executable file and graphic card

[chjandre]

Hi all,

I have a technical question concerning the "guts" of PTE.

Does the generated excecutable file depend on the quality of the graphic card?

I ask this question because I develop my PTE shows on my working station, equipped with a "good" graphic card, and then I port the executable show on my PC note book.

What about a direct generation on the PC note book (with its less efficient graphical card)? Are the two executable files of different quality?

A second question about the "mystery" of the code generation.

Sometimes I imagine very complex 3D animations (with more than 50 nested levels). It appears that an efficient graphic card is very useful in this case. I guess that the

compilation "flattens" the different levels (Am I right?). If this is the case, the graphic card becomes less critical to executable files (true or false?).

Yours sincerely,

Charles

[davegee]

Charles,

Others are far more capable of answering this correctly, but in the case of the second question I don't think that you are right?

The EXE is a set of instructions which have to be carried out on the various elements (objects) in a slide every time it is executed.

If you take it a step further and make an MP4 from the project then the end result is "flattened" as you said. The MP4 can be thought of as a sequence of "flattened" frames which play at around 30 FPS.

That's my understanding.

DG

[PGA]

When PTE plays an EXE file, it is building all of the visual effects in real time. Nothing is prebuilt. Therefore the graphics card of the "build" PC has no bearing on the observed quality when played back on a different PC. I know this to be fact because my "Build PC" has a vastly inferior graphics card to my "Playback laptop". I see visual "artefacts" on the Build PC that I never see on the laptop.

The more complex your slides are and the more complex the animations upon them, then the better the graphics card needs to be in order to do the "real time" assembly of the visual effects. In particular, the use of masks places a significantly greater strain on the graphics environment.

regards,

Peter

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Just to add to that, creating a complicated Exe on a superior machine, then trying to play it back on an inferior machine causes all sorts of problems from stuttering animation to stalling of the programme. There is a show in the forum archives intended to stress your system to see if it will cope, I think Lin posted it, Ken may know where it is. :unsure:/>

Yachtsman1.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Charles,

Perhaps I can help answer your questions.

First, the executable file indeed does depend on the graphics card but whether this affects the "quality" of the slideshow depends largely on the nature of the show and the type of animations. The GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) or Video Card manipulates the memory to control the creation and display of images in a frame buffer.

Some types of animations require much more power than others so how well the animations are displayed by the graphical environment depends on the nature and efficiency and design of the circuitry of this GPU as well as the amount of RAM available to work with. In my experience masks and large PNG files can seriously strain a less than optimal GPU. Sometimes this results in a variety of visual issues running the gamut from jerky motion to even the inability to actually display certain parts of the animation, especially when there is a very small amount of RAM on some older cards.

An executable file is primarily a set of instructions which tells the computer to perform certain tasks. Having compiled these instructions into a file, when you "execute" this command set, your commands are sequenced and fed to the computer in the order you have programmed when you create your slideshow with PTE>

There is no "flattening" of layers by the executable file. If PNG or GPU files were flattened, they would no longer function correctly, nor would your layered animations where one object passes in front of or behind another any longer work. Imagine what the result might be were you to attempt to have two objects converge on a single layer. It would be as if you and a friend attempted to occupy the same space at the same time. Your atomic structure would have to merge with another's and neither you nor the other person would remain the same. It would be as if you took two paint brushes, one with yellow paint and one with blue paint. If they occupy the same space at the same time, then you have green.

So compiling instructions into an executable code does not change the instructions, it just handles them as a set of instructions and feeds these to the computer in the order you have determined when you created the PTE file by telling PTE what you wish to accomplish.

The reason that your animations might function slightly differently from the "preview" to the "executable" has to do with internal instructions sets in the PTE code itself and is too complex to explain unless you understand all the internals of PTE's own executable code.

Using the GPU rather than the CPU for rendering animations in real time means that the appearance of your slideshow, smoothness of animations, etc., is not unduly affected by factors which severely impact the central processing unit of your computer. How many programs running in the background and the amount of RAM being swapped in and out to run these possibly numerous files simultaneously isn't affecting your show because usually only one software program is being displayed at a time.With some of the newer and more complex operating systems such as Windows 8, and with a large display, this is not always the case, but for the most part even if multiple executable codes are running simultaneously, only one is being displayed on your monitor at a time. Because of this, the GPU is generally not as busy as the CPU thus it is a better candidate for handling your slideshow's memory requirements than the GPU. Slideshow software which does not use the GPU for this purpose (which is most slideshow software) will be adversely affected by how busy the CPU is. This means that one's slideshow will perform differently under different conditions. With hardware rendering (GPU rendering) no matter what is going on with the CPU, the show will generally be displayed without a great deal of compromise.

Having said this, an optimized GPU is important if you have complex animations in your show. What may run beautifully with a powerful GPU might not do so with an older GPU or with older outdated video drivers or the wrong version of Direct X. The vast majority of notebook computers have much less power in the GPU. Primarily this is done to conserve battery life. Some of the newer and more powerful notebook computers have dual GPU capability. Unless one specifically selects the more powerful GPU the shared RAM and integrated graphics capability built into the CPU is defaulted.

My suggestion would be to limit the complexity of your animations, masks, etc., if you need your show to be totally compatible with notebook computers in general.

Best regards,

Lin

[Ken Cox]

try

Playing with pushing the limits again folks - A Mega Icosahedron running three thousand four hundred and sixty simultaneous video displays.... Thanks Dave for the Icosahedron !! I just filled it up with videos - LOL

Link - about 96 Meg Zipped Windows Exe

Lin

ken

[Ken Cox]

original discussion

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17065-updated-megavid-icosahedron/page__view__findpost__p__113193

ken

[Ken Cox]

another of Lin's test exe is here

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/16604-want-to-test-your-video-card/page__view__findpost__p__110226

I prefer this one because one can pin point a problem at a certain point of the exe

example

your board works fine up to a certain point then it stutters because Lin brought in a different procedure -- it might help solve your problem if you post that info

ken

[Ken Cox]

Peter made a test show in 2008

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/8644-kaleidoscope/page__view__findpost__p__55841

at the time my system would not run it - my current system will run it

- it is no longer available at mediafire

ken

[chjandre]

many thanks to all of you.

Your explanations are clear and instructive (especially those given by Lin). I'll run the proposed tests (illustrations are sometimes better than explanations).

As pointed out by Dave, I was misled by mp4 generation when I thought that PTE animations were flatten.

Now, I know that my show is translated into a set of instructions and then the execution of this set is delegated to the hardware. So, the same executable file can result in very different performance according to the underlying hardware (available memory, power of the CPU, and presence of GPU). I have also noticed that generating executable on a high performance graphical station may lead to disappointing shows when played back on standard computers.

Whatever, I am always filled with admiration when I see what can be done with PTE.

Best regards,

Charles