Smooth Running of PTE

[Barry Beckham]

Here is something I have only noticed at our camera club with our club laptop. The laptop is not that old and generally copes fine, apart from what I describe below

Each month I place our competition results into two slide shows, one for the set subject and one for the open section and they play perfectly. The high scoring images with titles and names are shown at the end of each sequence with some animated slide styles to aid presentation. On a few occasions PTE has difficulty not only running any type of animation, but even a straight 2 second fade will flicker.

However, I have found the cause. On the first part of our evening we will have a guest speaker and many will bring their talk on a stick as a Powerpoint presentation and I usually transfer the images to the desktop temporarily so everything runs smoothly. It appears that whenever I do that, I need a re-boot before we play the PTE slide shows because even though Powerpoint player is closed down, something is still running in the background, or that is how it seems because it badly affects PTE. Its happened enough times now for me to tumble what the cause is.

I have also noticed the same thing happening, as it did last night, with a club members talk. The images were brought on a stick and I transferred them to the desktop and just ran them in media player.

Later when I came to show the PTE slide show (having not rebooted the PC) the slide show flickered on normal fades and was very jerky on any animation. I rebooted between the set subject and the open section and the second part ran perfectly.

So, I have found the cause, but not a solution apart from a reboot.

[cjdnzl]

Hi Barry,

It seems to me that some program that runs before PTE is altering the graphics card settings, most probably undoing the Graphics Acceleration settings, which will wreck the smoothness of PTE for sure.

Perhaps you can click on the desktop background and see what the graphics option can tell you, before and after running the suspect programs.

Loss of hardware acceleration is what I would suspect here.

Refards,

Colin

[Barry Beckham]

Colin

I suspect its something like that, although I cannot replicate it on my desktop. The trouble is of course I don't have the laptop here to try that at present. I will take a look at the next meeting if I can remember. Its rather annoying as I know the issue isn't PTE, but when your showing animation techniques to non users you want them to look their best.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

This could be another instance where the LT has 2 graphics cards & the standard one is set as the default. Usually a right click in an open space on the desktop & check if there are are 2 graphics cards, then, either select which card is to be used for exe files, or set the LT to only use the higher spec' card.

Yachtsman1.

[Barry Beckham]

As far as I am aware it only has one, because the laptop is virtually the same as my own and both were bought at the same time. Mine will select a change when on battery, but that was the first thing I checked last night, to see if I had left the plug out.

I think Colin might be onto the problem, but you would think that if a program isolated anything it would be temporary until that program was closed down. I can get around the issue, by re-booting after a speaker has completed and in the tea break, but would like to find a solution and tip others off about the possibility of this happening. Might just be a quirk of our laptop.

[PGA]

Barry,

It might be worth running DxDiag on both your machine (to familiarise yourself with "how to" and with what it shows) and on the club's machine. Proceed as follows:

• Start button > All Programs > Accessories > Run
• Key dxdiag into the pop-up window and click OK
• If the machine is 64-bit, click on the Run 64-bit DxDiag button when DxDiag has opened
• Switch to the Display tab and note any options that are not Enabled

Repeat on the other system and compare and contrast.

[jt49]

... I can remember. It is rather annoying as I know the issue isn't PTE, but when your showing animation techniques to non users you want them to look their best.

It is difficult to say who is to blame. Some time ago I made the experience that a show created with m.objects, that normally works well, did not run smoothly when following several PTE shows. As a consequence of similar experience, a friend of mine when presenting several shows created with PTE, m.objects, and Wings Platinum organizes the show program in groups, where each group consists only of shows created with the same software. Before starting a new group he reboots the computer

Regards,

jt

[Barry Beckham]

Peter

I will try and remember that at the club next month. The laptop is now locked up in our clubrooms 40k away

JT.well as I said, it's not a problem to re-boot, but you tend to forget sometimes and then when your halfway through a show its too late

[cjdnzl]

As far as I am aware it only has one, because the laptop is virtually the same as my own and both were bought at the same time. Mine will select a change when on battery, but that was the first thing I checked last night, to see if I had left the plug out.

I think Colin might be onto the problem, but you would think that if a program isolated anything it would be temporary until that program was closed down. I can get around the issue, by re-booting after a speaker has completed and in the tea break, but would like to find a solution and tip others off about the possibility of this happening. Might just be a quirk of our laptop.

You would be surprised at how many programs will modify the computer parameters to suit themselves, but never bother to put the altered parameters back when closing the program. Some of the worst culprits are graphic and image-handling programs, and some games are bad at it as well.

[Barry Beckham]

I suppose so, never really thought too much about that, but I don't like surprises that catch me out.

[Igor]

Barry,

I regret about the problem with that laptop which you described above.

If it possible, please check the Task Manager in Windows to make sure that Powerpoint process is not working in the background and CPU loading is around 0..5%.

jt,

PicturesToExe presentations don't modify any system settings and should not affect to other 3D applications after closing. If you don't see PicturesToExe presentations in the list of running processes, PicturesToExe can't affect to other 3D applications.

I have only one possible explanation - graphical drivers work incorrectly. Even Windows sometimes has this problem. I often observe the following problem - scrolling in Chrome browser works very jerky - I press Win + Tab hotkey to open list of applications and then Chrome starts to work fast and smooth. No idea what it was and why it helped.

[Barry Beckham]

I sort of guessed that had to be the cause, but I generally only get access to the laptop for the club time each month. Perhaps next month I will bring it home and check it out

In the meantime. a reboot at tea time does it

[jt49]

... PicturesToExe presentations don't modify any system settings and should not affect to other 3D applications after closing. If you don't see PicturesToExe presentations in the list of running processes, PicturesToExe can't affect to other 3D applications ...

I am glad to read this. The incident that I have mentioned is about two years ago. There will be a similar event in November, and I will do some tests in advance.

Best regards,

jt