tell me about metal

Generated on 8/6/2024

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Metal is a powerful framework designed by Apple to optimize graphics and compute tasks on Apple devices. It is widely used in various domains, including gaming and machine learning. Here are some key points about Metal from the WWDC sessions:

  1. Machine Learning with Metal:

    • Metal is used as a backend for several popular machine learning frameworks like PyTorch, TensorFlow, and JAX. This integration allows for efficient training on Apple GPUs, leveraging features like just-in-time compilation, distributed training, and mixed precision (Train your machine learning and AI models on Apple GPUs).
    • Metal Performance Shaders (MPS) Graph is a framework for constructing and running general-purpose compute graphs using Metal. It provides low-level control over GPU synchronization and memory, which can be beneficial for specific ML tasks (Accelerate machine learning with Metal).

  2. Gaming with Metal:

    • Metal offers a modern graphics and compute API optimized for Apple devices, providing advanced features for rendering graphics. This includes tools like the Metal Shader Converter for deploying unified shaders across macOS and iOS (Port advanced games to Apple platforms).
    • MetalFX upscaler and other advanced graphics features are available to enhance the visual quality and performance of games on Apple platforms (Port advanced games to Apple platforms).

  3. VisionOS and Metal:

    • Metal can be used to render content in mixed immersion environments on visionOS, blurring the line between the real world and digital content. This involves using compositor services and ARKit for rendering and tracking (Render Metal with passthrough in visionOS).

Relevant Sessions

  1. Train your machine learning and AI models on Apple GPUs
  2. Accelerate machine learning with Metal
  3. Port advanced games to Apple platforms
  4. Render Metal with passthrough in visionOS

These sessions provide a comprehensive overview of how Metal is utilized across different applications, from machine learning to gaming and augmented reality.

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Train your machine learning and AI models on Apple GPUs

Train your machine learning and AI models on Apple GPUs

Learn how to train your models on Apple Silicon with Metal for PyTorch, JAX and TensorFlow. Take advantage of new attention operations and quantization support for improved transformer model performance on your devices.

Explore machine learning on Apple platforms

Explore machine learning on Apple platforms

Get started with an overview of machine learning frameworks on Apple platforms. Whether you’re implementing your first ML model, or an ML expert, we’ll offer guidance to help you select the right framework for your app’s needs.

Render Metal with passthrough in visionOS

Render Metal with passthrough in visionOS

Get ready to extend your Metal experiences for visionOS. Learn best practices for integrating your rendered content with people’s physical environments with passthrough. Find out how to position rendered content to match the physical world, reduce latency with trackable anchor prediction, and more.

Accelerate machine learning with Metal

Accelerate machine learning with Metal

Learn how to accelerate your machine learning transformer models with new features in Metal Performance Shaders Graph. We’ll also cover how to improve your model’s compute bandwidth and quality, and visualize it in the all new MPSGraph viewer.

Port advanced games to Apple platforms

Port advanced games to Apple platforms

Discover how simple it can be to reach players on Apple platforms worldwide. We’ll show you how to evaluate your Windows executable on Apple silicon, start your game port with code samples, convert your shader code to Metal, and bring your game to Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Explore enhanced Metal tools that understand HLSL shaders to validate, debug, and profile your ported shaders on Metal.