Almost exactly four months ago I announced Cage, my Wayland compositor for a kiosk-like environment. To the uninitiated: a kiosk is designed for running a single, maximized application and preventing the user from interacting with any other part of the system. You’ve probably seen many in your life in malls, stores or even the dentist (how satisfied are you with your service?). Kiosks can also be used for much cooler things, though, such as running home automation systems.

Also: "Cage" Sees Initial Test Release For Kiosk-Like Wayland Compositor

• NVIDIA 430.09 Linux Driver Brings GTX 1650 Support, Surprising VDPAU Improvements

  With today's GeForce GTX 1650 launch, NVIDIA has posted the 430.09 Linux driver as their first in this new driver series.

  The GeForce GTX 1650 is now supported by this new NVIDIA LInux driver along with its Max-Q Design and the GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q Design.

  The NVIDIA 430 Linux driver also adds HEVC YUV 4:4:4 decode support to VDPAU, various other VDPAU additions, raised the X.Org Server requirement to version 1.7, adds the GL_NV_vdpau_interop2 extension, and updates the NVIDIA installer to work better on the latest Linux distributions.

• NVIDIA have two new drivers out with 430.09 and the Vulkan beta driver 418.52.05

  NVIDIA have just recently released two new drivers for Linux users, with the main series now being at 430.09 adding new GPU support and the Vulkan beta driver 418.52.05 giving ray-tracing to some older GPUs.

  Firstly, the Vulkan beta driver 418.52.05 was actually released last week, which adds support for the "VK_NV_ray_tracing" extension for certain older graphics cards including the TITAN Xp, TITAN X, 1080, 1070, 1060, TITAN V and 1660 (along with Ti models). It also adds support for the "VK_NV_coverage_reduction_mode" extension, which doesn't seem to have any documentation up just yet. They also cited "minor performance improvements" and two bug fixes.

• NVIDIA Releases The GeForce GTX 1650 At $149 USD, Linux Benchmarks Incoming

  The TU117-based GeForce GTX 1650 starts out at $149 USD and aims to deliver double the performance over the GTX 950 Maxwell and doing so in only a 75 Watt TDP, meaning no external PCI Express power connector is required. There are 896 CUDA cores and 4GB of GDDR5 video memory with the GTX 1650.

• GStreamer Editing Services OpenTimelineIO support

  OpenTimelineIO is an Open Source API and interchange format for editorial timeline information, it basically allows some form of interoperability between the different post production Video Editing tools. It is being developed by Pixar and several other studios are contributing to the project allowing it to evolve quickly.

  We, at Igalia, recently landed support for the GStreamer Editing Services (GES) serialization format in OpenTimelineIO, making it possible to convert GES timelines to any format supported by the library. This is extremely useful to integrate GES into existing Post production workflow as it allows projects in any format supported by OpentTimelineIO to be used in the GStreamer Editing Services and vice versa.

• AMDVLK 2019.Q2.2 Brings More Performance Optimizations, DXVK Corruption Fixes

  AMD this morning released AMDVLK 2019.Q2.2 as the newest tagged update to their open-source Radeon Vulkan Linux graphics driver. 

  The AMDVLK 2019.Q2.2 update is notable in that it has performance optimizations for Total War: WARHAMMER II, Talos Principle, and Thrones of Britannia. These were among the games we pointed out earlier this month in our recent RADV vs. AMDVLK driver benchmarking where previously AMDVLK performed much better but less so in that recent comparison. So it looks like the AMDVLK vs. RADV driver performance is back to some healthy competition. 

• MSM DRM Driver Bringing Zap Shader Support To Exit Secure Mode On Adreno 600 Series

  The Freedreno MSM DRM driver changes have been submitted to DRM-Next ahead of Linux 5.2. MSM provides the Direct Rendering Manager support around Qualcomm Adreno hardware and with this next kernel cycle is continuing to see better Adreno 600 series support. 

  The primary addition to MSM with Linux 5.2 is zap shader support. A "zap" shader is a way for Adreno hardware to exit its secure mode via a series of specialized commands as accessing the registers directly for exiting the GPU secure mode is generally locked down by the bootloader. 

• Nvidia to publish open source version of Quake II RTX

  HEXUS shared the Quake II RTX video as an appendage to the news about real-time raytracing coming to the GTX 1060 or higher, back in March, during the GTC 2019 event. In brief, the video was presented by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during the opening keynote of GTC 2019. The demo's real-time ray traced global illumination and reflections, HDR visuals, dynamic direct and indirect lighting effects, mimicked physical material light reflection properties, and volumetric lighting effects were met with rapturous applause by GTC attendees.

• NVIDIA To Transform Quake II RTX Demo Into An Open Source Retro Gaming Classic

  Applause broke out from the crowd at GTC 2019 when NVIDIA showcased a modded version of Quake II with overhauled graphics featuring real-time ray tracing and HDR visuals. Quake II RTX, as it is called, looks almost like a completely different game than the original version that launched over two decades ago. It was an impressive demo for sure, but NVIDIA has bigger plans for the mod.

  "Our goal is to publish an open source version of Quake II RTX," Principal DevTech Engineer and Quake II RTX's lead programmer, Alexey Panteleev, told AusGamers in an interview.

• NVIDIA To Release Open Source Version Of The Quake II RTX Demo In The Future

  Last month, during GDC 2019, NVIDIA showed an impressive Quake II RTX demo, which showed how ray tracing can improve even old games, and it seems like players will soon be able to experience it for themselves.

  Speaking with Aus Gamers, Alexey Panteleev, the lead programmer of the Quake II RTX demo, confirmed that an open source version of it will be released in the future.