video card

[jpalm]

I've used PtE since version 1 and it's always worked perfect with my standard computers. Now everytime I try to run a show that was made with Version 5, I get nothing. The screen stays just as it was and the mouse locks up, if I hit the ESC key everything returns to normal. am I going to have to add a video card and what could I get by with.

Thanks

jPalm

[Ken Cox]

well you are going to have to supply all the system info before anybody can attempt an answer

version of windows

ram

processor

video baord etc

if you dont know

get this freebie and it will tell you all about your system

http://www.belarc.com/

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

ken

[jpalm]

Neat program

XP Pro Ser Pk2

512 Ram

1.4 gig iintel

graphic controller Intel 82810E

This is about a 5 year old E Machine, the only thing that I've done to it is upgrade the USB ports to 2.0 and a new power supply (450 Watt)

Any Ideas

jPalm

[alrobin]

JPalm,

How much video RAM?

Could be a problem with the graphic controller, especially if it's the type that's integrated with the motherboard - apparently the Intel controllers have problems with some Direct 3D applications, so may not be compatible with PTE either. Looks like you owe yourself a new pc, or at least a new graphics board! Make sure the rest of your system is compatible first, though.

[d67]

Looks like you owe yourself a new pc, or at least a new graphics board! Make sure the rest of your system is compatible first, though.

Until now, creating a slideshow with PTE was quiet and economic ($24) ... in the future, just open your purse to change motherboard, video card, perhaps windows system and why not monitor and so on .... and think about changing your glasses and take aspirin before viewing a slideshow !!!!!!

[Ken Cox]

Patrick

you can still run 4.48 -- are you still taking your picts with a Kodak brownie -no - you bought the latest -never mind the negative vibes

ken

[Igor]

Patrick,

What can you suggest?

Final v5.00 will have two engines - CPU based for simple slide-shows which work on all PCs and slide-show with Pan/Zoom for PC with modern video cards.

For Pan/Zoom we use maximal quality of picture and don't limit real picture to 720x576 as some does.

I'm not magician, please understand. I do all that I can.

[ContaxMan]

Patrick,

What can you suggest?

Final v5.00 will have two engines - CPU based for simple slide-shows which work on all PCs and slide-show with Pan/Zoom for PC with modern video cards.

For Pan/Zoom we use maximal quality of picture and don't limit real picture to 720x576 as some does.

I'm not magician, please understand. I do all that I can.

I don't think Patrick was being critical and suspect that his comment was "tongue in cheek" (i.e. a joke).

But I wonder whether it might be wise when PTE 5 is finally released to have version 4 also available "for beginners" and those with lower specification machines. After all, most of us are delighted with what we can do with it anyway.

[d67]

What can you suggest?

Hello Igor

Sorry but when I read all messages here and else about the test version and the multiple "little" problems which make looking a slideshow made with PTE be sometimes a feet of engineering, I can have reasonnable doubts for the end version !!!

Ken, my Kodak brownie is an old history ... but once I have changed motherboard, video card, resolution... then I have to update my system, have a look on my Direct X version, update my video card drivers, etc ... and endly lauch the slideshow, hopping everything goes smoothly...

If not, then I will have to verify my video card parameters and probably tweak them .....

A true enchantment

[David (UK)]

"I'm not magician, please understand. I do all that I can."

And it's very much appreciated, many thanks Igor.

David (UK)

[alrobin]

Yes, Igor, keep up the good work! A few of us on the forum, and I suspect many of the others "lurking" behind the scenes, are having a ball!

And the "proof of the pudding" will ultimately be "in the eating" - the surge of new creativity that will come from these improvements and exciting new capabilities. (and hopefully more money in the bank for you too!!)

[thedom]

I can have reasonnable doubts for the end version !!!

Some people are never happy / always complain about something / are not fair with the amount of efforts of other people.

Please Igor don't take any consideration in this kind of message, I'm pretty sure that 99,99% of PTE users have no doubt about the final release.

I think that you and your team ARE true magicians, and I really mean it.

Btw, could you tell us how many people are in the development team and what's their names ?

Everybody located in the same area ?

[d67]

Some people are never happy / always complain about something / are not fair with the amount of efforts of other people.

Until now everyone can read all kind of slideshow made with PTE... in the future there will be 3 types of spectators...

- a few one for which every slideshow will run smoothly

- a great number who will experience more or less stutter

- a great number who will be enable to read slideshows with the new demanding transitions

Where is progress ?????

If you are happy with such a highly probable issue than ... you are probably in the first group... Congratulations !

[alrobin]

......Where is progress ?????

If you are happy with such a highly probable issue than ... you are probably in the first group... Congratulations !

Patrick,

Everyone can and will eventually be in the first group. This is a transition we are going through now - it's called "the bleeding edge"!! All technological changes in our society have gone through this stage - some for better, some for worse. If you don't want to drive a Mercedes, you don't have to. Igor has said he is willing to keep fixing your old Citroen!

[d67]

If you don't want to drive a Mercedes, you don't have to. Igor has said he is willing to keep fixing your old Citroen!

Why not a Mercedes but if there is a need of a new driving licence, if I have to change all my cloths, go to the hairdressers and to be a vegetarian... then my response will be clearly no and I will continue to drive my Citroen (by the way.. excellent cars !)

[Igor]

Patrick,

If final version of v5.00 will do all that previous versions did (with same speed on old PCs) and additionally Pan/Zoom for new PCs only - it's progress, isn't it?

I think at this moment about 52% of users have powerful video cardы, according recent voting. In the nearest betas we will solve all reasons of jerks on Pan/Zoom effects on power video cards. This is only one-time upgrade. Never it will be required again.

So for Pan/Zoom effects 50% of PCs are ready. Classical slide-shows with Fade in/out, Circle and other effects as earlier will work an all PCs ideally smooth.

Probably we'll find some solution for old video card. Maybe that 720x576 which I don't like.

Also we'll show one additional solution I will not spoke about right now.

If don't realize Pan/Zoom now in PicturesToExe, other products will do it. In 2-3 years almost all PCs will able to play Pan/Zoom with ideal quality. We can't miss this moment.

I don't know other products that provide *same picture quality* and same effects, as PicturesToExe v5.00 created by our team, and which could work faster on old PC.

Beta is beta. It's issued to find these problems. And of course there are some problems.

For really new product as v5.00 there is very small number of problems. In fact one serious problem only -jerks because of antiviruses. This problem exists in another slide-show product, too. But we will solve this problem. Other several problems not related with video cards which will solve in beta #3

WnSoft:

- New graphical engine written together with Aleksey Yelin and me. He also created new system of objects, and all transition effects for old and new versions of PicturesToExe. And we always discuss together all question and problems.

- Pavel Koshkin developed system libraries for PicturesToExe v5.00 and WinNavigator v2.00 Thanks to his help, EXE file with slide-show still very small (about 150 KB at this moment). He works on WinNavigator v2.00

- Sergey Malyshev wrote code for music player for PicturesToExe (with my help), AVI video output. Also he fully created PixBuilder Studio. Now he's working on our new sub-project for PicturesToExe.

- Dima Boarintsev wrote some code for "Create backup in ZIP" (ZIP packin and unpacking)

He fully working on our another future project - WinNavigator v2.00

- Sergey Kiprov is fully working on WinNavigator v2.00

- Alena Tomilova reads and responses on emails from support@wnsoft.com address. She leaves for me only the difficult letters.

- Pavel Malyshev is our new web master and designer.

- Artem is our new programer. Sorry, I forgot his surname.

He will help with Curling of page effect and re-work "old" effects from v4.48 to second CPU based graphical engine for v5.00

- My work - 70% for programming and 30% for the forum and emails.

[d67]

If final version of v5.00 will do all that previous versions did (with same speed on old PCs) and additionally Pan/Zoom for new PCs only - it's progress, isn't it?

For sure not if half the spectators (or more) can no more comfortably read the slideshows

I think at this moment about 52% of users have powerful video cardы, according recent voting.

As you know these votings are of very poor interest as only a very few number of members (how many voted this time ?) reply and those who reply are probably not representative as they belong to the very small number of us who is implicated enough to give an opinion !

What about the vast majority who just read posts and never express there meaning ?

So for Pan/Zoom effects 50% of PCs are ready.

50% !!!! A very very questionable number ! ... see above !

More or less your want

If don't realize Pan/Zoom now in PicturesToExe, other products will do it. In 2-3 years almost all PCs will able to play Pan/Zoom with ideal quality. We can't miss this moment.

Yes but as I know we are in 2006 and not in 2008 or 2009 !

There are too many softwares released for future end users, forgotting we are not living in the future but at the present time.

What interest to know I will surely be able to read all shows in 3 years ?

Sadly PTE is taking this winding way

I don't know other products that provide *same picture quality* and same effects, as PicturesToExe v5.00 created by our team, and which could work faster on old PC.

Yes but until now PTE could not do all what others did more or less good but what it did was excellent and that's why I choose PTE and not the others.

With V5 the product will be a bit better as the others but that's all.

It than will have lost all what did his charm and interest ; powerfull for what it is intended to do, no need of a big help document, predictable effects on the end user PC, and so on

Some members insinuate I have no gratefulness for all you and your staff do... on what basis do they say that ? I invite them to read all I said until now !

I find PTE a great product and my numerous slideshows (more than 50 publicly released in 2 years and half of them still downloadable here) are here to attest it.

Some are good, many are not but I had always pleasure to to them as PTE was never a boring software as some can be. If it had be the case I never had taken time to create them !!!

It is a pity that some members are just applausing to each novelty and criticize those who have an other opinion !!!

It takes time for me to write each post as I have to translate from french to english what I want to say. Do these honorable members are thinking I have nothing else to do ? Do they think that I do so if PTE had no interest for me ?

[Guest guru]

"Some members insinuate I have no gratefulness for all you and your staff do... on what basis do they say that ? I invite them to read all I said until now !" (Patrick)

But all your posts, dear Patrick, seem only polemical about new PTE version!

I know you love PTE, but please cease now your criticisms, which appear useless. You cannot pretend that all new software works correctly with a Window 98 machine!...

En toute amitié...

[Igor]

Patrick,

First of all, v5.00 will suggests all possibilities as v4.48 We don't discard support of old PCs.

PicturesToExe always suggested new effects (Fade in 2001, Push effect in 2004) which were intended for modern PCs.

I read recently Microsoft's statement that about half of video cards are ready for Windows Vista. It means that these video cards will great work in PicturesToExe 5, too. It means that we may consider that about 50% of PCs are ready for PC. Probably not all, but home PCs really.

I understand your worrying. But there will be as usually slide-shows for all PCs with simple effects and some slide-show with Pan/Zoom effects. And in 2-3 years almost all PCs will able to play any kind of slide-show.

p.s. It's good that there is such kind of discussion - it's feedback and intended for improvement of the program.

[d67]

But all your posts, dear Patrick, seem only polemical about new PTE version!

... because it is highly polemical

I know you love PTE, but please cease now your criticisms, which appear useless.

... are you so sure !!!! Congratulations for your peace of mind !

But be sure I stop posting for a while as, apart autocongratulation, other opinions are suspect.

You cannot pretend that all new software works correctly with a Window 98 machine!...

I don't have Windows 98 !

Sans rancune, ciao !

[Igor]

Forum in 2001:

still have not improved the fade in/out effect (smoother).

yesterday i upgraded my very stock standard 4 MB video card to a middle of the road 32 MB TNT riva M64 video card and i found that the fade in / dissolve performance of pte shows was considerably better and smoother. just goes to show you eh? i suppose you cant pick what sort of computers you pte shows are going to be shown on huh, and how they will be seen compared what you intended.....

Fade in/out transition: this is the toughest to get a good/smooth one. Try different duration. My system seems to work bettter having a transition around 2500 ms.

2003

The fade in/out is the best of any that I have seen on other software. But it is suspectible to "shuddering" depending on the power of your computer. I have not found a computer less than 2 years or so old that could not handle the fade in/out on a 800x600 image VERY smoothly regardless of the transition time. I have a P3 probably 300-400 MHZ, 256 RAM and it will smoothly handle fades as short as 800ms. The more powerful the computer, the larger the image that will fade smoothly at faster speeds.

PTE has the best fade that I can find anywhere.

As we tested even on Geforce 4 MX440 in 1280x960 Fade effect with new graphical engine using hardware acceleration works more smooth than in old versions of PicturesToExe.

I'll think more about optimization for old video card. Same slide-show with maximal sharpness and quality on fast video card and a little blurred reduced picture on old video card.

If it will possible, it will be good result of this discussion!

[bharkins]

Really enjoyed this Forum message today on our 3 day holiday. It even forced me to go to my dictionary to review the work "polemical".

Now I will get back to practising with 5.0 BETA, and greatly enjoying the challenges (more interesting than polemics)!

Bill

[fredor]

"You can please some of the people some of the time, you can please some of the people all of the time, but you CANNOT please all of the people all of the time"

Fred

[mandarinfish]

I don't most folks don't care about Macs any more than they care about old PCs, but I'm bringing this up as just another data point. I have a brand new Macbook with a perfectly reasonable video card (Radeon X1600). However, I have to play PicturesToExe slideshows within a Windows virtual machine (Parallels Desktop for Mac), which only supports a generic VGA adapter. The 5.0 beta slideshows don't work at all on this. Parallels isn't planning on supporting video acceleration hardware, because gamers aren't their target.

I'm one of those who responded to the hardware survey here, identifying a usable video card, but not thinking that I cannot use it for PicturesToExe.

Another point that I'd like to bring up is that after seeing many slideshows that use pan and zoom (not just from the PicturesToExe beta), I really don't like the overuse of the effects as so many people seem to need to do, e.g. using it on every single photo. Overuse of an effect leads to less "effect", or impact and I think it also detacts from the photography (my opinion, and I'm sure it differs from others' opinions!). The same issue comes up in video circles over their very fancy transition effects. One of the things I have appreciated in PicturesToExe is the time and effort spent on ensuring the best quality of the basic cross fade effect.

Not saying I wouldn't use pan and zoom, but would only use it very selectively, and I also won't use it (even though I can on my Windows machines) until I am able to play such shows on my Mac, which is what I use to travel with and for my public presentations of slideshows.

[Igor]

For now there is only one possibility to utilize your powerful video card it is installing of Windows XP using Apple's BootCamp.