Progress of new backend API

[zhangxm]

I created this thread to remove some codes when integrating metal.

[smitpatel88]

@zhangxm Whenever you need any testing help, let me know.
I can test on whatever devices we have. (Android/iOS both)

[cc_x]

Yep, i think i have to test on these devices after adapting to cocos2d-x. Sorry, i don’t have all the devices, but i think the community can help to test too.

Thats very bad, for quality profiling and optimizing you need a real device to do so in Xcode and quickly test/fix/improve anything. Am I talking about standard and obvious things?

[zhangxm]

@smitpatel88 thanks.
@cc_x i will test as more devices as i can, but i don’t have all the devices.

[zhangxm]

Update:

• implement some basic feature of metal backend
• can run the project, but nothing is drawn, i found the vertex data is correct, don’t know why

If somebody is metal expert, please help to fix it too.

[zhangxm]

Update:

the first metal test case can run, it is because i don’t set window width and height, then the view port size is 0. Currently, i just write metal shader by hand, not translate it to metal shader in runtime. It can polish the API more quickly.

[zhangxm]

Update:

GLSL shader works on metal backend. We are using glsl-optimizer to translate GLSL shader to metal shader. glsl-optimizer doesn’t translate GLSL builtin functions, we are fixing it.

[zhangxm]

Update: texture is supported in metal backend, texture array currently is not supported. And i created an issue to trace the progress of GLSL builtin functions supporting.

[dumganhar]

Device.createXXX return autoreleased objects as other cocos2d-x API, but most times, you don’t want autoreleased objects, they are retained to be used later. Should change it? Or use other better function names?

I think this is a standalone project which should not depend on cocos2d-x.
It’s cocos2d-x uses this module instead.
So autorelease stuff may not be in this project.

[dumganhar]

It seems that this design doesn’t consider multi-thread usage.
There isn’t any concept of Fence, Event, Semaphore.

[zhangxm]

I think this is a standalone project which should not depend on cocos2d-x.
It’s cocos2d-x uses this module instead.
So autorelease stuff may not be in this project.

@dumganhar it is part of cocos2d-x. For convenient, i use a separate repo when developing. I learned from mac and fixed it:

• createXXX return an autoreleased object
• newXXX return a not autoreleased object

It seems that this design doesn’t consider multi-thread usage.
There isn’t any concept of Fence, Event, Semaphore.

Yep, multiple thread concept is not included now. I don’t know if it is needed, the first purpose is to support metal, and we can optimize it if it is needed.

[zhangxm]

Update: blending is supported on metal, and the API is simplified a bit. I will add more test case for it.

[zhangxm]

Update:

• texture can be used as color attachment
• can update sub image of a texture
• make stencil work correctly
• make some API more meaningful
• add more test cases

[Codemattic]

wow it seems like you are making terrific progress - thanks for the updates!!

[zhangxm]

We almost finish the backend API, and will start integrating it into cocos2d-x soon.

[kiranb47]

Wow, That was Quick

[kiranb47]

@zhangxm Crashing for me when i tried running tests. See attachment

[zhangxm]

@kiranb47 i will take a look.

[zhangxm]

@kiranb47 it works for me and my co-worker. What’s your macOS version? And what’s the pixel format?

[kiranb47]

Mac Version: 10.14 Mojave. We tested in 2 Macs. A Mac Mini & a Mac Book Pro. How i find my device pixel format? I tried changing pixel formal in RootView, but still crashing