As a beginner, how to use Metal 4?
Asked on 06/12/2025
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To get started with Metal 4 as a beginner, you can follow these steps:
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Understand the Basics: Metal 4 is Apple's low-level graphics and compute API, designed to unlock the full performance potential of Apple Silicon. It is supported by devices equipped with the Apple M1 and later, as well as the A14 Bionic and later.
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Set Up Your Environment: Use Xcode 26, which comes with a new Metal 4 template. Start a new project and select game templates before choosing Metal 4 as your game technology. This will help you get a basic render going and start your Metal 4 journey.
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Learn Command Encoding: Metal 4 introduces a new command structure with explicit memory management. You can create command queues to send work to the hardware and command buffers that contain the work to be sent. Command encoders allow you to encode commands into those command buffers. Discover Metal 4 (01:44) provides more details on encoding commands.
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Manage Resources: Metal 4 offers new ways to manage resources, enabling richer and more complex visuals. You can learn more about resource management in the Discover Metal 4 (04:03) session.
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Compile Shaders: Shaders are written in the Metal shading language and need to be compiled before they can be executed by the hardware. Metal 4 provides a dedicated compilation context for this purpose. More information can be found in the Discover Metal 4 (10:43) session.
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Integrate Machine Learning: Metal 4 expands support for machine learning, allowing you to execute large-scale networks directly within your Metal app. This is covered in the Discover Metal 4 (13:52) session.
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Optimize with MetalFX: MetalFX provides built-in solutions to boost your app's performance. You can learn how to optimize your app using MetalFX in the Discover Metal 4 (17:26) session.
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Start Adopting Metal 4: Begin integrating Metal 4 into your new or existing apps. Sample code is available to help you start your Metal 4 adoption. This is discussed in the Discover Metal 4 (19:22) session.
By following these steps and exploring the resources provided in the sessions, you can start using Metal 4 effectively in your applications.
Discover Metal 4
Learn how to get started leveraging the powerful new features of Metal 4 in your existing Metal apps. We’ll cover how Metal enables you to get the most out of Apple silicon and program the hardware more efficiently. You’ll also learn how Metal 4 provides you with new capabilities to integrate machine learning into your Metal code.
Level up your games
Learn how to make your games shine on the unified gaming platform. We’ll give you a map of the technologies you can use to level up your game and further improve your player experience. Get an overview of the fundamental tools essential to build, debug, and profile your game.
Explore Metal 4 games
Learn to optimize your game engine with the latest advancements in Metal 4. We’ll cover how to unify your command encoding to minimize CPU overhead, scale up your graphics resource management to support massive scenes and maximize your memory budget, and load large libraries of pipeline states quickly. To get the most out of this session, first watch “Discover Metal 4.”