Commit c25a49c4062882657e4de954f53dc41526112ac9

Jeremy Demeule 2023-08-31T10:23:45

metal: Add hint to select low power device instead of the default one (#8182) On some system like MacBook Pro Intel with AMD card, asking for the default device will always return the AMD GPU. This is not an issue for 99% of the case when the renderer context is here to provide the maximum performance level like for game. However, for video application using GPU for 1 quad and 1 texture, using the discrete GPU for that lead to an important power consumption (4 to 8W), heat increase, and fan noise. With this patch, I successfully amend ffplay to only use the integrated GPU (i.e. the Intel one), instead of the discrete GPU (i.e. the AMD one). (cherry picked from commit aa7ba629784ebf4a253cf78d85c286c310ad0cb5)

diff --git a/include/SDL_hints.h b/include/SDL_hints.h
index c808a60..00beef5 100644
--- a/include/SDL_hints.h
+++ b/include/SDL_hints.h
@@ -1475,6 +1475,17 @@ extern "C" {
 #define SDL_HINT_RENDER_VSYNC               "SDL_RENDER_VSYNC"
 
 /**
+ *  \brief  A variable controlling whether the Metal render driver select low power device over default one
+ *
+ *  This variable can be set to the following values:
+ *    "0"       - Use the prefered OS device
+ *    "1"       - Select a low power one
+ *
+ *  By default the prefered OS device is used.
+ */
+#define SDL_HINT_RENDER_METAL_PREFER_LOW_POWER_DEVICE "SDL_RENDER_METAL_PREFER_LOW_POWER_DEVICE"
+
+/**
  *  \brief  A variable controlling if VSYNC is automatically disable if doesn't reach the enough FPS
  *
  *  This variable can be set to the following values:
diff --git a/src/render/metal/SDL_render_metal.m b/src/render/metal/SDL_render_metal.m
index c226560..76d1d83 100644
--- a/src/render/metal/SDL_render_metal.m
+++ b/src/render/metal/SDL_render_metal.m
@@ -1654,8 +1654,22 @@ static SDL_Renderer *METAL_CreateRenderer(SDL_Window * window, Uint32 flags)
         return NULL;
     }
 
-    // !!! FIXME: MTLCopyAllDevices() can find other GPUs on macOS...
-    mtldevice = MTLCreateSystemDefaultDevice();
+#ifdef __MACOSX__
+    if (SDL_GetHintBoolean(SDL_HINT_RENDER_METAL_PREFER_LOW_POWER_DEVICE, SDL_TRUE)) {
+        NSArray<id<MTLDevice>> *devices = MTLCopyAllDevices();
+
+        for (id<MTLDevice> device in devices) {
+            if (device.isLowPower) {
+                mtldevice = device;
+                break;
+            }
+        }
+    }
+#endif
+
+    if (mtldevice == nil) {
+        mtldevice = MTLCreateSystemDefaultDevice();
+    }
 
     if (mtldevice == nil) {
         SDL_free(renderer);