FFmpeg 4.0 Released

• FFmpeg 4.0 released

  Version 4.0 of the FFmpeg multimedia toolkit is out. There is a long list of new filters, formats, and more; see the announcement for details.

• April 20th, 2018, FFmpeg 4.0 "Wu"

• FFmpeg 4.0 Released With New Encoders/Decoders, NVIDIA NVDEC Decoding

  FFmpeg 4.0 is now available as the latest major release for this widely-used open-source multimedia encode/decoder library. FFmpeg 4.0 introduces NVIDIA NVDEC GPU-based decoding for H264 / MJPEG / HEVC / MPEG-1/2/4, VC1, VP8, and VP9 formats. This release also adds an Intel QSV accelerated overlay filter, an OpenCL overlay filter, VA-API MJPEG and VP8 decoding support, new VA-API filters, and many other accelerated code path improvements.

Graphics: AMD, Intel and Vulkan

• AMDGPU DC Fixes For Linux 4.17 Take Care Of "The Dark Screen Issue"

  AMD's Alex Deucher has sent in a small set of fixes for the AMDGPU Direct Rendering Manager driver in the Linux 4.17 kernel. The three patches are for fixing a dark screen issue with AMDGPU DC, a fix for clock/voltage dependency tracking for WattMan, and an updated SMU interface for the yet-to-be-announced Vega 12 GPU.

• Intel KVMGT 2018-Q1 Release Offers Mediated GPU Pass-Through Improvements

  While the relevant bits for supporting Intel GPU mediated pass-through to virtual machines with KVM are now upstream in the Linux kernel as well as in QEMU 2.12, Intel developers have just announced their quarterly release of "KVMGT" for those wanting the officially blessed configuration for running Intel virtual GPU support with KVM virtual machines.

• RADV Vulkan Driver Adds Vega M Support

  Following RadeonSI adding "Vega M" support for the new Radeon graphics appearing embedded on select Intel Kabylake processor packages, the RADV developers have similarly staged their Vega M support in this open-source Vulkan driver.

• The Forge Now Offers Full-Featured Vulkan Support On Linux

  Earlier this month we covered "The Forge" picking up initial Linux support and now they have rounded out their full-featured Linux support with Vulkan rendering.

Games Leftovers

• What you need to know about blockchain technology and gaming

  To say that blockchain technology is big news is an understatement. It is the technology to be involved with right now if you’re interested in a disruptive technology. As a refresher, it is the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. It is also behind an emerging trend in gaming called blockchain gaming, or crypto gaming. Blockchain is simply a transaction that is recorded and added to a previous transaction, forming a chain of data. Each transaction added to the chain can account for many different things. For example, with Bitcoin, the transaction that makes up blockchain data here is the movement/discovery of units of the cryptocurrency.

• Don't Bother Trying AMDVLK Vulkan With Rise of the Tomb Raider Right Now

  Following yesterday's 20-way graphics card comparison for Rise of the Tomb Raider that debuted yesterday on Linux and is exclusively powered by Vulkan, my next benchmarking objective was trying out the official AMD Vulkan driver, AMDVLK, to see how it would work given the successes of RADV on launch-day for this latest Feral Interactive game port.

• Strategic RPG 'For The King' has left Early Access and is now on Linux

  For The King, a strategic RPG with tabletop and roguelike elements has recently left Early Access, it seems they also published the Linux version too. We've reached out to the developer for a review key, so hopefully we can give it some proper thoughts in good time. At least early indications are that it's quite good, going by what users think of it.

• Hollow Knight: Lifeblood is out as another free update and it's looking good

  Hollow Knight: Lifeblood has just released aiming to make the already amazing action adventure game even better. I must say,

• Basingstoke, the new tense stealth and action title from Puppy Games to release April 27th

  Puppy Games latest game Basingstoke, which mixes in stealth and action is going to release April 27th with full Linux support.

• God game 'The Universim' to enter Steam Early Access in August with Linux support

  I spoke to Alex Koshelkov, Founder & CEO Crytivo last night. They confirmed to me that the Steam Early Access release will indeed have a Linux version, which will not use their current updater (which requires a mono-complete install to work) since it will update via Steam directly which is going to be much nicer. The actual game is built from Unity, so it should be fine.

• Graveyard Keeper looks weird and interesting in their new gameplay reveal

  Graveyard Keeper [Official Site], from Lazy Bear Games and tinyBuild finally has some proper gameplay to show off and it's equal parts weird, grim and quite interesting.

• Want to try Wild Terra Online? We have another load of keys to give away

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