I was wondering if there's a method on MacOS to have my application hide a hid device such as a game controller and instead have the receiving game/application see my app's virtual controller? Is this possible via DriverKit or some other form of kernel level coding?
On Windows we have a tool known as HidHide that hids a game controller from all other applications. Is it possible to implement such behavior into an app or is that system level?
Delve into the world of graphics and game development. Discuss creating stunning visuals, optimizing game mechanics, and share resources for game developers.
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Hey I'm using the CIDepthBlurEffect Core Image Filter in my app. It seems to work ok but I get these errors in the console when calling the class.
CoreImage Metal library does not contain function for name: sparserendering_xhlrb_scan
CoreImage Metal library does not contain function for name: sparserendering_xhlrb_diffuse
CoreImage Metal library does not contain function for name: sparserendering_xhlrb_copy_back
CoreImage Metal library does not contain function for name: plain_or_sRGB_copy
Am I missing some sort of import to gain these Metal functions? I am using my own custom shaders but I assume you'd be able to use them along side the built in ones.
I'm updating an existing distributed game to add turn-based matches. When the Matchmaker ViewController Info Button next to a game is pressed, the results vary:
iOS 15.x - Button under avatar says "Accept Invite" or "View Game" (depending on if invite has already been accepted)
iOS 18.x - Button always says "App Store" - I assume that means it would lead one to the App store to install the game.
Both devices (iPad 15.x and iPhone 18.x) have the same version of the game installed. The results are the same when running in the simulator.
When the game is released, I assume this button will work properly, no?
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
GameKit
Was wondering if anyone from Apple could provide some clarification, The gaming studio "Epic Games" Is wondering if they could distribute the award winning game "Fortnite" back on MacOS without any retaliations.
I know Fortnite being back on MacOS would benefit thousands of MacOS Devs. Hoping to get a clarification so Epic could start on bringing Fortnite back.
Turn-based games: 2 players
When an opponent declines a game in the Game Center MatchMaker VC, that player sees that they quit, but no message is sent to the listener about that fact. For the person who started the match, their MMVC shows it's their turn
again. Why doesn't Game Center end the match?
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
General
I've tried out a ParticleEmitter in Reality Composer Pro to produce a burst of particles that don't move (i.e. speed close to zero).
When viewing from different angles, it clearly looks like the particles are rendered exactly in the wrong order, that is, front first and back last. In other words, back particles obscure front particles.
I would prefer it the correct way around.
I've only tried this interactively in Reality Composer Pro, not programmatically, but I assume I would get the same result.
My Reality Composer Pro "File" (zipped):
https://gert-rieger-edv.de/Posts/Post-1/RealityParticles.zip
Screenshot:
Click on the ParticleEmitter object, then on its Play button, then select the Particles tab and click on "Burst" a few times to get a few random particles.
Mac Studio 2025
Apple M4 Max
macOS 15.7.2 (24G325)
Reality Composer Pro
Version 2.0 (494.60.2)
Hi, I'm trying to set the displayScale environment value for a RealityView, so it renders at 2x instead of 3x on the iPhone, but it seems to have no effect.
.environment(\.displayScale, 2.0)
Is this expected behavior, or a bug?
The reason I want it to render at 2x and not at the default 3x is for game optimization and performance.
I do not understand how offline leaderboard submission is supposed to work in Game Kit:
While the documentation briefly states that offline submission is supported, how is that even possible when you first have to fetch a leaderboard object in order to then call its submitScore function? How can I get the leaderboard object in the first place when offline?
Can anyone enlighten me how this works? Or maybe point me to some relevant documentation?
After authenticating the user I'm loading my Game Center leaderboards like this:
let leaderboards = try await GKLeaderboard.loadLeaderboards(IDs: [leaderboardID])
This is working fine, but there are times when this just returns an empty array. When I encounter this situation, the array remains empty for several hours when retrying, but then at some point it suddenly starts working again.
Is this a known issue? Or am I hitting some kind of quota maybe (as I do it quite often while developing my game)?.
Edit: My leaderboards are grouped in sets if that makes any difference here.
Problem Summary
After upgrading to iOS 26.1 and 26.2, I'm experiencing a particle positioning bug in RealityKit where ParticleEmitterComponent particles render at an incorrect offset relative to their parent entity. This behavior does not occur on iOS 18.6.2 or earlier versions, suggesting a regression introduced in the newer OS builds.
Environment Details
Operating System: iOS 26.1 & iOS 26.2
Framework: RealityKit
Xcode Version: 16.2 (16C5032a)
Expected vs. Actual Behavior
Expected: Particles should render at the position of the entity to which the ParticleEmitterComponent is attached, matching the behavior on iOS 18.6.2 and earlier.
Actual: Particles appear away from their parent entity, creating a visual misalignment that breaks the intended AR experience.
Steps to Reproduce
Create or open an AR application with RealityKit that uses particle components
Attach a ParticleEmitterComponent to an entity via a custom system
Run the application on iOS 26.1 or iOS 26.2
Observe that particles render at an offset position away from the entity
Minimal Code Example
Here's the setup from my test case:
Custom Component & System:
struct SparkleComponent4: Component {}
class SparkleSystem4: System {
static let query = EntityQuery(where: .has(SparkleComponent4.self))
required init(scene: Scene) {}
func update(context: SceneUpdateContext) {
for entity in context.scene.performQuery(Self.query) {
// Only add once
if entity.components.has(ParticleEmitterComponent.self) { continue }
var newEmitter = ParticleEmitterComponent()
newEmitter.mainEmitter.color = .constant(.single(.red))
entity.components.set(newEmitter)
}
}
}
AR Setup:
let material = SimpleMaterial(color: .gray, roughness: 0.15, isMetallic: true)
let model = Entity()
model.components.set(ModelComponent(mesh: boxMesh, materials: [material]))
model.components.set(SparkleComponent4())
model.position = [0, 0.05, 0]
model.name = "MyCube"
let anchor = AnchorEntity(.plane(.horizontal, classification: .any, minimumBounds: [0.2, 0.2]))
anchor.addChild(model)
arView.scene.addAnchor(anchor)
Questions for the Community
Has anyone else encountered this particle positioning issue after updating to iOS 26.1/26.2?
Are there known workarounds or configuration changes to ParticleEmitterComponent that restore correct positioning?
Is this a confirmed bug, or could there be a change in coordinate system handling or transform inheritance that I'm missing?
Additional Information
I've already submitted this issue via Feedback Assistant(FB21346746)
Problem Summary
After upgrading to iOS 26.1 and 26.2, I'm experiencing a particle positioning bug in RealityKit where ParticleEmitterComponent particles render at an incorrect offset relative to their parent entity. This behavior does not occur on iOS 18.6.2 or earlier versions, suggesting a regression introduced in the newer OS builds.
Environment Details
Operating System: iOS 26.1 & iOS 26.2
Framework: RealityKit
Xcode Version: 16.2 (16C5032a)
Expected vs. Actual Behavior
Expected: Particles should render at the position of the entity to which the ParticleEmitterComponent is attached, matching the behavior on iOS 18.6.2 and earlier.
Actual: Particles appear away from their parent entity, creating a visual misalignment that breaks the intended AR experience.
Steps to Reproduce
Create or open an AR application with RealityKit that uses particle components
Attach a ParticleEmitterComponent to an entity via a custom system
Run the application on iOS 26.1 or iOS 26.2
Observe that particles render at an offset position away from the entity
Minimal Code Example
Here's the setup from my test case:
Custom Component & System:
struct SparkleComponent4: Component {}
class SparkleSystem4: System {
static let query = EntityQuery(where: .has(SparkleComponent4.self))
required init(scene: Scene) {}
func update(context: SceneUpdateContext) {
for entity in context.scene.performQuery(Self.query) {
// Only add once
if entity.components.has(ParticleEmitterComponent.self) { continue }
var newEmitter = ParticleEmitterComponent()
newEmitter.mainEmitter.color = .constant(.single(.red))
entity.components.set(newEmitter)
}
}
}
AR Setup:
let material = SimpleMaterial(color: .gray, roughness: 0.15, isMetallic: true)
let model = Entity()
model.components.set(ModelComponent(mesh: boxMesh, materials: [material]))
model.components.set(SparkleComponent4())
model.position = [0, 0.05, 0]
model.name = "MyCube"
let anchor = AnchorEntity(.plane(.horizontal, classification: .any, minimumBounds: [0.2, 0.2]))
anchor.addChild(model)
arView.scene.addAnchor(anchor)
Questions for the Community
Has anyone else encountered this particle positioning issue after updating to iOS 26.1/26.2?
Are there known workarounds or configuration changes to ParticleEmitterComponent that restore correct positioning?
Is this a confirmed bug, or could there be a change in coordinate system handling or transform inheritance that I'm missing?
Additional Information
I've already submitted this issue via Feedback Assistant(FB21346746)
After updating iPad/iPhone devices from iOS 18 to iOS 26, PhotogrammetrySession intermittently crashes during photogrammetry processing. The same workflow was stable on iOS 18 with no code changes to the app.
Environment:
OS versions: Works on OS 18, crashes on OS 26
Device: iPad/iPhone (reproducible across devices)
Source images: ~170-200 JPG files at 2160 x 3840 resolution
Reproduction:
The crash occurs consistently on the second or third sequential run of the photogrammetry session with the same image set. First run typically succeeds.
Crash details:
Xcode shows an uncaught exception during image processing:
terminating due to uncaught exception of type std::bad_alloc: std::bad_alloc
VTPixelTransferSession 420f sid 269 (2160.00 x 3840.00) [0.00 0.00 2160 3840]
rowbytes( 2160, 2160 ) Color( (null), 0x0, (null), (null), ITU_R_601_4 )
=> 24 sid 19 (2160.00 x 3840.00) [0.00 0.00 2160 3840] rowbytes( 6528 )
Color( 0x0, (null), (null), (null) )
This appears to be a memory allocation failure in VTPixelTransferSession during color space conversion. Has anyone else experienced similar crashes with CorePhotogrammetry on iOS 26, or found workarounds?
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
RealityKit
The maximumExtendedDynamicRangeColorComponentValue should provide some value between 1.0 and maximumPotentialExtendedDynamicRangeColorComponentValue depending on the available EDR headroom if there is any content on-screen that uses EDR.
This works fine in most scenarios but in macOS 26 Tahoe (including in 26.2) this seemingly breaks down when a third party external display is in HDR mode and the Mac goes to sleep and wakes up. After wake only a value of 1.0 is provided by the third party external display's NSScreen object, no matter what (although when the SDR peak brightness is being changed using the brightness slider, didChangeScreenParametersNotification is firing and the system should provide a proper updated headroom value). This makes dynamic tone-mapping that adapts to actual screen brightness impossible.
Everything works fine in Sequoia. In Tahoe the user needs to turn off HDR, then go through a sleep/wake cycle and turn HDR back on to have this fixed, which is obviously not a sustainable workaround.
I've recently run into an issue in Xcode where the sks editor's preview canvas just vanishes for every project on my computer. I don't think it is an issue with my sks files because this works as expected on another computer with the same files, and when it happens it happens for ALL sks files in all projects. There used to be menu items to toggle the canvas and its settings, but those are now gone for me in sks files (they show up for swift files that have previews, however).
Any idea what is going on here? How do I get the canvas back? I literally cannot get any work done on my primary computer because of this...
Is the pseudocode below thread-safe? Imagine that the Main thread sets the CAMetalLayer's drawableSize to a new size meanwhile the rendering thread is in the middle of rendering into an existing MTLDrawable which does still have the old size.
Is the change of metalLayer.drawableSize thread-safe in the sense that I can present an old MTLDrawable which has a different resolution than the current value of metalLayer.drawableSize? I assume that setting the drawableSize property informs Metal that the next MTLDrawable offered by the CAMetalLayer should have the new size, right?
Is it valid to assume that "metalLayer.drawableSize = newSize" and "metalLayer.nextDrawable()" are internally synchronized, so it cannot happen that metalLayer.nextDrawable() would produce e.g. a MTLDrawable with the old width but with the new height (or a completely invalid resolution due to potential race conditions)?
func onWindowResized(newSize: CGSize) {
// Called on the Main thread
metalLayer.drawableSize = newSize
}
func onVsync(drawable: MTLDrawable) {
// Called on a background rendering thread
renderer.renderInto(drawable: drawable)
}
I have something like this drawing in an MTKView (see at bottom).
I am finding it difficult to figure out when can the Swift-land resources used in making the MTLBuffer(s) be released? Below, for example, is it ok if args goes out of scope (or is otherwise deallocated) at point 1, 2, or 3? Or perhaps even earlier, as soon as argsBuffer has been created?
I have been reading through various articles such as
Setting resource storage modes
Choosing a resource storage mode for Apple GPUs
Copying data to a private resource
but it's a lot to absorb and I haven't been really able to find an authoritative description of the required lifetime of the resources in CPU land.
I should mention that this is Metal 4 code. In previous versions of Metal, the MTLCommandBuffer had the ability to add a completion handler to be called by the GPU after it has finished running the commands in the buffer but in Metal 4 there is no such thing (it it were even needed for the purpose I am interested in).
Any advice and/or pointers to the definitive literature will be appreciated.
guard let argsBuffer = device.makeBuffer(bytes: &args,...
argumentTable.setAddress(argsBuffer.gpuAddress, ...
encoder.setArgumentTable(argumentTable, stages: .vertex)
// encode drawing
renderEncoder.draw...
...
encoder.endEncoding() // 1
commandBuffer.endCommandBuffer() // 2
commandQueue.waitForDrawable(drawable)
commandQueue.commit([commandBuffer]) // 3
commandQueue.signalDrawable(drawable)
drawable.present()
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
Metal
I have tried every combination of suggestions to get a skybox to appear. Using swiftUI, realityKit and iOS. Non immersive environment. Does anyone have code that works to display a skybox.
When i use a do/catch loop i get environmentResource not found. I have checked the syntax, ensured the folder is referencing the target, used the same name for the folder as the file, the file is a .hdr (i assume this is supported), i have moved the file folder to the top level - no change.
I work on a Qt/QML app that uses Esri Maps SDK for Qt and that is deployed to both Windows and iPads. With a recent iPad OS upgrade to 26.1, many iPad users are reporting the application freezing after panning and/or identifying features in the map. It runs fine for our Windows users.
I was able to reproduce this and grabbed the following error messages when the freeze happens:
IOGPUMetalError: Caused GPU Address Fault Error (0000000b:kIOGPUCommandBufferCallbackErrorPageFault)
IOGPUMetalError: Invalid Resource (00000009:kIOGPUCommandBufferCallbackErrorInvalidResource)
Environment:
Qt 6.5.4 (Qt for iOS)
Esri Maps SDK for Qt 200.3
iPadOS 26.1
Because it appears to be a Metal error, I tried using OpenGL (Qt offers a way to easily set hte target graphics api):
QQuickWindow::setGraphicsApi(QSGRendererInterface::GraphicsApi::OpenGL)
Which worked! No more freezing. But I'm seeing many posts that OpenGL has been deprecated by Apple.
I've seen posts that Apple deprecated OpenGL ES. But it seems to still be available with iPadOS 26.1. If so, will this fix (above) just cause problems with a future iPadOS update?
Any other suggestions to address this issue? Upgrading our version of Qt + Esri SDK to the latest version is not an option for us. We are in the process to upgrade the full application, but it is a year or two out. So, we just need a fix to buy us some time for now.
Appreciate any thoughts/insights....
I am trying the simplest use of attachment in realityKit and get Contextual closure type @MainActor, @Sendable (inout RealityViewCameraContent) async -> void expects 1 argument, but 2 were used in closure body.
Also i get cannot find Attachment in scope