[Implement] please implement Vulkan-MoltenVK

[9dn2d987z5-dev]

Add some background

Implementing Vulkan-MoltenVK renderer is great for performance because it allows for multi-threading

Time to document.

Switching from Mobileglues single-threaded OpenGL to Vulkan-MoltenVK will significantly improve performance because of Multi-threading. we would also appreciate if Java 25 is available. Thank you

Disclaimers

No response

[taylenwells2026-blip]

You mean make MoltenVK as like a renderer? I’m lwk geeked rn so I might be completely misunderstanding this.

[9dn2d987z5-dev]

You mean make MoltenVK as like a renderer? I’m lwk geeked rn so I might be completely misunderstanding this.
To Clarify. Vulkan is the Renderer. Since Metal (Apple GPU API) supports Vulkan but not natively, MoltenVK acts as the translation layer that maps those commands directly to Metal calls for better performance

[taylenwells2026-blip]

Ik I was curious if you meant implementing it as like a renderer similar to mobile glues. Because MoltenVK is already implemented into amethyst.

[9dn2d987z5-dev]

nope, it is very different from MobileGlues. Mobileglues uses OpenGL and Vulkan is kinda like OpenGL but better. and also, I get that MoltenVK is already in the files, but there’s no option in the UI to actually select a Vulkan Renderer for the game to use. Right now, it feels like we’re still stuck on the OpenGL/Zink path which is since iOS 16 till this day.
Since Minecraft is officially moving to Vulkan, we need a way to tell Amethyst to pass those Vulkan commands directly to MoltenVK without it trying to “wrap” everything in OpenGL first

[taylenwells2026-blip]

I was saying mobile glues as an example that it’s a renderer and if you wanted it to be implemented as a renderer not be like functionally similar to mobile glues. Obviously I know moltenvk maps Vulkan I was just implying if you wanted it to be a selectable renderer.

[9dn2d987z5-dev]

exactly that. a selectable renderer along side with other Renderer.

[bbzze]

1. Vanilla Vulkan renderer only exists in 26.2.
2. You don't need an option for Vulkan if MoltenVK is the ONLY option for Vulkan.
3. Mods that make the game use Vulkan like Cinnabar and VulkanMod automatically detects the MoltenVK dylib and ignores the renderer option.
4. You can't use Vulkan for a game made for OpenGL. They are two different graphics APIs.

You don't need this.

[idonutknow616]

you can do vulkanmod? i thought you cant, it keeps crashing on me

[bbzze]

you can do vulkanmod? i thought you cant, it keeps crashing on me

If you're on iOS 26 and newer, turn on "Keep Attached to Stikdebug" in the UI Debugging Settings.

[LPV412]

you can do vulkanmod? i thought you cant, it keeps crashing on me

If you're on iOS 26 and newer, turn on "Keep Attached to Stikdebug" in the UI Debugging Settings.

This option is grayed out for me (iPadOS 26.1 (23B85) on iPad Air (5th generation) (Unjailbroken) is lates working for me) and while I am using livecontainer I think it wasn’t available outside Livecontainer either or am I crazy or stupid?

[LPV412]

Nope is grayed out I checked, anyone know why? Thanks, appreciated.