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Query GPU metrics
Hello! I'm a developer working on a plugin for the Elgato Stream Deck, called GPU Metrics. The plugin currently only works on Windows but I'd like to bring it to macOS. However, based on forum posts I've read (and StackOverflow) there isn't a very clear path to query GPU metrics like usage, temperature, used GPU memory, and power consumption. There are some tools out there that do similar things, but I wanted to see what would be the recommendation from Apple's engineering team to get this data via a public API. Requirements: Access GPU utilization, temperature, memory usage, power usage C/C++ based API for querying the metrics so I can expose the data to JavaScript via Node Addon No need to compatibile with Intel-based Macs, as Apple silicon will be fine for now Plugin GitHub Thank you! Noah
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141
May ’25
iOS Simulator can only render 1 RealityView
I'm using RealityView in my iOS game mxied with SwiftUI. For the following 2 example usages, the simulator will only render the first RealityView, and the second one is either super laggy or show a black model. Running on the real device is all good, just simualtor has this issue. Have a TabView and each tab has a RealityView. Have a root view and detail view connected via a push navigation, both root and detail have a RealityView. In the Simulator, the second RealityView is going to be very choppy and basically unusable, but on a real iPhone everything looks great. Is this a known simulator issue or I did something bad?
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142
Jun ’25
MTLBinaryArchive Size
I'm trying to use MTLBinaryArchive. I collected a BinaryArchive from one device and used metal-tt to translate it for all supported iPhone devices, ranging from iPhone 7 Plus to iPhone 16. However, this BinaryArchive is quite large, around 1.5GB uncompressed, and about 500MB compressed in the IPA. I'm wondering how to address the size issue. I watched the WWDC 2022 video, which mentioned that the operating system or app installation process would handle compatibility. Does this compatibility support different GPU chips? I tried installing an IPA with a BinaryArchive collected only from an iPhone 12 on an iPhone 13, but the BinaryArchive didn't take effect. I also saw that Apple supports App Thinning. However, it seems that resources in the Asset Catalog cannot be accessed via URL, and creating an MTLBinaryArchive requires a URL. Is it possible for MTLBinaryArchive to be distributed through App Thinning? The WWDC 2022 video also mentioned using the -Os optimization flag to reduce size. Can this give an estimate of how much compression it would achieve? Are there any methods to solve the BinaryArchive size issue without impacting performance?
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112
Mar ’25
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.
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Export Armatures from Blender to USDC for use in RealityKit
I'm an experienced SceneKit developer and I want to begin work on a new project using RealityKit. So I appreciated as timely, the WWDC 2025 Session, "Bring your SceneKit project to RealityKit". However, now I am finding that: Blender does not properly support exporting armatures in usdc files, and usdc is really the only file format that should be used for creating 3D assets for RealityKit. The option of exporting from Blender to fbx or some other intermediate format, and then converting that to usdc, is a challenge. Apple's Reality Converter App, which supposedly can support importing and converting fbx files to usdc, is no longer available from Apple's website. And an older copy of it I found at the Kodeco website requires Rosetta on Apple Silicon. As well, this older copy does not in fact import fbx or anything else - I find it doesn't work at all. Apple's Reality Composer Pro, at least as far as I can tell, only supports importing usdc - it is not a file conversion tool. Alternatively, I am under the impression that Maya supports producing usdc files with armatures, but Maya costs over $2000 per year and I am skilled with Blender, so I believe strongly that I should be able to continue with Blender. Maya's expense and skillset simply shouldn't be a requirement for building RealityKit applications. What are my options then, if any, to produce assets with armatures and armature based animations using Blender, and then bring them into RealityKit?
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Jun ’25
Swift game sometimes runs on efficiency cores then snaps back to performance cores
I've been working on Swift game which is not yet launched or available for preview. The game works in such a way that it has idle CPU while the user is thinking and sustained max CPU and GPU on as many cores as possible when he makes a move. Rarely, due to OS activity or something else outside of my control (for example when dropping the OS curtain even if for just a bit then remove it), the game or some of its threads are moved to efficiency cores which results in major stuttering which persists precisely until the game is idle again at which point the game is moved back on performance cores - but if the player keeps making moves the stuttering simply won't go away and so I guess compuptation is locked onto efficiency cores. The issue does not reproduce on MacCatalyst on Intel. How do I tell Swift to avoid efficiency cores? BTW Swift and SceneKIT have AMAZING performance especially when compared to others.
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235
Mar ’25
iOS Matchmaker ViewController Info Button
I'm updating an existing distributed game to add turn-based matches. When the Matchmaker ViewController Info Button next to a game is pressed, the results vary: iOS 15.x - Button under avatar says "Accept Invite" or "View Game" (depending on if invite has already been accepted) iOS 18.x - Button always says "App Store" - I assume that means it would lead one to the App store to install the game. Both devices (iPad 15.x and iPhone 18.x) have the same version of the game installed. The results are the same when running in the simulator. When the game is released, I assume this button will work properly, no?
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417
Dec ’25
How does Game Kit offline leaderboard submission work?
I do not understand how offline leaderboard submission is supposed to work in Game Kit: While the documentation briefly states that offline submission is supported, how is that even possible when you first have to fetch a leaderboard object in order to then call its submitScore function? How can I get the leaderboard object in the first place when offline? Can anyone enlighten me how this works? Or maybe point me to some relevant documentation?
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412
Dec ’25
VisionOS Spatial Accessory inputs help
The “explore spatial accessory input on visionOS” presentation from WDC25 interests me. I bought both the MUSE Logitech stylus and the PS VR2 sense controllers to try out with the sculpting app presented by the author, engineer Amanda Han. Unfortunately the app itself was not included. Could the app be made available for downloading as well as the Xcode project? I appreciate any assistance the author and your team could provide. Thank you.
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288
Nov ’25
Deterministic RNG behaviour across Mac M1 CPU and Metal GPU – BigCrush pass & structural diagnostics
Hello, I am currently working on a research project under ENINCA Consulting, focused on advanced diagnostic tools for pseudorandom number generators (structural metrics, multi-seed stability, cross-architecture reproducibility, and complementary indicators to TestU01). To validate this diagnostic framework, I prototyped a small non-linear 64-bit PRNG (not as a goal in itself, but simply as a vehicle to test the methodology). During these evaluations, I observed something interesting on Apple Silicon (Mac M1): • bit-exact reproducibility between M1 ARM CPU and M1 Metal GPU, • full BigCrush pass on both CPU and Metal backends, • excellent p-values, • stable behaviour across multiple seeds and runs. This was not the intended objective, the goal was mainly to validate the diagnostic concepts, but these results raised some questions about deterministic compute behaviour in Metal. My question: Is there any official guidance on achieving (or expecting) deterministic RNG or compute behaviour across CPU ↔ Metal GPU on Apple Silicon? More specifically: • Are deterministic compute kernels expected or guaranteed on Metal for scientific workloads? • Are there recommended patterns or best practices to ensure reproducibility across GPU generations (M1 → M2 → M3 → M4)? • Are there known Metal features that can introduce non-determinism? I am not sharing the internal recurrence (this work is proprietary), but I can discuss the high-level diagnostic observations if helpful. Thank you for any insight, very interested in how the Metal engineering team views deterministic compute patterns on Apple Silicon. Pascal ENINCA Consulting
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209
Nov ’25
Game Center Challenges and Activities are not appearing
Hi, I'm trying to add game center challenges and activities to an already live game, but they are not appearing in game for testing, GameCenter, or the Games app. I know the game is setup with GameKit entitlements since this is a live game and it has working leaderboards and achievements. I've updated to Tahoe beta 8, added a challenge and activity on app store connect, added that to a new distribution and added that distribution to 'Add for Review' I'm using Unity and the Apple Unity plugin Not sure what other steps I'm missing Thanks
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1.1k
Sep ’25
Metal 4 (validation / debug layer): residency set requirement mismatch for memoryless attachments
Setup: MSAA rendering using a memoryless texture as the color attachment (render_image) and a "normal" texture as the resolve attachment (resolve_image). MTL_DEBUG_LAYER / API validation is enabled for this. When trying to add the memoryless texture to a residency set, I get the following error: -[MTLDebugResidencySet validateResource:], line 114: error 'residency sets do not support memoryless resources. Which is as expected and identical to Metal 3. However, if I don't add it to the residency set, I then get the following error when committing to the command queue: -[MTL4DebugCommandQueue commit:count:options:], line 67: error 'Commit With Options Validation Attachment texture (Label: render_image) used in command buffer (at index 0) is not added to any residency set on the command buffer or command queue. So which way around is actually correct in Metal 4? Either way, this makes the use of memoryless textures/attachments impossible right now when validation is enabled. FWIW: when disabling all validation, either way seems to work just fine. Tested on: M1 Max, macOS 26.3, Xcode 26.2 & 26.4b2
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Game Porting Toolkit, missing GetThreadDpiHostingBehavior in USER32.DLL
I have been trying to run an open source Windows executable that I would like to help porting to macOS using the Game Porting Toolkit but I stumbled on an issue quite early in the application lifecycle. It looks like the funtion GetThreadDpiHostingBehavior is missing in USER32.dll Has anyone any idea how to solve that? During the startup, it fails with the following error: TiXL crashed. We're really sorry. The last backup was saved Unknown time to... C:\users\crossover\AppData\Roaming\TiXL\Backup Please refer to Help > Using Backups on what to do next. System.EntryPointNotFoundException: Unable to find an entry point named 'GetThreadDpiHostingBehavior' in DLL 'USER32.dll'. at System.Windows.Forms.ScaleHelper.DpiAwarenessScope..ctor(DPI_AWARENESS_CONTEXT context, DPI_HOSTING_BEHAVIOR behavior) at System.Windows.Forms.ScaleHelper.EnterDpiAwarenessScope(DPI_AWARENESS_CONTEXT awareness, DPI_HOSTING_BEHAVIOR dpiHosting) at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.CreateHandle(CreateParams cp) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateHandle() at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.get_MarshallingControl() at System.Windows.Forms.WindowsFormsSynchronizationContext..ctor() at System.Windows.Forms.WindowsFormsSynchronizationContext.InstallIfNeeded() at System.Windows.Forms.Control..ctor(Boolean autoInstallSyncContext) at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl..ctor() at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl..ctor() at System.Windows.Forms.Form..ctor() at T3.Editor.SplashScreen.SplashScreen.SplashForm..ctor() at T3.Editor.SplashScreen.SplashScreen.Show(String imagePath) in C:\Users\pixtur\dev\tooll\tixl\Editor\SplashScreen\SplashScreen.cs:line 25 at T3.Editor.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\Users\pixtur\dev\tooll\tixl\Editor\Program.cs:line 111
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146
Nov ’25
Game Center Sandbox: Achievements not unlocking in development build?
Hello Everyone I am new here, I am testing game center integration and using a development build of my IOS game. I have set up a couple of achievements in app store connect, but when I trigger them in the game then they do not unlock or show up. Okay so i am signed into the game center with a sandbox account on a test advice. Is there anything else I need to configure, or do achievements usually only work after the game is released?. I will appreciate any guidance… Thanks in Advance!!!
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228
May ’25
Hover effects w/ Compositor Services w/ PSVR2 controllers
Hi, I would like clarification on whether the new hover effects feature introduced in vision os 26 supported pinch gestures through the psvr 2 controllers. In your sample application, I was not able to confirm that this was working. Only pinch clicking with my hands worked. Pulling the trigger on the controller whilst looking at a 3d object did not activate the hover effect spatial event in the sample application. (The object is showing the highlight though) This is inconsistent with hover effect behavior with psvr2 controllers on swift ui views, where the trigger press does count as a button click. The sample I used was this one: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/compositorservices/rendering_hover_effects_in_metal_immersive_apps
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449
Jan ’26
Regression: RealityKit spatial audio crackles and pops on iOS 26.0 beta 5 (FB19423059)
RealityKit spatial audio crackles and pops on iOS 26.0 beta 5. It works correctly on iOS 18.6 and visionOS 26.0 beta 5. The APIs used are AudioPlaybackController, Entity.prepareAudio, Entity.play Videos of the expected and observed behavior are attached to the feedback FB19423059. The audio should be a consistent, repeating sound, but it seems oddly abbreviated and the volume varies unexpectedly. Thank you for investigating this issue.
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309
Aug ’25
Score range of ImageAestheticsScoresObservation in Vision framework
Hi everyone, I'm using the Vision framework’s ImageAestheticsScoresObservation class (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/vision/imageaestheticsscoresobservation). I noticed that the overallScore returned sometimes gives negative values. Could someone confirm whether the expected range of the score is from -1.0 to 1.0? The documentation doesn’t explicitly state the possible score range, so I’d appreciate any clarification or insights. Thanks in advance!
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159
Apr ’25