Igor

Mike, You use very very old beta. Latest build - Pre-Release and final version will be soon.

Peter, Please report to ATI about this problem. See the URL below. Thanks in advance.

Alain, Limitation of this layout. But I can't quickly fix it, sorry. Strange. Unzip this project to some another folder, say C:\MyFolderWhat path will be displayed in this case? I'll try to fix it quickly.

Alain, Please remind me what video card you have installed? p.s. you forgot to attach log file.

Alain, Thanks. Concerning scaling of keypoints. You're right. It's more a logical problem than a bug. I knew about it. We wrote keypoints system 2 years ago in absolute time values and too late discovered that keypoints can't be in two variants - in percents and in absolute time. I wrote manual scaling for some cases, but it's not enough to care about all possible cases when correction necessary. To fix this problem it's necessary to vastly rewrite keypoints code and I hope we'll do it in version 5.1 Sometimes I regret about complexity of some features in PicturesToExe - too many professional options and it becomes difficult to manage all it. p.s. I've replied you in another topic on your question with three slide's project.

Alain, I don't see any problem with your project. Log files shows that all is OK. Probably it is a visual impression? Do you always see this problem (if run 2nd, 3rd time, etc)? Please run notepad, type: Project1.exe -log -frametimes Save this file as Test.bat and put it to same folder where located your Project1.exe file with 3 slides. Run Test.bat file and when it finishes, you'll find Project1.log text log file. Please send it to me (as attachment to the forum message).

Dave, Thanks for details! I think it is a bug in Photoshop 7, if other program had similar problem. We use very well known JPEG library which is used in thousands of products.

I just published a little updated build of Pre-Release with minor changes and new language files. It should be final code. Final release will be on Monday.

Gareth, What video card used in your laptop? If it's an integrated graphical solution and overall system memory 256 MB, video card might take 64 MB for own needs, so you have only 192 MB of system memory in slide show. 1) First possible reason - lack of video memory. 2) Lack of system memory. Or both reasons together. To handle very large images in slide show it's necessary to have NVIDIA or ATI video card. Newest laptops with integraded graphical card based on Intel 965 platform (codename "Santa Rosa") also should be enough fast. p.s. Lin adviced very well solution for this particular image which will keep same high quality and smoothness of animation on your laptop.

Lin, I also was not able reproduce this problem even with EXE file KGHalbe sent me. By the way, using of "Desaturate" action in Photoshop to make grayscale image give not perfect result. Because it just removes color information without analyse of color components. Green, Red and Blue colors have different brightness in our eye. So true converting color image to grayscale should know about this moment and sets different brightness. It's interesting, but calling "Grayscale" option and then back "RGB" will do correct converting to grayscale image. Please look on attached screenshot: p.s. PixBuilder Studio performs correct converting to grayscale image.

Al, It's because in v4.48 slide show ignores time for loading of images (not synchronize mode): Loading 1st slide + time of slide + Loading of 2nd slide + time of this slide, etc. In v5.0 slides show exactly specified time as you see on the timeline.

Dave, Amazed! Without your help I couldn't solve this problem! Please say me - this problem happened only with grayscaled JPEGs saved in Photoshop 7 or with later versions, too? And this bug occured in v5.00 only or in v4.48, too?

Al, v4.48 renders simple slide with main image faster than version 5.0, because in old version it always fully opaque rectangular image which can be quickly copies to the screen. In the new version slide may contains animated objects, semi-transparent images - rendering of such potentially complex slide a little more long process. We can't write individual codes for every case, we have to use universal code. Version 5.0 still small 270 KB slide engine with built in support of JPEG, MP3, PNG, BMP, GIF. And two graphical engines. All Pan/Zoom effects and other code in 270 KB of code. Main purpose of PicturesToExe - displaying of slide show with usual time interval - several seconds and Pan/Zoom effects. And I hope version 5.0 operates well for this task. p.s. Probably you're still using old Pre-Release build, log file says that it is not latest version.

Al, Please add additional parameter: effective-av_5-0.exe -log -frametimes And send me again log file. Also let me know what screen resolution you use? Absolutely right because compressed log in ZIP in 4-20 times smaller.

Al, Thanks, I created two EXE files in v4.48 and version 5.0 from your project files. I see identical results in both variants - no skipping of slides and same smoothness. You can test speed of loading of slides. Start notepad. Type: effective-av_5-0.exe -log Save this file as "Log.bat" Run this bat file, after closing of the slide show you will find log file created in this folder. Preload time means time spent for loading of a slide. p.s. please don't forget to use newest Pre-Release version published yesterday. It contains vast optimizations for transition effects when hardware acceleration disabled.

I think overall value of FPS you will reach same in v4.48 and 5.0 (just v4.48's slide show plays longer). In v4.48 you may have difficulties with synchronization of slides to music for this task. Probably v4.48 better for this task. But in v4.48 you can't use Pan/Zoom effects

Al, I would like to correct my previous posting. There is major difference in behaviour of version 5.00 and v4.48. In old version if set close interval between slides (say 10 ms) PicturesToExe shown all slides, but duration of slide show was much longer than duration of a slide x number of slides. For example if you show should be 1 minute, it could take 3 minutes. Opposite version 5.0's slide show works exactly specified time. But if it can't load all slides in time, it skips some slides. For this reason, (even when Hardware acceleration not used) you may thought that version 5.0 loads slides in 5 times longer that v4.48, but it's not so.

Al, Version 5.0 converts GIFs to 32-bit format (almost as PNG). I suspect that very well optimized GIF smaller than our format. But in other cases size of an EXE file should be same. Slide slide engine of version 5.0 is 276 KB in v4.48 - 250 KB. Unfortunately it's impossible to create well optimized engine for such different tasks. If we optimized it for Pan/Zoom effects with ideally smooth animation, we couldn't optimize it for fast show of slides.

Al, Thank you! I only would like to recommend use only PNG for text. Because high quality text has smooth edges and only 32-bit PNG image can keep partially semi-transparent edges of a text. Transparent GIF is a very limited storage for a text and it gives such artefacts as aliasing on edges, especially noticable when you use animation.

Today I discovered that the most popular cracks/discussion forum in Russia (about 2500 new messages every day in various topics dedicated to particular products) contains a topic "PicturesToExe" which is pinned to the top of a forum (no other pinned topics for other products). Cracks published in this topic are not fully workable so it's not a problem, but I think we will see new customers soon. Thanks to this funny "advertisment".

I think VMWare, Virtual PC and Paralles will provide much faster work of graphics in emulation of Windows soon. Because they want to support new 3D graphical interface of Windows Vista which uses DirectX 9.

Of course! p.s. I move this topic to "Ideas and suggestions"

Harry, Please try updated Pre-Release version: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr-deluxe.zip (4 MB) We fixed those problem with Windows 98 and slow graphical engine. Igor,

PicturesToExe Deluxe 5.0 Pre-Release: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr-deluxe.zip (4 MB) Updated: June 15, 2007 Final Release scheduled for Monday. New features in PicturesToExe Deluxe 5.0 http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4327 What new in Pre-Release * Fixed bug with slow work of transition effects (Fade in/out and others) in second CPU based graphical engine (when "Hardware acceleration" option disabled, or on PCs with slow video cards). Now it should work as in v4.48 * Fixed bug when slide shows created with previous betas of version 5.0 didn't work under Windows 95/98. Please post bug-reports in special topic: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6455

It is defined in the code of PicturesToExe, not in .ini file, sorry. I added this moment to my TODO list and you will able customize such parameters in the next version.