Today we release a new version of Coherent GT with many new features. In this post I’ll highlight the biggest improvements we did in GT 1.3 and 1.4.

Update: Check the latest release – Coherent GT 2.0

Play Cinematics, UI animations and stream YouTube videos with the improved video support

Coherent GT now can play and stream WebM video and audio (coded with VP8/9 and Vorbis). Supported video sources are both local files and streamed from HTTP on all GT platforms and engines, including Unreal Engine 4, PlayStation®4 and Xbox One. You can use this feature to play cinematics, add video and effects in your UI and even stream YouTube. The high-performance, multithreaded implementation allows interleaving Full-HD videos with the game.

Improve UI visuals with GPU-accelerated canvas

The HTML5 canvas implementation is now super-fast. Everything is GPU-accelerated, which saves both memory and CPU cycles. HTML5 canvas allows you to create amazing effects and animations within the UI. Now all its capabilities are at your disposal. Here is an example of what you can achieve with it:

Achieve better workload balance and improved performance with garbage collector control

Now you are in control of the JavaScript garbage collector (GC). Achieve better work scheduling and balance by choosing when and for how long the garbage collector runs. For instance, the GC can be disabled when a heavy frame is happening so that it doesn’t consume any precious milliseconds. In frames with less workload, the GC can be enabled again to claim any excess memory.

Make social integration more secure with SSL certificates control

Coherent GT now brings full control over the allowed SSL certificates used with HTTPS. This not only improves security but gives you fine-grained control over the content you let users to interact with. This feature helps with social media integrations as developers and users are confident that the content they show or see is genuine and secure.

Speed up the UI development using UE4 GTPlayer Test application

We have added a new test application based on UE4. It runs Coherent GT and you can test any page with it. A major benefit of the test application is that it isolates the UI from the actual game in development. UI designers can directly develop the UI in the test application with confidence that it’ll work the same way as in the game. GTPlayer starts quickly and can give you exact UI performance benchmarks without any interference from the game itself.

We have also added un-prefixed support for many CSS properties. You can now use both the old style “-webkit-transform” and just “transform”. This makes porting existing CSS code from libraries or web apps easier and improves compatibility with modern web frameworks.

Download Coherent GT 1.4 from our developer portal or request an evaluation copy and start using all these new features right now!

We have other important announcements coming, regarding GT and the new things we will implement there, stay tuned!

Share your thoughts in the comment section below or in our forum. We will be happy to hear from you!