Need clarification on v 5, objects and video requirements

[mhwarner]

As a long-time P2E user, I have been following this forum and the progress of v5 avidly for the last several months. I understand that there will be 2 engines so that older graphics cards will still be supported. I understand that if I wish to create a slideshow which does not use the pan/zoom effects on slides, I can specifically designate or by default will be using the "old" engine. (For the record, I have an Nvidia Geforce FX Go5200 card in my laptop.) I create many shows for sale in my event photography and have no idea of the graphics capabilities of my customers.

I have played with some of the new slideshows created by members and worked with a few of the tutorials as well, though not extensively as some of this stuff seems to screw up my display and makes me have to re-boot (I actually think there is a problem with the display adapter but have not had the time to send the machine back to Dell for repair).

So, to get down to it, my questions are:

(1) Assuming that they worked on my machine or that I purchased a new machine or graphics card and could create shows with pan/zoom, is it a requirement that others who would play these shows on their computers also have updated graphics cards? Or once a show is made into an .EXE, does it even matter?

(2) While I know that the pan/zoom effects require higher-level/updated graphics cards, is the new object editor also dependent upon it? I guess what I am asking here is whether any of the new features in v 5 would be available for use in "universal" shows, or do I need to stick with only those capabilities which currently exist in v 4.45 (or whatever the latest version is).

I would really like to get more indepth experience with the version 5 features, but if I can't use them for shows which I will be selling to customers, I need to spend my time on other things (like learning the intricasies of custom DVD menu creation, etc.)

Thanks in advance to Igor or anyone who has the expertise to answer my questions.

[Ken Cox]

I will try and give you a partial answer.

time after time we hear members complaining about trying to run a cd from their laptop and the usual help we give is to try copying and pasting the exe to the laptop's desktop and run it from there

i have a 64 mb graphics board on my desktop system - i can run the shows that i have made with ver 5 with pretty good pan and zooms - not noticeable jerkiness

some of the member demos i have had jerkieness

my 2nd machine has 16 mb graphics board and it would not play Igor's original demos

I have a show i made with ver 5 beta 4 on the "cottage site" -- i have a revised edition -- ver5 b5 -- that i took to a business the other day in DVD format -- the owner could play it on his Toshiba laptop that i would guess is 2 yrs old -- one of his employees has his "old" laptop that i would guess is 4 yrs old -- she finaly got it to play but it took a lot of patience on her part

it seems the bare minimum is 64 mb ram on the video card to run exe's or dvd's

Igor has not gave out much details re the dual engine other than you will be able to select a standard show - ver 4.48 or the pan and zoom show ver 5 from the same interface

not much more i can say other than if all your customers can run ver 4. series shows, you better stick there until more definite details are issued -- then you will have to test the "water" with your customers -- you could always make a plain and a deluxe version

ken

[Igor]

I don't exclude possible bugs in our new graphical engine that uses hardware acceleration.

But it seems that some rare cases of freezes happen most likely because of drivers problem. In this case it's necessary to update drivers and install latest DirectX.

I wrote earlier that final v5.00 we will suggest:

- an option to enable 3D hardware acceleration (for ideally smooth Pan/Zoom effect)

- or don't use it (perfect for other kinds of slide shows) - for 100% reliable work anywhere. Like in previous v4.48

Even if you turned on hardware acceleration, and video card of PC is old and doesn's support it, slide show will automatically use second graphical engine based on CPU calculations only. With Pan/Zoom effects, but slowely of course. We did yesterday first testing of Pan/Zoom effects under this CPU based graphical engine and it gives only 10 FPS. You see that video card much faster than CPU in this question! So Pan/Zoom works ideally only with power of your video card.

Alternative variant - creation of DVD discs wth Pan/Zoom effects in our future PicturesToExe Deluxe.

You can learn and use Visual editor. Even without Pan/Zoom effects it is useful to place text images, subtitles, logos, etc. Visual editor will work anywhere without any problem.

Visual editor will automatically detect your video card and work with hardware acceleration or with CPU calculations only (more slowely).

I suppose we reached maximal reliability possible on modern drivers and hardware in Windows XP.

Microsoft told that they have totally re-worked graphical drivers model in Windows Vista. Because interface of Windows Vista based on DirectX and hardware 3D acceleration and they need 100% reliability anywhere.

After several years when almost all PCs will be installed with future Windows Vista you may forget about this choice and always use mode with hardware acceleration.

[mhwarner]

Thanks for the clarification! Guess I will wait until the final product is released to see what I can do and have a few of my customers try it out. And yes, the new Deluxe version with DVD option sounds great! More and more of my customers are requesting DVDs rather than CDs. I definitely planning on purchasing it when it is available.

[thedom]

Thanks for the clarification! Guess I will wait until the final product is released to see what I can do and have a few of my customers try it out. And yes, the new Deluxe version with DVD option sounds great! More and more of my customers are requesting DVDs rather than CDs. I definitely planning on purchasing it when it is available.

mhwarner,

I plan to start a "business" one day too.

Could you please give me the link to your site ?

And anybody else who have his own "commercial" site...

The most important problems for me are :

- how customers do send their files ?

- how do they pay ?

Thank you for the links and for your advices.

[Ken Cox]

SOME OF THESE ARE COMMERCIAL

SEE

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=87

ken