Modern WebP format images opening in Photoshop CS2 (2005)
The abandonware Photoshop CS2 still does everything any aspiring content creator could ask for. It even works great on Windows 10. Quality software created by quality people. However in todays modern internet we have a few new formats that were far after CS2's time. The main problem I run into is opening WebP format files. I'll go to grab an asset I assume to be a .PNG off Google Images, try to open it up in CS2 and I'm met with the error "Could not complete your request because it is not the right kind of document." but luckily for us the competent developers of CS2 thought ahead. They allow for plugins to extend the support file types in the program!
WebPShop, the plug-in for opening and saving WebP images directly from Adobe Photoshop
available under the Apache-2 License this open source WebPShop plugin works just fine for our legacy version of Photoshop. Unfortunately they aren't distributing x86 binaries of the latest version but the Apha 0.2.1 version seems to have everything we need anyway. You can download the binaryfrom the 0.2.1 release page. You want WebPShop_0_2_1_Win_x86.8bi. Once that's downloaded place the 8bi file into C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Plug-Ins\File Formats or wherever you have CS2 installed. Then fire up Photoshop and open any WebP file you like!
Export Options
The plugin also allows you to save .webp files with a quality slider! Just use File > Save As... > WebP and the WebPShop compression Window will open. Enable the preview and compress to your liking.
WebPShop Save As Dialogue Window and Compression Settings in Photoshop CS2
Features: - Automatically selects the most recent stream recording to remux - Drag any recordings onto the .exe to remux them into the output directory - Fast. a 2 hour stream can be muxed in 10 seconds. - Batch directory support - Output file prefixing - Free and Open Source
With Twitch DMCA muting vods lots of people are going to be multitrack recoding locally. This tool can remux multritrack recodings into a new mp4 with a single audiotrack selected. Useful specifically if you record a track with only game audio and microphone selected for archival on Twitch or YouTube.
If you utilize multitrack recording with OBS you might already be using a script to use FFMPEG to remux the video. This program makes remuxing after a stream really easy.
With the release of League of Legends Patch 10.16 there is now official (beta) support for the Direct X11 Rendering backend for League of Legends (LoL). I have conducted a side by side comparison between the old rendering backend D3D9 (DirectX 9) and the new D3D11 (DirectX 11). If you want to enable DX11 in your own game you can follow the instructions provided by Riot here.
Hardware
RTX 2080 8GB
i7 9700K @ 4.6Ghz
16GB DDR4 RAM
NVMe SSD
Drivers/OS
NVIDIA 451.67
Windows 10 1909
League of Legends
Medium, Shadows Disabled
240 FPS Framerate Limit (Recommend)
VSync Disabled
Patch 10.16
Results
DX9 Average: 168.6
DX11 Average: 175.2
Performance Advantage FPS: 6.5+ DX11
Performance Gain Percent: 3.91%
Recording Settings
Note: The impact of OBS with these settings is as low as ~5FPS. When running the tests I had no additional software running other than OBS and League of Legends. In a real use case even if you don't record/stream the performance impact should be similar to having Chrome/Firefox open with a YouTube video or Discord ect.
H.265 NVENC Encoder Max Quality preset, 2300kbps Bitrate, 1280x720
Long time no see iOS/Android enthusiasts. I wanted to share a useful app I created to automated the process of running checkra1n for arm64 (Android Phone/Tablet) in TWRP (Team Win Recovery Project). This is a fully open source program (excluding the checkra1n binary) licensed under Zero Clause BSD. View it on GitHub here.
TWRP has a built in functionality to queue commands for the next recovery boot. These commands are located in /cache/recovery/command which is just a text file that TWRP reads. This is the same functionality that allows Over The Air (OTA) updates for custom ROMs to boot and reflash themselves.
Using this queue system the checkra1n TWRP app copies an Open Recovery Script (flashable .zip) to /data/checkra1n/checkra1n.zip and boots to recovery by invoking reboot recovery. The included checkra1n.zip then executes and boots back to system reboot system after the checkra1n log message of [*]: All Done is received.
This will not increase the comparability of checkra1n for Android devices but my 2015 Nexus 5X and 2018 Mi Mix 3 both run this application flawlessly. If you were already using your Android device to run checkra1n this should make things easier for you as you don't need to interact with a shell at all on invoke/remember commands.
To flash the .zip within TWRP without running the app, which is useful if you leave your Android turned off until you need it for a retether, you can find the flashable Open Recovery Script in /data/checkra1n/ and flash it from the Install menu within TWRP.
Happy jailbreaking! (please report bugs on the Github Bug Tracker)
Best Linux Distros for Gaming 2020 - Best Performance Compared - Watch my video here!
Hey gamers, this is downthecrop and today we have a very special video explaining the best Linux Distro recommendations for gaming in 2020.
I'll be explaining some more technical reasons for why the distribution you decide to choose is not that important. The most important thing to remember for gaming on GNU+Linux is that you need to have your Window Manager Compositor or DE Compositor disabled for your games. This can be done in Compton (Picom) compositor and the GNOME Mutter Compositor. The performance impact of an incorrectly configured compositor will outweigh any effect the light weight Desktop Environment might provide.
Linux Gaming Drivers
Using the latest drivers will very likely have an effect on performance, as of writing this, Ubuntu LTS 18.04 is using Nvidia Linux Driver Version 430.64 and Manjaro is using Nvidia Linux Driver Version 440.59. Bleeding edge distros like Arch Linux, Void Linux, and Manjaro will all provide up to date Kernels and the latest Linux Drivers for both AMD and Nvidia. Slow annual releases like Ubuntu are known to be more stable due to them waiting to push updates to driver and applications until they have been tested for a longer time. You can bypass this slower release cycle with third-party PPA's or installing through the .run script available from Nvidia/AMD's websites.
Compositors and Gaming Performance in Linux
A compositor is in charge of an off screen buffer for each application window in a desktop environment. Compositing windows managers are responsible for things like desktop transparency and drop shadow effects.
Without a compositor each application is rendered directly which allows for better gaming performance.
GNOME uses a compositor called Mutter
Compton (now forked to Picom) can be used for OpenBox/LXQt
Your compositor settings will have the largest impact on performance. This is to say that the distribution of GNU+Linux you choose is not very important. The settings of your compositor can greatly affect your FPS. Make sure that all fullscreen applications are ignored or bypass the Compositor. Completely disabling the compositor is the best option as it may increase performance by removing the background buffer of your application windows (X11 Clients) and the output to your screen.
Recommendations
Really just disable your compositor and you can use anything you like. Fedora Linux, Gentoo, Elementary OS, use anything you like for gaming. If you have the RAM overhead available most DE's really won't make a difference in gaming performance.
Manjaro Linux
Manjaro is probably the best option for most people new or returning to gaming on GNU+Linux. Easily to install. Easy to use. Easy to update.
Manjaro is a rolling release which means that it will always have the latest versions of software after you've updated. There is no Manjaro 19.04 ect because ALL versions are the latest version you just need to re-sync with the update server.
Manjaro has out of the box support for non-free drivers and a graphical utility for installing them as well. 32-bit libraries which are a common issue among those new to Linux gaming are easy to install too.
MX Linux by its design is going to be a little bit out of date compared to Manjaro/Arch/Void and that's because it's not rolling release, and it's based on Debian which is a very slow to update, stable distro.
MX Linux comes with options for non-free drivers during the install and is also systemd free. Yes! No systemd to mess with your gaming.
I suggest MX Linux to people who are uncomfortable with Arch/Manjaro and just want a system they are familiar with. The XFCE default spin is very similar to Unity or GNOME on Ubuntu so it should be easy to figure out for anyone new to Linux gaming.
