HOOPS Luminate 2026.1.0
Overview
The 2026.1.0 release marks a major leap forward in cross-platform performance and stability. It focuses heavily on empowering users on Apple Silicon, optimizing the Metal backend to match and even exceed legacy OpenGL performance, and resolving critical bugs that were holding back high-end visualization workflows.
What’s New in HOOPS Luminate 2026.1.0
Next-Generation Apple Silicon Support
RedSDK now officially supports MacOS on ARM architecture, ensuring that Luminate applications can leverage the full power of Apple’s latest hardware ecosystem.
- Full Luminate support for MacOS on ARM-based Apple Silicon chips was introduced to enable seamless deployment on modern Mac hardware.
- Critical defects in the Metal driver implementation were resolved to ensure stable operation on MacOS ARM architecture.
- A crash in the ‘IntegrationIntoAnExistingMetalApplication’ sample was fixed by modernizing the setup to use a native NSApp and MTKView.
Blazing Fast Metal Performance
The Metal rendering pipeline has been overhauled to eliminate driver overhead and memory bottlenecks, delivering a smooth, high-performance experience that rivals OpenGL.
- A second phase of Metal driver optimizations was completed, significantly reducing frame drawing times and achieving parity with OpenGL performance.
- Redraw speeds for large assemblies were brought back in line with expected targets by optimizing the Metal backend and eliminating performance declines.
- Metal driver calls were drastically reduced by implementing a state cache and dirty-bit mechanism, significantly decreasing the number of API calls made to the GPU..
Enhanced Rendering & Stability
From smarter shaders to improved ray-tracing stability, the core engine has been refined to be more robust and easier to use for advanced developers.
- Custom shader development was simplified with the addition of automatic index buffer type selection, allowing for thick lines without manual index management.
- A crash in Embree4 software ray-tracing was resolved by ensuring geometry is correctly detached from the scene before being released.
- A workaround was implemented for access violations on Intel integrated graphics caused by recent Intel display drivers.
- Alpha masking support was enabled in the Metal backend by implementing the missing alpha function logic for fragment shaders.
- A crash in software rendering mode on MacOS was fixed to support GPU-less environments like virtual machines when Metal initialization is unavailable.
Technology Updates
Platform Changes
- Introduction of official support for Apple Silicon/macOS on ARM architecture.
New Features
- Previously an index buffer had to be explicitly declared as either ushort or uint in their shader code which required konwing and hard-code the type at shader-writing time. Now, the buffer can be declared as a generic byte buffer in the shader and index values can be read with a new helper function REDMETAL_READ_INDEX. The engine then automatically compiles two optimized shader variants — one for 16-bit indices, one for 32-bit indices — and selects the right one at draw time based on the index buffer the engine itself created.
API Changes
- REDMETAL_READ_INDEX() automatically adapts to ushort/uint index buffers using Luminate specialization.
Deprecations
- Support for macOS on Intel architecture will be discontinued starting with release 2027.1.0 in January 2027 due to the end of support in macOS 27.
Fixed Bugs
| Issue | Description |
|---|---|
| SDRD-419 | Modernized the Metal integration sample to use native NSApp and MTKView instead of the legacy tutorial framework. |
| SDRD-421 | Optimized the Metal backend to restore redraw performance for large assemblies to OpenGL-equivalent levels. |
| SDRD-424 | Corrected the build pipeline to ensure Linux and MacOS binaries are compiled with full -O3 optimizations. |
| SDRD-434 | Implemented a workaround for an access violation crash occurring with specific Intel integrated graphics drivers. |
| SDRD-435 | Updated the Metal hosted layer to correctly account for contentScale during window resizing on High-DPI displays. |
| SDRD-436 | Implemented glAlphaFunc logic within the Metal backend to enable proper alpha masking and transparency cutouts. |
| SDRD-437 | Added error handling to bypass the Metal rendering stage when no GPU is available, preventing crashes in VM environments. |
| SDRD-441 | Fixed a memory access crash in Embree4 by explicitly detaching geometry from the scene before deallocation. |
| SDRD-442 | Fixed pure software rendering crashes on macOS + Metal. |
