the editor. I see the 'GameScene.sks' scene listed in the "Select..." control in the lower right, but it is greyed out. I'm not able to figure out how to select a scene to preview the action. I'm running Xcode 26.2 on macOS 15. Thanks very much for the help.
0
0
79
1w
Terminal Codes
Hello Apple Developers and users I am writing this message reguarding some help on some performance codes/settings I can use for my Macbook since I recently downloaded the MacOs Tahoe 26.2 and its been very glitchy and laggy with gaming and just using my mac normally I have tried using a FPS unlocker and downloading Metal 4 the FPS unlocker hasent worked at all I am still stuck on the normal 60 FPS and need some advice/help. Thank you. Kind regards Zachary
0
0
90
1w
How do I control a SwiftUI TextField with a game controller?
I've coded a text-adventure game in SwiftUI. (My game has no graphics or sound effects.) My app already supports keyboard navigation; I would like to add support for game controllers on iPhone. I can't figure out how to do it. I especially can't see any way to allow controller users to enter text in a TextField. I've read https://developer.apple.com/documentation/gamecontroller/supporting-game-controllers and it's all about button events. There's no reference to SwiftUI at all in that documentation, or any input-method editing at all. The only mention of "keyboard" is about treating the keyboard itself as if it were a game controller providing button events. How do I implement this?
0
0
64
1w
Assets catalog .webp warrning
When I enter webp image to the assets catalog I get warrning: /Users/..../Assets.xcassets The image set "Card-Back" references a file "Card-Back.webp", but that file does not have a valid extension. It works, I see all my images perfect. How can I fix the 200+ warrnings?
2
0
531
2w
Showing 3D/AR content on multiple pages in iOS with RealityView
Hi. I'm trying to show 3D or AR content in multiple pages on an iOS app but I have found that if a RealityView is used earlier in a flow then future uses will never display the camera feed, even if those earlier uses do not use any spatial tracking. For example, in the following simplified view, the second page realityView will not display the camera feed even though the first view does not use it not start a tracking session. struct ContentView: View { var body: some View { NavigationStack { VStack { RealityView { content in content.camera = .virtual // showing model skipped for brevity } NavigationLink("Second Page") { RealityView { content in content.camera = .spatialTracking } } } } } } What is the way around this so that 3D content can be displayed in multiple places in the app without preventing AR content from working? I have also found the same problem when wrapping an ARView for use in SwiftUI.
0
0
236
2w
انشاء تطبيق جديد
اريد انشاء لعبه في ابل ستور و تكون اول صفحه تكون شروط و الاحكام و خيار بدا اللعبه200 فئات من السعوديه من مسلسل من العب من بنات و بس وقطر و الإمارات وانمي ومسلسلات تركيه و السياحه و الدول وشركات عالميه و شركات كترونيه
2
0
155
2w
Unable to find intelgpu_kbl_gt2r0 slice or a compatible one in binary archive
Unable to find intelgpu_kbl_gt2r0 slice or a compatible one in binary archive 'file:///System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/IconRendering.framework/Resources/binary.metallib' available slices: applegpu_g13g, applegpu_g13s, applegpu_g13d, applegpu_g14g, applegpu_g14s, applegpu_g14d, applegpu_g15g, applegpu_g15s, applegpu_g15d, applegpu_g16g, applegpu_g16s, applegpu_g17g, applegpu_g15g, applegpu_g15s, applegpu_g15d, applegpu_g16s Is it related to performance of applications in macOS 26.2 on Intel Macs?
3
0
245
2w
Open Shading Language (OSL) in Metal
Hi. I'm a 3D designer, using Blender for most of my work. The most recent Blender conference discussed utilizing the Open Shading Language (OSL) in their latest versions, which allows designers to write custom shaders for their workflows. At the moment, only Nvidia Optix GPU's can utilize this language for rendering (from what I understand), but Blender developers stated they are waiting on other GPU manufacturers to implement this feature as well. I'm not sure if there are any licensing issues here, but would this be something Apple could implement in Metal to make their hardware more attractive to the 3D design community? Any help or knowledge on this topic would be greatly appreciated.
0
0
183
2w
RealityKit .Kinematic + collisions (visionOs)
Hi everyone, I'm new to visionOS development. I'm trying to create a physics-based scene (with gravity) where users can pick up and move objects on a workbench. I am struggling with physics interactions during the drag gesture: Kinematic Mode: If I switch to .kinematic during the drag, the object moves smoothly but clips through other objects (no collisions). Dynamic Mode: I tried keeping it .dynamic and applying linear velocity toward the hand position, but the movement feels laggy and unresponsive. Hybrid Approach: I tried switching to .kinematic during DragGesture.onChange and back to .dynamic on collision, but this causes the entity to jitter/shake violently when touching other objects. Has anyone found a clean way to drag objects while maintaining solid collisions. Thanks for your help!
2
0
710
2w
Present GameCentre Overlay Programmatically
As GKGameCenterViewController has been deprecated, it seems that GKAccessPoint is now the correct way to present the GameCentre leaderboard. But the placement options for the GKAccessPoint are very limited and lead to misaligned UI that looks clunky, as the GKAccessPoint does not align with the system navigation toolbar. Am I missing something here or am I just stuck with a lopsided UI now? I much preferred how this previously worked, where I could present the GKGameCenterViewController in a sheet from my own button
1
0
228
3w
Core Text incremental redraw glitch: overlapping glyphs during editing
During editing in Pages (or Word) I am getting these glitches (see attachment). Started after the last update to Mac OS 26.3 (beta) Also removed 2 recent instalments (Blackhole audio driver and kDrive/Infomaniak, but trouble is still there. 27" iMac 2020 (Intel) i7 3,8 Ghz AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT 8 GB 24 GB RAM macOS Tahoe 26.3 (=beta) Tried restart in safe mode, checked fonts. Talked to aissistent to get a solution, but no ...) Thx for any advice, Pieter (not a developer so please kee pit simple 🙏🏻)
3
0
375
3w
Optimizing HZB Mip-Chain Generation and Bindless Argument Tables in a Custom Metal Engine
Hi everyone, I’ve been developing a custom, end-to-end 3D rendering engine called Crescent from scratch using C++20 and Metal-cpp (targeting macOS and visionOS). My primary goal is to build a zero-bottleneck, GPU-driven pipeline that maximizes the potential of Apple Silicon’s Unified Memory and TBDR architecture. While the fundamental systems are stable, I am looking for architectural feedback from Metal framework engineers regarding specific synchronization and latency challenges. Current Core Implementations: GPU-Driven Instance Culling: High-performance occlusion culling using a Hierarchical Z-Buffer (HZB) approach via Compute Shaders. Clustered Forward Shading: Support for high-count dynamic lights through view-space clustering. Temporal Stability: Custom TAA with history rejection and Motion Blur resolve. Asset Infrastructure: Robust GUID-based scene serialization and a JSON-driven ECS hierarchy. The Architectural Challenge: I am currently seeing slight synchronization overhead when generating the HZB mip-chain. On Apple Silicon, I am evaluating the cost of encoder transitions versus cache-friendly barriers. && m_hzbInitPipeline && m_hzbDownsamplePipeline && !m_hzbMipViews.empty(); if (canBuildHzb) { MTL::ComputeCommandEncoder* hzbInit = commandBuffer->computeCommandEncoder(); hzbInit->setComputePipelineState(m_hzbInitPipeline); hzbInit->setTexture(m_depthTexture, 0); hzbInit->setTexture(m_hzbMipViews[0], 1); if (m_pointClampSampler) { hzbInit->setSamplerState(m_pointClampSampler, 0); } else if (m_linearClampSampler) { hzbInit->setSamplerState(m_linearClampSampler, 0); } const uint32_t hzbWidth = m_hzbMipViews[0]->width(); const uint32_t hzbHeight = m_hzbMipViews[0]->height(); const uint32_t threads = 8; MTL::Size tgSize = MTL::Size(threads, threads, 1); MTL::Size gridSize = MTL::Size((hzbWidth + threads - 1) / threads * threads, (hzbHeight + threads - 1) / threads * threads, 1); hzbInit->dispatchThreads(gridSize, tgSize); hzbInit->endEncoding(); for (size_t mip = 1; mip < m_hzbMipViews.size(); ++mip) { MTL::Texture* src = m_hzbMipViews[mip - 1]; MTL::Texture* dst = m_hzbMipViews[mip]; if (!src || !dst) { continue; } MTL::ComputeCommandEncoder* downEncoder = commandBuffer->computeCommandEncoder(); downEncoder->setComputePipelineState(m_hzbDownsamplePipeline); downEncoder->setTexture(src, 0); downEncoder->setTexture(dst, 1); const uint32_t mipWidth = dst->width(); const uint32_t mipHeight = dst->height(); MTL::Size downGrid = MTL::Size((mipWidth + threads - 1) / threads * threads, (mipHeight + threads - 1) / threads * threads, 1); downEncoder->dispatchThreads(downGrid, tgSize); downEncoder->endEncoding(); } if (m_instanceCullHzbPipeline) { dispatchInstanceCulling(m_instanceCullHzbPipeline, true); } } My Questions: Encoder Synchronization: Would you recommend moving this loop into a single ComputeCommandEncoder using MTLBarrier between dispatches to maintain L2 cache residency, or is the overhead of separate encoders negligible for depth-downsampling on TBDR? visionOS Bindless Latency: For stereo rendering on visionOS, what are the best practices for managing MTL4ArgumentTable updates at 90Hz+? I want to ensure that updating bindless resources for each eye doesn't introduce unnecessary CPU-to-GPU latency. Memory Management: Are there specific hints for Memoryless textures that could be applied to intermediate HZB levels to save bandwidth during this process? I’ve attached a screenshot of a scene rendered with the engine (PBR, SSR, and IBL).
0
0
371
3w
Many CGECreateKeyboardEvent in quick succession causing function and dictation buttons to be pressed?
Hi! I hope everyone reading is doing well. I am working on developing a reinforcement learning agent that involves sending scan codes to a window, which I've been doing by sending virtual scan codes with CGEventCreateKeyboardEvent per the docs. There is no event source when I send the keyboard events. However, when many keyboard events are happening (with the keys 'q', 'w', 'e', 'r', 'f', 'd', 's', space, arrow keys) in quick succession (<250ms), the enable dictation popup or the function button emojis popup appear for seemingly no reason. I have verified that I am using the correct scan codes for these keypresses, so I am wondering what else could cause this to happen. It is as if I am choosing to press f5 or fn. It does not happen when 'a' is the only button being pressed in quick succession. One thing that I have not been able to easily find is the scan code inputs for dictation nor the function button. do these scan codes overlap somehow? Thank you all for the help! Hunter
2
0
475
3w