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Magic 1.65 released

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 7:48 pm
by Magic
Hi all, I'm pleased to announce that Magic 1.65 has been released.

1.65 has some great new features and some important stability improvements. Most of you will probably want to update, and if you already have Magic 1.64, you can update directly within the application by using the Help > Check For Updates command.

Before you update though, please read the information further below.

But first, here is the full entry from the VersionHistory.txt file (which you can also access in Magic via Help > Version History):

Code: Select all

What's New In Version 1.65
--------------------------
- Added new VideoStream module for displaying live network video streams
- Added new Expression modifier for advanced math/logic operations
- Added new Magic Window toggle option: Load All Scenes Into Graphics Memory
- Added new scene tab toggle option: Keep In Graphics Memory
- Added new Audio/MIDI Window toggle option: Load Audio Files Into Memory
- Added new File menu toggle option: Auto-Backup Projects
- Added new Help menu toggle option: Check For New Version At Startup
- Added new menu command for Scene modules: Goto [Scene name]
- Added ability to use module Show Annotation / Show Param For commands on group selection
- Added linking option for Trails Z/X parameter
- Improved handling of bypass button/parameter visibility in Scene modules
- Improved handling of invalid files in Video module
- Improved ISF support for point2D MIN/MAX options
- Improved texture support in Model module
- Improved password menu security
- Improved Editor window scrolling when dragging connectors
- Improved Hold modifier to accept any duration
- Improved Increase modifier to accept negative values
- Renamed Video and VidCap modules to VideoFile and VideoCapture
- Fixed bug with Export dialog's "Get audio length" button not making project saveable
A couple of the especially nice new features are the VideoStream module, which lets you receive any kind of network video stream, and the Expression modifier, which lets you enter fully-customizable math and logic operations.

Regarding the important information I mentioned above: there are some new memory management options which greatly improve the stability of Magic. These are toggle options, and they are accessed via Window > Magic Window Options > Load All Scenes Into Graphics Memory and Audio/MIDI Window (options menu) > Load Audio Files Into Memory. The very important thing to be aware of is that these options are both disabled by default, which is different than how Magic behaved before. Specifically, scenes and audio files are no longer loaded entirely into memory. The advantage is that your projects can be much larger, and they load much more quickly. For audio files, there is really no disadvantage unless you have a slow hard drive. But for scenes, the disadvantage is that there may be some dropped frames as graphics are dynamically loaded/unloaded when you transition from one scene to another.

So, if you have a fancy graphics card with several GB of memory, and you haven't had problems running out of graphics memory, you should enable the Load All Scenes Into Graphics Memory option to resume the previous behavior of Magic and get maximum performance when changing scenes. For all other users though, the option is best left disabled; otherwise, you may experience some slowdowns when attempting to create very large or complex projects.

As always, if you have any questions about any of the new features, please feel free to post in the General Discussion forum. I am here to help! :)

Until next time,
Eric