what is new in Metal ?

At WWDC 2025, Apple introduced several new features and enhancements in Metal 4, focusing on improving graphics and compute capabilities across Apple platforms. Here are some of the key updates:

1. Metal 4 Overview: Metal 4 is designed to unlock the full performance potential of Apple Silicon, supporting devices equipped with the Apple M1 and later, as well as the A14 Bionic and later. It introduces a new command structure with explicit memory management, enabling richer and more complex visuals (Discover Metal 4).

2. Rendering and Graphics: Metal 4 includes enhancements for ray tracing and introduces the MetalFX denoised upscaler, which helps achieve higher resolutions and faster frame rates. The new MetalFX frame interpolator smooths out gameplay further (Go further with Metal 4 games).

3. Machine Learning Integration: Metal 4 allows seamless integration of machine learning workloads into graphics pipelines. The ML command encoder enables entire machine learning networks to run directly on the GPU timeline, and ShaderML allows embedding machine learning operations directly into shaders (Combine Metal 4 machine learning and graphics).

4. Resource Management: Metal 4 introduces argument tables and residency sets to scale resource binding to thousands of resources, providing developers with more control over dependencies and memory management (Explore Metal 4 games).

5. Immersive Apps: New capabilities for rendering immersive content on Apple Vision Pro were introduced, including hover effects for interactive objects and support for dynamic render quality (What’s new in Metal rendering for immersive apps).

These updates make Metal 4 a powerful tool for developers looking to create high-performance, visually stunning applications and games on Apple platforms.