Martin
0
Dear Cheetah3D users,
I'm sorry but I have some bad news today. Yesterday Apple released macOS 11.0 and new Macs with Apple Silicon but Cheetah3D is not ready for both yet. So if your work depend on Cheetah3D please be warned and wait a little bit longer until I officially support both.
Metal: I started the switch from OpenGL -> Metal earlier this year. I waited that long since I wanted to keep as little users as any possible behind. But supporting the older versions of macOS became pretty fast a big challenge since the drivers simply were too buggy. So I had to do what I always wanted to avoid. I had to drop older versions of macOS from the system requirements list. At the moment the minimum system requirement for the Metal version is macOS 10.15 (Catalina). Very disappointing.
Apple Silicon: In the middle of the OpenGL -> Metal transition when I already had passed the point of no return Apple announced the switch to a completely new processor architecture. Although I received a DTK (developer transition kit) I actually had very little time to work with it. I first had to fill the gigantic hole which OpenGL left when I ripped it out of Cheetah3D. And contrary to what Apples marketing says porting bigger apps is anything but trivial. At least in such a short time. So I'm sorry but Apple silicon support probably won't come to Cheetah3D in 2020.
Big Sur: I usually test Cheetah3D extensively on the beta versions of new macOS releases. But due to the former two reasons that wasn't possible this year. So I can't recommend Cheetah3D for Big Sur yet. I simply don't have the confidence to do that without my own testing. (Update Feb. 20th 2021: Added macOS Big Sur support to Cheetah3D 7.5.1)
So what's my plan to solve this Gordian knot. I simply want to solve one problem after another. First Metal, then Big Sur and finally support for Apple Silicon. As always I plan to release Alpha/Beta versions as soon as possible. But these are probably still a few months away.
I'm truly sorry for the current situation. But the lack of man power behind Cheetah3D was never more obvious than today.
Kind regards
Martin
I'm sorry but I have some bad news today. Yesterday Apple released macOS 11.0 and new Macs with Apple Silicon but Cheetah3D is not ready for both yet. So if your work depend on Cheetah3D please be warned and wait a little bit longer until I officially support both.
Metal: I started the switch from OpenGL -> Metal earlier this year. I waited that long since I wanted to keep as little users as any possible behind. But supporting the older versions of macOS became pretty fast a big challenge since the drivers simply were too buggy. So I had to do what I always wanted to avoid. I had to drop older versions of macOS from the system requirements list. At the moment the minimum system requirement for the Metal version is macOS 10.15 (Catalina). Very disappointing.
Apple Silicon: In the middle of the OpenGL -> Metal transition when I already had passed the point of no return Apple announced the switch to a completely new processor architecture. Although I received a DTK (developer transition kit) I actually had very little time to work with it. I first had to fill the gigantic hole which OpenGL left when I ripped it out of Cheetah3D. And contrary to what Apples marketing says porting bigger apps is anything but trivial. At least in such a short time. So I'm sorry but Apple silicon support probably won't come to Cheetah3D in 2020.
So what's my plan to solve this Gordian knot. I simply want to solve one problem after another. First Metal, then Big Sur and finally support for Apple Silicon. As always I plan to release Alpha/Beta versions as soon as possible. But these are probably still a few months away.
I'm truly sorry for the current situation. But the lack of man power behind Cheetah3D was never more obvious than today.
Kind regards
Martin
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