Trio reflection

[thedom]

I made an other version of this demo and optimized it ( same link : http://www.thedom.fr/share/dload.php?actio...amp;file_id=325 )

This time, for the background, I used a regular mask made in photoshop instead of a mask container.

I changed the music to be sure that sound stuttering is not an issue.

I tested this new version on my old computer (specs 3 posts above) and it's practically smooth all the time, even during the transitions that appeared to be the critical part.

For those of you who aren't tired of this demo and are willing to make a new test, thank you for your feedback.

[Ken Cox]

THE ONLY SLIGHT - and i say slight stutter was at the camel slides

d/l'ing at 65 kb/s at the time of test

ken

[mhwarner]

Hi Dom,

My laptop resolution is 1680 x 1050. In this latest show, there is definitely nothing wrong with the music. But I still see the jerkiness, which is most apparent again in the transitions to and from black. The animations themselves are pretty smooth. I did go back and rerun the 5.7b2 version of the show and there really isn't much difference between it and the latest. It is mostly the transition that is jerky and the fade from light slides to black and then back again makes it particularly noticeable.

Anyway, it's still a nice slideshow.

[thedom]

Ken, Mary, thank you very much.

I made a third version.

Now the transition TO black should be perfectly smooth on every computer.

Unfortunately, the transition FROM black should stay jerky if you noticed them because I can't optimize them.

But I think PTE demonstrates its ability to manage very complex animation with a lot of objects, including mask containers.

Its "weak" part is when you have a lot of objects in a slide (40) and you set the opacity of an object at the top from 0 to 100.

In my case, it's a black PTE rectangle.

[Barry Beckham]

Dom

This version is much better, just a small flicker as the images appear. The fade out is fine, but that slight flutter as images appear would annoy me no end though. For me a faded transition has to be perfect and I guess you would want that too.

This puts me in mind of my experiences with PSG some time ago. Even with 1024*768 images I could not get smooth animations using PSG on all three of the machines I had at home. All three had a good specification and all were perfectly OK for everything else. Some people reported no problems at all from lesser machines and in the end I could not find a reason why some PC's play a slide show fine and anothers don't.

Over a period of a year or two many PSG users approached me at demos saying they experienced the same issues as me and they thought they were doing something wrong, but I couldn't help them because I just could not fathom why PSG worked OK on some machines and not others.

I think your probably working on the limits and pushing the boundaries, where I expect these sorts of things will come up from time to time. One thing though, what resolution did you make this at as it fills my screen top and bottom, but not edge to edge. Its like a 1280*1024 image stretched to match a larger screen, is that what I am seeing?

[jfa]

Domenic

I have tried all 3 versions on the following systems with the same results---

Win Xp Pro SP2+

CPU Intel P4 2.27 GHz 8 kilobyte primary memory cache,

512 kilobyte secondary memory cache.

2G Installed Memory.

Nvidia GeForce FX5700 256 VRAM

VideoMode 1280 by 960 pixels, 75 Hertz.

DirectX 9.0c

Laptop Fujitsu Life-book

Win Xp Pro SP2+

CPU Intel Pentium M 1.73 GHz 64 kilobyte primary memory cache,

2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache.

512 Megabytes Installed Memory.

ATI Mobility Radeon X300 64 VRAM

VideoMode 1280 by 800 pixels, 60 Hertz.

DirectX 9.0c

Win Xp Pro SP3

CPU i7 920

4G Installed Memory.

Nvidia GTX260 896M 216SP 1G VRAM

VideoMode 1920 by 1080 pixels, 100Hertz.

On the first 2 shows I got a definite "shimmer" on the fade in and out and on the zoom, (a little worse on the zoom).

On the third show the fades were perfect on all CPUs and there was a very small "shimmer" on the zoom. It is enough to annoy me.

The sound was clean and undistorted on all CPUs and all shows.

By the way I think your choice of soundtrack was brilliant and it would be nice if it was supplied in the template you will have in the shop when you get the bugs out of the show.

[8321]

Version 3

Music is perfect - such an improvement! Chalk and cheese.

Jitter much less. Still annoying - especially on the camels sequence. 'Black' transitions don't have noticable jitter anymore.

What I don't understand is that there have been nearly 200 downloads and only half a dozen people have commented. Come on PTE enthusiasts, give the developers some feedback! Why does the demo run smooth as Castrol on some hardware and jitters on other?

Jeff

[8321]

I changed the music to be sure that sound stuttering is not an issue.

Just for interest, what did you change regarding the music? Sampling frequency or a totally different cut?

Jeff

[dcbyrne]

This show comes through my system with no problems at all. Windows XP Home. Love the technique Dom.

Douglas

[Ken Cox]

DOUGLAS

please post your comp specs so thedom can compare with others

tia

ken

[thedom]

One thing though, what resolution did you make this at as it fills my screen top and bottom, but not edge to edge. Its like a 1280*1024 image stretched to match a larger screen, is that what I am seeing?

I am not sure to understand when you say that it doesn't fill your screen edge to edge.

The pictures I used are 1024x768 (4:3)

If you have a 16:10 screen ratio, of course you have black bars on side.

But I presume there is something else that is wrong. What is it ?

Domenic

On the third show the fades were perfect on all CPUs and there was a very small "shimmer" on the zoom. It is enough to annoy me.

The sound was clean and undistorted on all CPUs and all shows.

By the way I think your choice of soundtrack was brilliant and it would be nice if it was supplied in the template you will have in the shop when you get the bugs out of the show.

jfa, thank you very much for your tests with 3 different computers and for the specs you provided.

I am sorry but I am not allowed to sell the soundtrack, it's not my creation. Unfortunately I have no special skills in music.

Version 3

Music is perfect - such an improvement! Chalk and cheese.

Jitter much less. Still annoying - especially on the camels sequence. 'Black' transitions don't have noticable jitter anymore.

Jeff, the last version available is version 4.

There was no improvement with music in version 3. It's the music itself in previous versions that, in a way, you can consider was stuttering.

Just for interest, what did you change regarding the music? Sampling frequency or a totally different cut?

Jeff

In version 3 and 4, it's a totally different music than in version 1 and 2.

[Barry Beckham]

Dom

Your slide show made at 1024*768 is automatically stretched to fit my larger screen of 1920*1200. The height touches the top/bottom edges first, so your right, there are black bars left and right. However, when the three images finally becomes one, it shouldn't be stretched so that it touches the top and bottom of my screen should it?

If you made it at 1024*768 it should show at that size on any monitor running a higher resolution.

You need to tick the box in the Project Options > Screen Tab > Fixed size of slide (in Pixels) Then I will see it as you presented it and then it might run right. At the moment I am seeing your 768 high images shown at 1200

[Scorpion]

Hi Dom

As a follow up to Lin's observations.

Intel Core 2 duo E8400 (2 x 3GHz). 2GB Ram

GeForce 9500GT. 1GB Ram

Monitor Screen resolution 1600 x 1200 (32bit colour)

Windows XP Sp3

Shows appear to run identically, the screen resolution appears to be a significant factor, change of colour depth does not affect frame rates.

Using "FRAPS" to measure the frame rates, results as follows. ( free download at http://www.fraps.com/download.php )

Note - FPS (Frames Per Second) generated by the graphics card is not the same as the Monitor Refresh rate, although they may be synchronised.

800 x 600 ------------------ 75 mr ---------------- 75 fps

1024 x 768 ---------------- 75 mr----------------- 75/38 fps

1280 x 1024 --------------- 60 mr ---------------- 30 fps

1600 x 1200 --------------- 60 mr ---------------- 20 fps

Over clocking the graphics card using "Vtune" a utility supplied with the card resulted in an increase to 30 fps at 1600 x 1200. At 30 fps the shows are watchable. I choose not to use this setting as I have no wish to run the graphics card hot.

Down sizing the images to 800 x 600 did not reduce the fps, in fact it is better. At 1024 x 768 (native resolution) and higher resolutions the fps goes down. This suggests that it is the graphics card rather than the system spec which is significant.

Regards to all - Ken

[8321]

Here are two more tests:

HP Compaq nx9030 Notebook (I did not expect this machine to handle the load, and it didn't. Worst jitter so far)

XP SP3

HP Intel Pentium M processor 1.60 GHz

591 MHz 224 mb RAM

Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics controller

Oldish desktop. Still some jitter but smoothest so far. Still not within acceptable limits

XP SP2

Pentium 4 2.80 GHz

2.79 GHz 512 MB RAM

NVIDA GeForce 6200

LG Flatron 775FT at 1024x768

Jeff

[davegee]

HI dom,

I downloaded latest version (did not try early versions).

Smoother than silk! - absolutely no issues.

Details:

Dual Core 3GHz with 2Gb RAM

nVidia 7600GS card with 512Mb RAM.

1920x1200 Monitor with HDMI connection.

NO anti-virus; NO firewall; NO internet connection.

It would be interesting to try earlier versions - are they still available?

DaveG

[Ken Cox]

USING THIS LAPTOP

http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/cat_sku....ED3C4673047A408

ALL 4 samples worked on the toshiba - not quite as smooth as on my system but if you did not know what to look for you would not notice it

no momentary flash at the end with the laptop but there is on my system -

Barry et al - note it is a 64 bit system and

AN ATI CARD

Price includes Provincial Electronics Recycling Fee where applicable.

Features:

Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit

2.0GHz Intel Core2 Duo processor T6400 with Intel Centrino processor technology (800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache)

4GB DDR2 system memory, expandable to 8GB

320GB 5400rpm SATA hard disk drive

SuperMulti DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support

16.0" Wide HD+ TFT Active Matrix with TruBrite colour LCD display, 1366 x 768 resolution

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 graphics controller with HyperMemory technology

256MB dedicated graphics memory, up to 2047MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory using Hypermemory with 4GB of system memory

Wireless LAN 802.11agn WLAN, 10/100 Base-T Ethernet LAN, V.92 56k modem

Ports include 4 USB 2.0 with Sleep and Charge capability, eSATA, RJ11, RJ45, IEEE 1394, external microphone port, headphone port, S/PDIF, RGB, TV-Out (S-Video), HDMI-CEC

5-in-1 Bridge Media Adaptor (SD card, SDHC Card, xD picture card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Multi Media Card)

Integrated 1.3MP Web Camera for Video over IP

Integrated microphone for Voice over IP

Realtek ALC272-GR Software Sound, Intel High Definition Audio, built-in harman kardon speakers

Full-sized Canadian Bilingual Keyboard with 87 keys and 13 function keys

Touchpad Pointing device

Software includes Toshiba Face Recognition, Toshiba ConfigFree, Adobe Acrobat Reader, TOSHIBA Disc Creator, Toshiba DVD Player, Norton 360 Trial, Microsoft Office 2007 Trial, Microsoft Works 9.0

Removable, rechargeable 6-cell Lithium Ion (Li-ion) battery, 10.8V x 4000mAh capacity

90W AC adapter

34.5/38.5(H) x 383(W) x 267(D) mm

2.94kg (6.47lb)

Cosmic Black

1-year limited warranty.

Features

Processor Intel Core2 Duo processor T6400

Processor Speed 2.0GHz

Memory 4GB, expandable to 8GB

Hard Drive 320GB 5400rpm

CD-DVD Drive SuperMulti DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support

Graphics Chipset ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470

Video Memory 256MB dedicated, up to 2047MB dynamically allocated shared

Display 16.0" Wide HD+ TFT Active Matrix with TruBrite colour LCD

Network Capable Wireless LAN 802.11agn WLAN, 10/100 Base-T Ethernet LAN, V.92 56k modem

Ports 4 USB 2.0 with Sleep and Charge capability, eSATA, RJ11, RJ45, IEEE 1394, external microphone port, headphone port, S/PDIF, RGB, TV-Out (S-Video), HDMI-CEC

Operating System Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit

Dimensions 34.5/38.5(H) x 383(W) x 267(D) mm

Weight 2.94kg (6.47lb)

Warranty 1-year limited

Toshiba Satellite A350-05N Notebook PC

Item Number 777576

$932.10

Each

[thedom]

If you made it at 1024*768 it should show at that size on any monitor running a higher resolution.

You need to tick the box in the Project Options > Screen Tab > Fixed size of slide (in Pixels) Then I will see it as you presented it and then it might run right. At the moment I am seeing your 768 high images shown at 1200

Barry, I prefer to present my slideshows in full screen mode and not limit its resolution, even if I agree with you that people will not see it as it should be.

I have not made the test but I wonder what happens if you fix size of slide to 1920 x 1200 by example and the user has a lower resolution ?

It would be interesting to try earlier versions - are they still available?

If you have time to test them, I can upload the previous versions.

Please send me a PM to give me your email address.

Jeff, Ken (Scorpion), DaveG and Ken (Cox),

Thank you for making those tests and for the specs you provided.

The conclusion is that this slideshow requires a recent graphic card. But it's not a suprise.

But as you already said it Barry, I don't understand why some people reports jerkiness with high specs computers and other with lesser computers have a very smooth animation.

[Barry Beckham]

Barry, I prefer to present my slideshows in full screen mode and not limit its resolution, even if I agree with you that people will not see it as it should be.

I have not made the test but I wonder what happens if you fix size of slide to 1920 x 1200 by example and the user has a lower resolution ?

The trouble with that is image quality as you know. If your going to set your images up at 1024*768 it doesn't make any sense at all to allow them to be stretched to a much higher resolution.

1. It could be what it putting more strain on my PC to run the demo, though I doubt it.

2. The images lose their quality. Something I see quite a lot in slide shows I watch, but how would those authors know that this is happening unless they see their show played back on a higher res monitor. I picked up this issue a long time ago, because I have a PC running 1024*768 for video recording and I also have my standard PC running a resolution of 1920*1200. I test my slide shows on both PC's and make sure they run correctly.

I now make my shows and slide show demos at 1920*1200 and fix the size of the slides. They run perfectly on my machine running the same resolution and also the other one running 1024*768. Yes there is a black band top and bottom, but I have to live with that. The main issue as you know is that PTE can reduce size far better then increase size. I can't produce demos to show people what PTE can do if the demo that runs on their machine is poor. I have to know that they will see much the same as I see and this method appears to work very well.

So, larger shows will project great on smaller monitors, I know that because I test everything I make at 1920*1200 on a 1024*768 res monitor

The conclusion is that this slideshow requires a recent graphic card. But it's not a suprise.

But as you already said it Barry, I don't understand why some people reports jerkiness with high specs computers and other with lesser computers have a very smooth animation

I am sure your right about the card, but it's not as though the graphics card that I and others are using is ancient and it does everything else I ask of it. My original reply to you was because I know you make templates for sale and the issue then is they have to work on all machines, or the vast majority. I think your expertise with animation is a little ahead of the game and like I said before this last one is probably your most ambitious and its showing the weaknesses of some machines it's played on. I have long since given up trying to fathom PC's. I have experienced so many of these odd things where one PC will do something and another of a similar or identical spec will not, that now, I accept these problems as par for the course

Either we need speedier machines or some way to slow you down a bit