I am trying to get a little game prototype up and running using Metal using the metal-cpp libraries where I run everything natively at 120Hz with a coupled renderer using Vsync turned on so that I have the absolute physically minimum input to photon latency possible. // Create the metal view SDL_MetalView metal_view = SDL_Metal_CreateView(window); CA::MetalLayer *swap_chain = (CA::MetalLayer *)SDL_Metal_GetLayer(metal_view); // Set up the Metal device MTL::Device *device = MTL::CreateSystemDefaultDevice(); swap_chain->setDevice(device); swap_chain->setPixelFormat(MTL::PixelFormat::PixelFormatBGRA8Unorm); swap_chain->setDisplaySyncEnabled(true); swap_chain->setMaximumDrawableCount(2); I am using SDL3 just for creating the window. Now when I go through my game / render loop - I stall for a long time on getting the next drawable which is understandable - my app runs in about 2-3ms. m_CurrentContext->m_Drawable = m_SwapChain->nextDrawable(); m_CurrentContext->m_CommandBuffer = m_CommandQueue->commandBuffer()->retain(); char frame_label[32]; snprintf(frame_label, sizeof(frame_label), "Frame %d", m_FrameIndex); m_CurrentContext->m_CommandBuffer->setLabel(NS::String::string(frame_label, NS::UTF8StringEncoding)); m_CurrentContext->m_RenderPassDescriptor[ERenderPassTypeNormal] = MTL::RenderPassDescriptor::alloc()->init(); MTL::RenderPassColorAttachmentDescriptor* cd = m_CurrentContext->m_RenderPassDescriptor[ERenderPassTypeNormal]->colorAttachments()->object(0); cd->setTexture(m_CurrentContext->m_Drawable->texture()); cd->setLoadAction(MTL::LoadActionClear); cd->setClearColor(MTL::ClearColor( 0.53f, 0.81f, 0.98f, 1.0f )); cd->setStoreAction(MTL::StoreActionStore); However my ProMotion display does not reliably run at 120Hz when fullscreen and using the direct to display system - it seems to run faster when windowed in composite which is the opposite of what I would expect. The Metal HUD says 120Hz, but the delay to getting the next drawable and looking at what Instruments is saying tells otherwise. When I profile it, the game loop has completed and is sitting there waiting for the next drawable, but the screen does not want to complete in 8.33ms, so the whole thing slows down for no discernible reason. Also as a game developer it is very strange for the command buffer to actually need the drawable texture free to be allowed to encode commands - usually the command buffers and swapping the front and back render buffers are not directly dependent on each other. Usually you only actually need the render buffer texture free when you want to draw to it. I could give myself another drawable, but because I am completing in less than 3ms, all it would do would be to add another frame of latency. I also looked at the FramePacing example and its behaviour is even worse at having high framerate with low latency - the direct to display is always rejected for some reason. Is this just a flaw in the Metal API? Or am I missing something important? I hope someone can help - the behaviour of the display is baffling.

I am using the Google Filament rendering library in my C++ game physics engine prototype. This library comes with a compiler to convert its custom format material definitions into binary blobs which can be themselves compiled into the executable via a generated header file and .S file. I have a custom build rule which builds these files into their correct outputs no problem, but I cannot find a way to add their outputs to the Compile Sources phase in a way where the dependencies get picked up correctly (first time I build I get missing file errors) and Archiving is completely broken as it cleans before building. The interface does not seem to understand its own ($DERIVED_FILE_DIR) path when trying to Compile Sources and so does not pick up on the dependencies correctly. How should this work?