Problem with PTE and Vista

[danmassefrance]

Hello !

A couple of months ago, I had a problem with my main computer, running on XP, and PTE... Eventually, I had to reformat the hard drive...

That problem is now solved : everything works fine.

But my wife has a laptop, running on Vista. I tried my shows on her computer, and I had the strangest results :

- when I tried the first show from the hard drive (http://masse.alpes.org/Talca_web.exe), the first few pictures run fine, and then they stopped, but the sound went on. I tried to stop the show : no way. I tried to stop the computer : no way.

- I then tried the same show from an UBS key, the .exe being a copy of the original on my own HD. I then had the message "configuration côte-à-côte incorrecte" (I am French, and I have no idea of what the message would be in english... this message does not make sense to me...). It did not run at all.

- when I tried another of my shows (http://masse.alpes.org/Chalten_multi_web.exe), also from the USB key, it worked fine.

- but when I tried 3 more shows I made (http://masse.alpes.org/Commission_web.exe, http://masse.alpes.org/Sherman_web.exe and http://masse.alpes.org/Bodie_web.exe), none of then ran : they all froze after a few frames...

Yet, of course, all these shows run fine on my XP mainframe...

The problem probably comes from my wife's laptop, running on Vista... Anybody has any idea of what could be wrong ?

Thanks !

Dan

[flynnboy]

hi ran one of your shows on my vista laptop , and it runs fine

Brian T

[fh1805]

Dan,

Some additional information about the Vista laptop would be useful:

- has Vista been kept up-to-date with all recommended software fixes?

- have the device drivers been kept up-to-date?

- what other software is permanently running in the background?

- what graphics and sound cards (or chipsets) does it have?

- how much memory on the graphics card?

- how much RAM?

- what CPU processor?

regards,

Peter

[danmassefrance]

hi ran one of your shows on my vista laptop , and it runs fine

Thank you for trying ! Sorry I did not translate the comments... Maybe I should ?

- has Vista been kept up-to-date with all recommended software fixes?

I believe it is up to date... Automatic update is active

- have the device drivers been kept up-to-date?

This, I have not checked

- what other software is permanently running in the background?

Not much, I believe. I'll check

- what graphics and sound cards (or chipsets) does it have?

The laptop is a VAIO VGN-N31Z/W, with a Core 2 T5500 processor, 2 Go RAM. The video card is an Intel GMA 950 with 224 Mo RAM... That should be enough ?

Thank you Peter for your help !

Dan

[fh1805]

Dan,

I am not at all familiar with the Sony range of laptops, so I'll have to let someone else comment on the suitability of that particular model and its configuration. The only comment that I would make is that 2GB of RAM for Vista is only just enough. Vista is notoriously "memory hungry" and will operate at its best if you give it all the memory that it can use. If you were to upgrade the RAM to 3GB or even 4GB you would see a world of difference in the performance of this laptop.

When checking the device drivers, the two key ones are the graphics card and the sound card drivers.

regards,

Peter

[Barry Beckham]

Dan

THis is a guess, but your not using images directly from your camera are you?

Images for a slide show generally need to be scaled down from their original high resolution size. I have heard of this issue before and the computer copes with a few slides and then just doesn't have the power to keep going and that could be causing the problem you are seeing.

Can you tell us the size of your images length in pixels and height too?

[danmassefrance]

Thanks for your message !

Yes, of course, I reduced my pictures to HD dimensions, except for the panoramic views, of course.

Furthermore, in the web version of my shows, I used a compression factor of 60% to reduce the weight of the images.

It seems to me that the video card of the laptop is not sufficient...

Thanks again !

Dan

[Barry Beckham]

Its one of the reasons I don't like laptops, screens too small, over priced, underpowered, awkward to use

[cjdnzl]

Its one of the reasons I don't like laptops, screens too small, over priced, underpowered, awkward to use

Err, Barry,

Modern high-end laptops with dual-core processors, advanced graphics cards and 3 or 4 GB of memory are just as capable as desktop machines, and have the advantage of being portable so you are not in the position of using someone else's computer (of unknown capability) to present your shows on - or lugging your desktop machine, keyboard and monitor along.

Older laptops with smaller memory, slow hard drives, and single processors are less able to handle PTE shows, but PTE users would probably not attempt to use such machines anyway.

Colin

[cjdnzl]

Thanks for your message !

Yes, of course, I reduced my pictures to HD dimensions, except for the panoramic views, of course.

Furthermore, in the web version of my shows, I used a compression factor of 60% to reduce the weight of the images.

It seems to me that the video card of the laptop is not sufficient...

Thanks again !

Dan

Dan,

Compression of the images will affect the size of the PTE .exe file, but when loaded into memory the images expand to their actual size, taking more memory than the program size would indicate.

But, I agree that the laptop graphics is probably your problem. Most laptops, specially 'business' machines, have rather elementary on-board graphics, much less powerful than a separate graphics card.

Colin

[cjdnzl]

Dan wrote:

"The laptop is a VAIO VGN-N31Z/W, with a Core 2 T5500 processor, 2 Go RAM. The video card is an Intel GMA 950 with 224 Mo RAM... That should be enough ?"

Dan,

The Intel GMA 950 video processor is not actually a video card as such, it is a video chip on the computer main board, suitable for ordinary graphics tasks, but not up to the mark for graphics-intensive applications like PTE. Business and general-purpose laptops mostly use the Intel chip, but high-end laptops, particularly those made for gaming purposes have a separate dedicated graphics card with much greater capability than the Intel 950.

So, I think your problem is right there. The graphics chip is not up to the task, end of story.

Commiserations,

Colin

[Barry Beckham]

Modern high-end laptops with dual-core processors, advanced graphics cards and 3 or 4 GB of memory are just as capable as desktop machines, and have the advantage of being portable so you are not in the position of using someone else's computer (of unknown capability) to present your shows on - or lugging your desktop machine, keyboard and monitor along.

Forgive me Colin, but that is rather stating the obvious. However most laptops have black keyboards, which are a pain in the rear end while trying to demonstrate in a darkened room, especially with my eyes. The keyboards are small and don't fall to my fingers like a desktop keyboard does and to get the spec you quote is darned expensive, even more so in Australia. I am not prepared to pay that sort of money because over here you only get about $30 expenses from a Camera Club no matter how far you drive. When I do a lecture I take 4 boxes of large prints, a PC projector, keyboard, graphics tablet and all our tutorial DVD's that will be for sale, so it doesn't really matter in that scenario whether I put a laptop in or a desktop in the car, it really isn't the issue for me. I need to be confident in the equipment I am using. I have seen too many lectures that crash and burn because the kit being used is not up to the job.

I don't need a screen because I demo from the PC projector so I am looking at the same picture everyone else is.

Older laptops with smaller memory, slow hard drives, and single processors are less able to handle PTE shows, but PTE users would probably not attempt to use such machines anyway.

Again your rather stating the obvious, but its not just PTE shows. I like to demonstrate with full size files, what I mean by that is not the little images we see on web based tutorials where everything appears to works instantly. It's not reflective of what most people will experience. So, I use full resolution files 16 Bit Raw files and I make full use of smart objects and multi-layers and my experience of laptops (even so called good ones) is not good. One layer from my camera when opened up is 120MB, add another layer and your already at 240MB.

I have to have a dedicated PC to make my tutorials videos on and that is the perfect medium for me to use to demonstrate live as well. I didn't cost the earth, it's powerful enough to work on huge files and record a video at the same time and the files are all in place and ready for any live demos. It doubles up perfectly for the job I need it for.

Many of the problems and issues people have, even on this forum is because the laptop they bought is just not up to the job. I suppose we could always take the view that this is their own fault for not researching things correctly, but many are not aware of laptop limitations when they first buy them. Only later do they realise what they bought is OK for emails and the odd letter, but that is about it. Its too late then, the money is spent.

I realise this is a personal view, but for what I do laptops "Suck" and I fail to see what all the fascination is with them. They have their uses, but not for me, not for showing PTE shows or demonstrating Photoshop

[danmassefrance]

Dan,

Compression of the images will affect the size of the PTE .exe file, but when loaded into memory the images expand to their actual size, taking more memory than the program size would indicate.

But, I agree that the laptop graphics is probably your problem. Most laptops, specially 'business' machines, have rather elementary on-board graphics, much less powerful than a separate graphics card.

Colin

Thank you Colin,

I was not aware that PTE would expand the images to their original size, and take more memory than the size would indicate...

And I agree that the problem is obviously the graphics capability of the laptop.

Of course, I would never consider showing my shows on a laptop, but, as I let people download the shows, I have no control over the equipment they use to view them. Some people will not be able to see them, and will feel frustrated : now, I can explain why...

Thanks !

Dan

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Dan

If you have the Delux version of PTE with Video Builder, try burning a show to DVD, if Video Builder throws the towel in, it's your hardware. Check your C drive, you need at least 10GB of free space on there to burn the average sized show.

Yachtsman1

[davegee]

Dan,

I think that you need to be aware that MOST (but not all) people use a laptop connected to a projector to show PTE EXE's at such venues as Camera or other Clubs etc.

You therefore, as you say, have no control about how your shows are used once uploaded. However, these same people TEND to blame the show (rather than their Laptop/Projector setup) if things don't go quite as they expect them to.

So what am I saying?

Keep your EXEs at the absolute minimum size/complexity if it is remotely possible that they might end up as the evening's entertainment somewhere.

DG