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Vulkan via MoltenVK: investigated, not yet attempted

14. Vulkan via MoltenVK: investigated, not yet attempted​

Documented in full in ROADMAP.md's Phase 4 — summarized here for completeness of this research log:

  • Confirmed VK_EXT_metal_surface/vkCreateMetalSurfaceEXT can create a VkSurfaceKHR directly from a CAMetalLayer, with no NSApplication/AppKit dependency — unlike mpv's existing macOS Vulkan context (context_mac.m), which does require it and is why that existing file can't simply be reused for iOS.
  • Identified video/out/vulkan/context_android.c (104 lines, no desktop windowing dependency) as the right reference pattern for a hypothetical context_ios.m — Android has the same "no desktop windowing system" constraint iOS does, and mpv already solved it there.
  • Checked whether Homebrew's molten-vk formula could shortcut building MoltenVK from source — it can't; that formula only builds MoltenVK's macOS slice, not iOS, since it uses MoltenVKPackaging.xcodeproj's macOS-only build scheme.
  • Concluded this is a substantially larger undertaking than any single fix in this log — five different files/scripts across two build systems (meson and MoltenVK's own Xcode-project-based build), none of which could be verified without Mac access, unlike the avfoundation patches which were debugged against real CI compiler errors one at a time. Deliberately not started yet; see ROADMAP.md for the full breakdown of what it would take.