Blog Post AN OPEN LETTER TO APPLE, INC

Am i the only one who has some minor trouble with OpenGL and older DirectX versions?
I have had trouble with older versions as well on my past computers. Typically, if you want to run older software, you should run it on older hardware from the same era for the best compatibility.

I Think apple likes to use its aesthetic to jack up the price of its products.
That is what we call the "Apple tax."
Apple computers really do not have a great cost to performance ratio. With the quality from other computer manufacturers increasing readily and almost always featuring more power in their high-end models, I am surprised people are still so entwined in the Apple ecosystem. One of the main selling points is Apple's exclusive software/OS. I do not understand why they do not separately sell licenses for such software since that is the only real reason to buy an overpriced Apple product at this point.
 
I have had trouble with older versions as well on my past computers. Typically, if you want to run older software, you should run it on older hardware from the same era for the best compatibility.

Backwards compatibility on computers can be absolutely disfuntional. Even with windows compatibility mode that hardly works. I like old software. Its a shame a lot of it isn’t supported or maintained.
 
The decision by Apple regarding their 3rd party software interaction isn't really a big surprise, they have been very rigid about this from the early days on...one could say they are are protecting their brand very proactively, even though it creates a negative end user experience.

While I cannot disclose whom I work for or contract with, the ability of the end user to be up down rev various firmware versions in servers or networking devises has been significantly restricted to force the use of the most updated revisions even though the updated revisions may not be compatible with firmware on other systems within your enterprise. Agreed, it it not exactly the same as restricting OS API interactions the concept of restricting access and action is the same. In the eyes of the system producer, it is a move for a better customer experience by ensuring the firmware is as bug free as possible.

I hope this edit clears up some of where I am viewing this issue.

Thanks!
Yes dated post I'm answering. There is a fine line between enterprise needing to keep consistency across the platform for monetary and functional reasons and purposely forcing a closed proprietary api and libraries on enterprise users and clients just for market share.
And apple and windows both have historically used forced proprietary preditory practices and I firmly believe this metal api is not about better customer experience whatsoever. apple or windows do not care if they upset 15% of their users. It's a drop in the bucket of market share to lose. Market loss is already figured in the costs.
 
Can we get some sort of update to whats going on with tlopo and apple?

Apple is a little vague about all this online.

Thanks.
Ahoy there!

Thanks for the question, Squintz!

As of right now, Apple appears to be continuing forward with their decision of deprecating OpenGL - which is not shocking at all to us. Now, while we are still very frustrated with Apple and macOS, we have been exploring other options of supporting macOS + Metal because we do not want to lose macOS as a supported platform. We value all of our players, including our small macOS community. Thankfully, we've made a significant amount of progress toward this goal.

The TLOPO administration and other internal development teams have been working very closely with the developers of the Panda3D Game Engine in an effort to update TLOPO to the latest version of Panda3D. The Panda3D development team has already been hard at work finding ways to support macOS going forward - and has made significant progress. Further, with TLOPO migrating to the latest Panda3D game engine version, we will be able to benefit from all of Panda3D's work on this. Thereby, we will no longer need to worry about macOS support from here on out.

These changes will be deployed to TLOPO in our upcoming major update ("Pypperoni"), please see check out this post for more detailed information regarding this update. We expect these changes to go live relatively soon, hopefully before summer is over at the very latest. But then again, we don't have any concrete deadline for this. The TLOPO team is most active during the winter and summer, so

This is a general breakdown of the most significant/important plans are in the Pypperoni update:
  • Migrate from Python 2.7 to Python 3.7.
  • Migrate from a custom and internal build of Disney Online's Panda3D to the public version, Panda3D 1.11.
    • This new Panda3D will be modified version of the public Panda3D, incorporating TLOPO-specific changes previously developed in-house by the Disney Interactive Media Group that directly benefit POTCO.
  • Fully remove all 32-bit support and begin shipping only 64-bit downloads.
    • This will massively improve performance and speed of the game - as well as allow players to take advantage of more RAM.
  • Completely overhaul the entire TLOPO deployment/release process.
  • Significantly improve loading times and general in-game performance.
There are literally hundreds of different features that are incorporated with this new update. We are also working with the Panda3D team to identify any potential performance bottlenecks located inside the game engine. Since we've started working with them, we've helped their team identify and fix dozens of bugs - which also benefits the open source Panda3D community.

We will continue to update our blog and social media as we get closer to releasing this update. It's definitely something to look forward to.

If you have any other questions about this, feel free to send us an email at support@tlopo.com or drop another reply here. We'd be more than happy to chat about it.
 
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