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ArKaos VJ MIDI
MIDI compatible video mixer software for live performance and show recording
ArKaos VJ MIDI is a video mixer software for montage, composition and live performance. It allows to create and record amazing video shows in matter of seconds: start with a few simple video loops from your hard drive, mix them live on the beat with more than 100 real-time effects or save your performance as a movie clip. It just couldn't be easier!
Get the best out of your graphics card
ArKaos software comes with a brand new video engine which takes advantage of the capabilities from the latest hardware accelerated graphic cards (those which supports the Pixel Shaders II). All video treatment, mixing and effects application is now computed in the GPU, which allows to experience an unprecedented visual smoothness and image quality.
It's all about Shaders
Thanks to the Pixel Shaders accelerated multimedia technology, all video treatment, mixing and effects are now computed by the graphic card using special algorithms designed towards image processing. This makes it possible to position and resize videos, apply advanced 2D & 3D effects to them and mix several layers together with luminance/chrominance keying as well as many different copy modes.. All this in real time and with a very high image quality allowing top notch projection on big screens!
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AdvantagesAll image processing is done through the GPU*: the CPU* has more time for other heavy processing such as video decompression; this result in a much better frame rate and visual smoothness. All video treatment is accomplished in full resolution and benefits from a hardware texture filtering which makes the pixel artifacts disappear, even with low-resolution videos; the image quality is greatly improved. *The GPU is the processor from your graphic card, as opposition to the CPU - Computer Processor Unit -, which is your computer’s main processor. |
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Apple Core Image Support (Mac OSX only)In HW Mode, ArKaos VJ for Macintosh now supports the Core Image effect library introduced by Apple in Mac OS X Tiger (more info..) |
Hardware acceleration, the tech talk
By using the hardware GPU pipeline processing rather than a standard CPU processing, the approach to image processing becomes radically different: every image or video is equivalent to a texture in the video memory; updating several videos together consumes a high amount of AGP/PCI-X bus data bandwidth. The ArKaos engine reduces this bandwidth to a minimum to achieve the best possible frame rate.
Every image-processing is done using texture as source data: it can easily be mixed with other textures, then being scaled, stretched and deformed using geometry meshes. Therefore, the per pixel/vertex processing totally changes the way of working on the image.
Pixel Shaders allow advanced image processing in a minimum development time thanks to the per pixel treatment, whereas vertex-shaders allow advanced light effects and volumes deformation thanks to the per vertex treatment.
Using hardware texture filtering in Arkaos VJ produces images with extraordinary high quality. Moreover, all the treatments are done in full resolution, making the pixelization disappear, even with low resolution videos.
Compatibility check
The first time it starts, ArKaos VJ will check your GPU’s capabilities and determine if it supports the HW Mode or not. If your GPU is compatible, ArKaos will automatically enable the HW mode and a logo “ArKaos VJ HW” will be displayed at top left of the Synth window.
If your GPU is NOT compatible you can not benefit from the HW Mode’s hardware acceleration; ArKaos VJ will start in Standard Mode and the logo “ArKaos VJ” without “HW” will be displayed in the Synth window.
A new way of working with the effects
New effects taking full advantage of the HW Mode have been added, other effects have been updated to benefit from the hardware acceleration and most of the other ArKaos effects from the previous versions are still available. However, some old ArKaos effects have been removed because they were not compatible with the new hardware accelerated video engine.
- HW effects and Shader effects
These effects have an icon with a red border, they are only available when running ArKaos VJ in HW Mode and therefore they fully benefit from your graphic card’s hardware acceleration capabilities.
- Standard effects and FreeFrame effects
When in HW Mode, some of the Standard ArKaos effects and all the FreeFrame effects remains available. Their icons have a blue border. Since these effects are not optimized for the HW Mode, they will be processed by your main CPU. However, once the effect has been applied to your visual, the result is sent to your graphic card and therefore it will still benefit from the hardware texture filtering, giving a better result and faster than the same effect and visual combination if used in Standard Mode. These effects must be associated with a visual placed on the same key; they can’t be used alone on a key (i.e. to apply the effect to a visual from another key pressed simultaneously).
- HW-incompatible effects
Standard effects which are incompatible with the HW engine will not be shown in the Effects list when in HW mode.
Opening in HW Mode a Synth made in Standard Mode (or in a previous ArKaos VJ version)
Some changes automatically occur if you open in HW Mode a Synth that was created in Standard Mode or in a version of ArKaos VJ prior to 3.6:
- ArKaos VJ will detect in your Synth all the effects that have been updated for the HW Mode and it will update the keys of your Synth with these effects.
- All the icons from effects wich are incompatible with the HW Mode will still be displayed on your Patch but pressing the corresponding key will not trigger the effect, it will only trigger the visual on the key (if any).
Switching back to standard mode
As explained above, the HW Mode has less effects than the Standard mode in total (if you don't consider the 90 effects from the Core Image library). If you want to use an ArKaos .kos file that you created in previous software versions and which contains old effects, you can still do so by launching ArKaos VJ in Standard mode: uncheck the option “Use Hardware acceleration if available” in the menus “Edit, Preferences, ArKaos Engine” and restart ArKaos VJ.
More information about Hardware Acceleration in ArKaos VJ and a description of each HW Effect is available in the Release Notes PDF document that can be found in your software installation folder.
