Autodesk dropping support for Alias and VRED in macOS Mojave over OpenGL deprecation

Autodesk has published a support document announcing that it is stopping development of its Alias and VRED vertical market packages, and that older versions will not work on Mojave due to Apple's OpenGL deprecation.

According to a note posted on Autodesk's support website, while older Alias versions can run on High Sierra or earlier, "no versions of VRED will run on that operating system due to the OpenGL deprecation." The change, according to the Autodesk note, "allows Autodesk development teams to focus on bringing innovations to market faster, and allows for more frequent software updates."

"In the end, the entire Alias and VRED community will benefit from this streamlined approach," wrote the company.

This follows the announcement by Apple in June at WWDC that Mojave will require graphics hardware to support Metal, and that active development has ceased for OpenGL and OpenCL on the Mac.

It isn't clear why Autodesk made the declaration that OpenGL's deprecation was responsible for the applications not working in Mojave. Deprecation does not mean removed, and the existing OpenGL implementation in High Sierra remains in Mojave.

The move at present does not appear to affect the core AutoDesk product. Alias is used for automotive and industrial design, while VRED is 3D visualization software. Neither Mac version has been updated recently.

According to the company, Mac users have multiple options. Users can switch to the Windows version and use a Boot Camp workaround, or they can remain on High Sierra or other Mac versions without upgrading to Mojave.

AppleInsider has reached out to Autodesk for comment.

71 Comments

elijahg 2823 comments · 18 Years

About 6 years ago

Oh great, as predicted Apple's abandonment of OpenGL is causing developers to drop macOS support even before Mojave is out. Maybe a few more of these announcements will cause them to change course, though Apple's not really known for listening to its customers on things like this. But of course, this is good for Apple customers and Apple knows best..!

danox 3395 comments · 11 Years

Autodesk family of products sucks on the Mac, I was hoping they were leaving to clear the field for Vectorwork's and Archicad....

mark fearing 439 comments · 16 Years

elijahg said:

Oh great, as predicted Apple's abandonment of OpenGL is causing developers to drop macOS support even before Mojave is out. Maybe a few more of these announcements will cause them to change course, though Apple's not really known for listening to its customers on things like this. But of course, this is good for Apple customers and Apple knows best..!

But Apple isn't dropping support per se. It's still there. I imagine it's simply the fact that they don't have enough mac customers using it? Or they can't find programmers capable of doing the work?

commentzilla 769 comments · 10 Years

elijahg said:

Oh great, as predicted Apple's abandonment of OpenGL is causing developers to drop macOS support even before Mojave is out. Maybe a few more of these announcements will cause them to change course, though Apple's not really known for listening to its customers on things like this. But of course, this is good for Apple customers and Apple knows best..!

Autodesk has always be lazy to support the Mac. They don't bother to keep it current even when they do support the Mac. Everyone is dropping OpenGL and it's subpar performance. Eventually they'll have no choice but to update their outdated software. They've never really been relevant to the Mac, so I'm not sure it matters all that much.

It's also important to remember that Windows has Direct X. Apple cannot produce the same or better performance with a generic API for their own silicon, Metal + A Series chips will give them an advantage that no one else has in the market. Give it time.

mark fearing said:

elijahg said:

Oh great, as predicted Apple's abandonment of OpenGL is causing developers to drop macOS support even before Mojave is out. Maybe a few more of these announcements will cause them to change course, though Apple's not really known for listening to its customers on things like this. But of course, this is good for Apple customers and Apple knows best..!

But Apple isn't dropping support per se. It's still there. I imagine it's simply the fact that they don't have enough mac customers using it? Or they can't find programmers capable of doing the work?

It is but there's no point in developing for a deprecated API, Apple can and will ditch it at the drop of a hat, rendering anything OpenGL-based useless.

commentzilla said:

elijahg said:

Oh great, as predicted Apple's abandonment of OpenGL is causing developers to drop macOS support even before Mojave is out. Maybe a few more of these announcements will cause them to change course, though Apple's not really known for listening to its customers on things like this. But of course, this is good for Apple customers and Apple knows best..!

Autodesk has always be lazy to support the Mac. They don't bother to keep it current even when they do support the Mac. Everyone is dropping OpenGL and it's subpar performance. Eventually they'll have no choice but to update their outdated software. They've never really been relevant to the Mac, so I'm not sure it matters all that much.

It's also important to remember that Windows has Direct X. Apple cannot produce the same or better performance with a generic API for their own silicon, Metal + A Series chips will give them an advantage that no one else has in the market. Give it time.

They aways have I agree, but I fear it's just the start of a deluge of abandoned Mac software by others too - and especially open source projects. Open source isn't really dropping OpenGL because they don't have the manpower to convert to anything else. And even if they did drop OpenGL, they'll support Vulkan instead with is comparatively gigantic installed base. It's not worth them supporting Metal.

I've posted similar before, but to paraphrase: with iOS Apple has such a huge and potentially high-spending customer base. Apple has a huge amount of leverage and can do pretty much as it likes and as iOS is such a valuable market, it's absolutely worth developers switching to Metal. In contrast, Apple has almost no leverage in the desktop OS market. Macs have barely any market share so it's not worth most developers spending disproportionate time supporting it. So instead they just abandon it. Especially with open source software, Mac support is just a tickbox; no effort required.

Even if Apple were to guarantee to maintain OpenGL for a few MacOS versions it'd give developers time to switch to something else, and for MoltenVK (a Vulkan to Metal shim) to mature. It remains to be seen what the performance of Vulkan/Metal is like with scientific and engineering software, early evidence appears to be it's worse than OpenGL.

As per usual the apparent march of "progress" to the detriment of Apple's customers.