Echo-Storm/ls-addon-manager v0.9.8

Addon Manager for Lossless Scaling 0.9.8

on GitHub

HDR games in the DLSS and FSR Upscalers, before / after pictures, and addons that can no longer freeze Lossless Scaling: NVIDIA's and AMD's
code now runs on threads of their own. Tried in Silent Hill f (Unreal Engine 5, HDR), World of Warcraft and Metro 2033 Redux.

• HDR games in the DLSS and FSR Upscalers. They took 8-bit frames only, so with an HDR game NIS kept running. Now 10-bit (HDR10)
  and 16-bit float (scRGB) frames are upscaled in their SDR view, as Neural Rendering does it since 0.9.5, and the picture goes back into
  the frame's own encoding, so highlights keep their brightness. The picture controls, sharpening and edge smoothing work the same. HDR is
  read from the display Lossless Scaling's window is on (not the card's first HDR display), and a Frame encoding setting under
  Upscaling overrides the automatic choice. In Silent Hill f at 2560x1440 to 4K: DLSS about 1.5 ms a frame, FSR 4 about 5 ms.
• A stuck runtime can no longer freeze Lossless Scaling. The upscalers and Neural Rendering now call NVIDIA's and AMD's code from a
  thread of the engine's own; Lossless Scaling's render thread only hands frames over. FSR 4.1.1b once stopped for good on its first HDR
  frame and froze the picture; now NIS (or the untouched picture) carries on, the panel says when a runtime is getting ready, and after 20
  seconds it says the runtime stopped responding. The engines' threads run at high priority, so a busy game cannot delay them.
• Before / after pictures. Ctrl+Shift+F4 saves two PNGs of the same moment to Pictures\Lossless Scaling: in Neural Rendering the
  picture with its result (_NR) and without it (_original); in the upscalers the upscaled picture (_DLSS or _FSR) and Lossless
  Scaling's NIS (_NIS). One frame of the "before" shows while it is taken. Windows' own screenshots show the game's window, not Lossless
  Scaling's picture. HDR games are saved in their SDR view, highlights rolled off. Neural Rendering's single screenshot stays on its button.
• Safer hotkeys. The game still sees our keys (they are only watched), and a game that acts on an F-key alone did: in Silent Hill f the
  screenshot key's F11 put the game in full screen, which stopped the scaling. The defaults now keep away from F5 and F9 (quicksave and
  quickload in Bethesda's and many other games), F6 (quicksave in Source games) and F11: before / after Ctrl+Shift+F7, split view
  F8, sharpening F2 / F3, screenshot and before / after pictures F4, save the recording F1, the next look F10 (as before).
  Keys still on an old default move once; keys chosen by hand stay.
• Saying why nothing happens. The DLSS Upscaler names the card when Lossless Scaling runs on one that is not NVIDIA's, and says to set
  Lossless Scaling's Preferred GPU or use the FSR Upscaler (it used to say only "not running yet"). Neural Rendering does the same for the card
  frame generation runs on. The upscalers also say when a window layout cannot be followed (it used to read "Choose NIS", although NIS was
  chosen), when a frame format cannot be taken, when they cannot connect to Lossless Scaling's device, or have not replaced a frame yet.
  Neural Rendering's "unsupported frame format" names the format.
• The upscalers have one switch, the manager's. Their own Enable box is gone: two switches for one thing confused people, and an
  unticked box left the upscaler off while the manager showed it on. An old "off" saved by that box is ignored.
• Fewer repeated pictures. "Wait on the GPU rather than repeat a picture" works with the engine's own thread (in Silent Hill f: no
  picture shown twice in 17,000 frames), and Neural Rendering no longer leaves out a frame that comes while the one before is being handed over.
• The update window shows what is new. When a release is offered, its release notes appear in the window, as plain text (links and
  formatting are dropped; nothing in them can be clicked). Shown from 0.9.8 on, so for the release after it.
• The updater cleans up after itself. Each update left its download (about 110 MB) in the temporary folder. Downloads of versions
  already installed, and of other versions than the one being downloaded, are now removed (at a download's start and once a day).
• Recordings of an upscaler in an HDR game say that their frames are the SDR view, and nr_lsrec exports them correctly.
• Docs: an upscalers section in the FAQ (including why the difference is smaller than in a game with DLSS built in), troubleshooting
  for the new messages, and the guides brought up to date.