What is metal

Metal is a modern graphics and compute API designed and optimized for Apple devices. It provides a wide range of advanced features for both graphics rendering and general-purpose computing. Metal is used extensively in various applications, including game development and machine learning.

Key Features of Metal:

1. Graphics Rendering: Metal offers advanced graphics features such as ray tracing, resource residency, and MetalfX for upscaling images. These features help in rendering high-quality graphics efficiently on Apple devices.
2. Compute API: Metal also serves as a compute API, enabling the acceleration of machine learning tasks. It supports frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and JAX, providing features like just-in-time compilation, mixed precision training, and distributed training.
3. Integration with ML Frameworks: Metal is integrated with machine learning frameworks through Metal Performance Shaders (MPS) and MPS Graph, which provide low-level control over GPU synchronization and memory. This integration allows for efficient training and deployment of machine learning models on Apple silicon.

Relevant Sessions:

• Train your machine learning and AI models on Apple GPUs
• Port advanced games to Apple platforms
• Accelerate machine learning with Metal
• Explore machine learning on Apple platforms

These sessions cover various aspects of using Metal for both graphics and machine learning, providing detailed insights and practical examples.