GLADE ART CHANGELOG 9/20/2026: VIDEOS ARE NOW AV1 AND COMPRESSED WITH GPU, NEW RECOMMENDATIONS ALGORITHM, ETC

HELLO EVERYONE! WE HAVE SOME NEW UPDATES ON GLADE ART, SO LET'S GET STARTED. 1. AV1 VIDEO COMPRESSION. VIDEOS ARE NOW COMPRESSED INTO AV1 VIDEOS WITH THE SAME PERCIEVABLE QUALITY. BEFORE THIS THEY WERE COMPRESSED INTO H264, WHICH HAS LARGER FILE SIZES, BUT IS LESS RESOURCE INTENSIVE TO COMPRESS INTO. HOWEVER, VIDEOS ARE NO LONGER COMPRESSED USING THE SERVER'S CPU; THEY ARE COMPRESSED USING A NEW GPU WHICH WAS INSTALLED INTO IT: AN INTEL GPU. INTEL GPUS HAVE DEDICATED AV1 VIDEO ENCODERS, WHICH MAKES THIS BLAZING FAST, WAY FASTER THAN THE CPU ON H264 EVEN. AS FOR CPUS THOUGH, AV1 IS ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL AND TAKES FOREVER. A VIDEO WAS TESTED ON THE NEW AND OLD SYSTEM WITH THESE RESULTS: H264 ON CPU (OLD): 38 SECONDS AV1 ON GPU (NEW): 5 SECONDS THIS WAS A 720P RESOLUTION VIDEO. THE FILE SIZE WASN'T DRAMATICALLY SMALLER IN AV1, BECAUSE IT WAS ONLY 720P AND ONLY ABOUT A MINUTE AND A HALF LONG. AV1'S SMALLEST FILE SIZES COMPARED TO H264 OCCUR ON HIGH RESOLUTION VIDEOS. HOWEVER, AS YOU MAY KNOW, GLADE ART DOWNSCALES ANYTHING OVER 1080P TO 1080P. IT WILL STILL COMPRESS INTO SMALLER VIDEOS THOUGH, WHICH USE UP LESS BANDWIDTH FOR THE SERVER, AND LOAD FASTER FOR YOU. ALL VIDEOS POSTED BEFORE THIS CHANGE WILL REMAIN H264. 2. RECOMMENDATIONS ALGORITHM ADJUSTMENTS. AS WAS VOTED BY GA USERS ON THE DISCORD SERVER, WE HAVE CONCLUDED TO MAKE THE FEED ALGORITHM TO PRIORITIZE POPULARITY MORE. THIS WILL MAKE MORE POPULAR, BUT YET FRESH, POSTS SHOW UP IN THE FEED, MAKING THEIR NUMBERS HIGHER, BUT THAT ADDS SOME LUCK TO GETTING POPULAR IN THE PROCESS. MORE OF A "LOTTERY TICKET" ALGORITHM LIKE MANY OTHER PLATFORMS HAVE. IN THEORY, THIS WILL MAKE YOUR FEED TO CONSIST OF HIGHER QUALITY POSTS, BUT AS WE SEE ON OTHER PLATFORMS, THIS ISN'T ALWAYS THE CASE. I WAS KINDA SKEPTICAL ON DOING THIS, BUT THE USERS VOTED TO DO IT. THIS IS JUST AN EXPERIMENT FOR NOW, I WILL DO A VOTE ON IT AGAIN IN A FEW WEEKS TO SEE HOW YOU GUYS ARE LIKING IT. PLEASE NOTE THAT IT TAKES SLIGHTLY OLDER POSTS, SINCE THEY ARE MORE POPULAR THAN VERY NEW ONES, SO FOR THE FIRST WEEK OR SO YOU MAY SEE SOME POSTS WHICH SHOWED UP IN THE FEED A WHILE BEFORE. AND AS BEFORE, YOUR OWN POSTS, LIKED, OR COMMENTED ON POSTS BY YOU WILL NOT SHOW UP IN THE FEED. 3. QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS. THE SCROLL THRESHOLD HAS BECOME MORE SENSITIVE, MAKING API POST BATCHES TO LOAD WITHOUT GOING ALL THE WAY DOWN THE PAGE ON MOBILE. THIS IS MAINLY JUST AN IMPROVEMENT FOR FIRST TIME USERS, THOUGH YOU MAY STILL FIND IT BETTER TOO. I'M SURE THERE WERE SOME OTHER THINGS IN THE PAST FEW MONTHS, BUT I CANNOT REMEMBER THEM NOW; ONLY THE RECENT STUFF. 4. ERRORS AND BLOAT. THERE HAS BEEN SOME ERRORS FIXED, AND THERE HAS BEEN SOME BLOAT REMOVED, BUT YOU WILL NOTICE ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE WHEN USING THE SITE. THERE HAS ALSO BEEN A BUNCH OF BACKEND STUFF WHICH HAS NO SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON EVERYDAY USERS ON THE SITE. IMAGE UNRELATED, BUT MADE BY ME IN BLENDER. (You may be wondering why this was in all caps, but it's simply because I was just exercising free will). THANK YOU FOR READING!