Video Card

[Coinneach]

Hi Igor,

I like the new bits and bobs in 5B4.

I've a question for you about video cards.

My main computer for giving presentations is a laptop. can you give some guide as to a reasonable video card to make use of the full set of animations in v5.

I'm about to buy a new laptop and don't want to find that it is no use for P2E.

Hope you can help

Kenny

[Igor]

Ideal variant for laptop: NVIDIA (5700, 5900, 6600, 6800, 7600, 7800) or ATI (9600, 9700, 9800, X600, X700, X800, X1600, X1800) video card with own 128 MB of video memory (not shared memory).

Usually weight of such laptop is 2-3 kg.

Or almost good solution: NVIDIA 6400, 7400/ ATI X300, X1300 with shared video memory.

Weight: 1-1.9 kg.

It better to take some example of slide show, for example this, and try on several laptops:

http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/show/PteShow.zip

[JEB]

Igor,

I recall some months ago when graphics cards were being discussed that I asked about the one I have on my HP laptop. It is an ATI RADION XPRESS 200. I understood at the time that this was well up to spec. However I have never seen any ref to it in any postings similar to this posting and would appreciate your reassurance as I still get a "little" flicker on panning and do not know whether this what I should expect if my card is not in fact up to spec.

Thanks

John

[Coinneach]

Thanks Igor,

I'm glad I asked.

I was about to buy a Toshiba with ATI Radeon® Xpress 200M.

I'll need to start looking elsewhere.

I've had a quick check of prices in the UK and most seem to be out of our price range unfortunately

Thanks again

Kenny

[Conflow]

Thanks Igor,

I'm glad I asked.

I was about to buy a Toshiba with ATI Radeon® Xpress 200M.

I'll need to start looking elsewhere.

I've had a quick check of prices in the UK and most seem to be out of our price range unfortunately

Thanks again

Kenny

Kenny,

Try E-Bay Germany, we buy many Computers from Reputable Dealers in Germany and the Laptops

are virtually always top of the rang. One of the top makers is "Acer".

Brian.Conflow.

[Lin Evans]

Thanks Igor,

I'm glad I asked.

I was about to buy a Toshiba with ATI Radeon® Xpress 200M.

I'll need to start looking elsewhere.

I've had a quick check of prices in the UK and most seem to be out of our price range unfortunately

Thanks again

Kenny

Hi Kenny,

The ATi Radion Xpress 200M is a very nice card which will run anything you create on PicturesToExe in fine fashion. I just tested this card about 40 minutes ago with my two test videos and it works very well indeed.

I posted a link to these two files some time ago but will post it again here. The first is a small RAM version which will run smoothly on about "any" video card with 32 meg RAM or better. The second one is a real torture test which requires 128 meg card which will handle heavy RAM loading and deliver great 3D graphics. If you put these two files on a flash card and carry them around when you shop, you can test any system's capability of running PicturesToExe files.

Both these files use 32 layers to present the show, but one uses tiny PNG files while the other uses files which are quite large. The first file is called puzzlesmallRAM.exe and the second is puzzle.exe and you can easily tell which is which visually. The small RAM version is larger on the screen and says "Ta Da" while the large RAM version is smaller on the screen and says "Ta Dah".

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/puzzlesmallRAM.zip

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/puzzle.zip

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Igor,

I recall some months ago when graphics cards were being discussed that I asked about the one I have on my HP laptop. It is an ATI RADION XPRESS 200. I understood at the time that this was well up to spec. However I have never seen any ref to it in any postings similar to this posting and would appreciate your reassurance as I still get a "little" flicker on panning and do not know whether this what I should expect if my card is not in fact up to spec.

Thanks

John

Hi John,

Your card has 128 meg individual RAM and should do quite well. Try the two video files I linked to on the post below asking about the same card.

The small RAM version works smoothly on about any video card and the large RAM version will only run smoothly on a top-of-the line card. On your card all movement except for the single piece circling should be very smooth. Even on my ATI RADEON 9800 Pro the single piece circling near the end is slightly jerky. This test is a real torture test for video cards.

"Flicker" is not usually caused by the video card but rather due to aliasing because the files have been resized. Very sharp images will have flicker whenever there is zoom or pan and small highly detailed subjects are not running at either native resolution or have been resized by PicturesToExe on the fly by the bilinear algorithm. When the same files are resized with bicubic or a derivative or other sophisticated anti-aliaing algorithm they will normally not have excessive flicker during movement. The issue with zoom is that the program absolutely MUST resize to render the executable. There is a built-in "blur" feature which takes off the "edge" a bit on overly sharp images or you can manually soften them with 1 pixel or less gaussian blur to minimize this. In the release version of PicturesToExe 5.0 Igor expects to modify the existing algorithm to greatly improve the operation.

No matter what kind if video card you have, you will sometimes get flicker on pans or zooms. It does this with every program I've ever used to make the Ken Burns Pan, Zoom, Rotate effects....

Best regards,

Lin

[JEB]

Lin,

Thank you for your reply.

You may be interested in the following.

I have run both of your shows again on my laptop (ATI XPRESS 200M) and desktop (NVIDA GeForce FX5600) machines with the following results.

My desktop machine gives very smooth results with both shows.

With both shows my laptop gives an occasional minor stutter (perhaps a better word than flicker!) as the pieces move into place. However, the disappearing, spinning image in the “small” show, stutters quite noticeably (to my curious eye) on the laptop.

This is something I am going to have to live with for some time as I only purchased the laptop about six months ago. However I suspect that other people may not notice. Also, being aware will make me extra careful when putting shows together on my desktop not to exceed the limits of the laptop. Being totally honest I am most unlikely to produce anything that will reach these limits in any case.

Thanks again for your interest.

John

[Lin Evans]

Lin,

Thank you for your reply.

You may be interested in the following.

I have run both of your shows again on my laptop (ATI XPRESS 200M) and desktop (NVIDA GeForce FX5600) machines with the following results.

My desktop machine gives very smooth results with both shows.

With both shows my laptop gives an occasional minor stutter (perhaps a better word than flicker!) as the pieces move into place. However, the disappearing, spinning image in the “small” show, stutters quite noticeably (to my curious eye) on the laptop.

This is something I am going to have to live with for some time as I only purchased the laptop about six months ago. However I suspect that other people may not notice. Also, being aware will make me extra careful when putting shows together on my desktop not to exceed the limits of the laptop. Being totally honest I am most unlikely to produce anything that will reach these limits in any case.

Thanks again for your interest.

John

Hi John,

Just to be sure we are on the same page - is it the show called "puzzlesmallRAM" which "stutters" on the laptop, or the show with the smaller image (which is actually the large ram model)? The large RAM show has "Ta Dah" on the bottom black under the goats while the small RAM show has "Ta Da" in the center and ends with a spinning goat....

It's very strange that the small RAM show would be anything except extremely smooth because the entire show has a ram load of only the size of a single puzzle piece image on the large RAM model. If it is indeed the small RAM show which has a noticeable stutter while the large RAM model doesn't, then it's not the video card but some other variable causing this. Your video card on the half-dozen or so I've tested runs the small RAM model a smooth as silk and stutters a tiny bit only on the circling puzzle piece on the larg RAM show before it begins a counterclockwise spin before settling into the front goat's stomach area.

Anyway, there is some other variable accounting for this rather than your video card if it's indeed the small RAM show with the stutter.

In any case, your video card should be fine for producing any PicturesToExe shows.

Best regards,

Lin

[JEB]

Lin,

Yes we are reading from the same page.

I have just run through both shows again on both m/c’s and results are as before.

Desktop – both shows “smooth as silk”.

Laptop - Both shows have a little flicker (compared to desktop) as the pieces move into place (both shows about the same). I confess it is difficult to identify which pieces as they move at different rates but it’s certainly not as smooth as the desktop.

I confirm that the most noticeable stutter is with the spinning goat in the small show!

Very odd!

Regards

John

[Lin Evans]

Lin,

Yes we are reading from the same page.

I have just run through both shows again on both m/c’s and results are as before.

Desktop – both shows “smooth as silk”.

Laptop - Both shows have a little flicker (compared to desktop) as the pieces move into place (both shows about the same). I confess it is difficult to identify which pieces as they move at different rates but it’s certainly not as smooth as the desktop.

I confirm that the most noticeable stutter is with the spinning goat in the small show!

Very odd!

Regards

John

Hi John,

Are you using a CRT monitor on the desktop? If so, try hooking up the video output from the laptop to the CRT and see if you still have the same effect. It could be the difference between LCD and CRT. The CRT has a phosphor "persistence" which adds some smoothness to movement while the LCD often has problems displaying the same files in the same way. When you drag your mouse cursor with the laptop do you get a "trail" which lags the actual movement?

Just some possibilities.

Best regards,

Lin

[JEB]

Hi Lin,

I'm afraid the answer to both questions is no, both are LCD's and I don't get a trail on the laptop.

But thanks for your interest.

John