PTE and Exe slideshows on Intel Mac

[robcad64]

Greetings to every one on this forum,

this is my first post though I have been using PTE for quite a while.

I am so hooked on PTE that at present it is THE only program that is still holding me from switching fully to MAC OSX.

I had read all post about using Virtual PC and so on but have found the performance absolutely unacceptable. BUT BUT BUT I may have found a solution.

This application called Crossover http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/ can allow to run win32 apps within OSX much like wine does for win32 apps under Linux. The performance should be much much improved.

I am currently evaluating it and so far I have been able to install PTE 4.48 and launch an AV prepared as an EXE. I am encountering some problems though.

The AV starts and I hear the audio perfectly but the image sequence is retarded wrt the audio. PTE installs and can be launched but I do not see any window on my screen.

Now to my questions which should probably be addressed to Igor being the developer.

I have to recreate within Crossover the same environment that PTE sees in Windows.

That is, to put the same DDLs and any other system/ini files required/used by PTE and its Slideshow to run, in the environment provided by Crossover (it is called "Bottle").

Problem is I don't know which are all the Win32 system files/dlls which are used by PTE that may be called upon during usage.

Can Igor point out these files?

If this is successful it can be of great use for other MAC users to discover the great program that PTE is!

Many thanks for any help!

Cheers

Roberto

[robcad64]

Welcome Roberto,

I am interested in switching to a Mac duo core as my primary computer when 10.5 and Vista are both available (love unix). I have been reading about bootcamp/parallels and now crossover. For directx support I think it might require bootcamp. I don't know if the Mac graphic cards are as powerful as some of the newer Windows only graphic cards.

There is also Mac software that has some of the features of PTE.

http://fotomagico.com/features/

Hope Igor or PTE5 users with MacXP or MacVista can will post a message about performance.

Tom

Tom thanks for your reply.

DirectX is supported by Crossover but again without knowing which DLL of the Windows API are required by PTE it is difficult to customize a wine bottle for PTE to run well. Actually, the versions of graphics card supported by late Mac Intels are quite powerful and should be more than sufficient to run even vers. 5. But I'll be very happy to get 4.48 working fine.

Actually I have discovered that for independent software developers (Igor in this case) Crossover offers some very interesting way of get an application "certified".

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility

I have also found that PTE is in the database of applications for which a request has been made (I did not request it) so there must be at least two people and now you interested in this!

Thanks for the link. I have seen it and it is nice but it is not on par with PTE.

I hope for a reply from Igor.

We'll see.

Cheers.

Roberto

corrected url

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/)

to

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility

ken

[Igor]

Roberto,

It's a very interesting info! And it would be wonderful if Crossover could support PicturesToExe v4.48 and v5.00 beta. But for this it's necessary that many users of PicturesToExe write to this company and shown several slide shows created in v4.48 and v5.00 beta

1) Concerning created slide show (AV)

If you play only MP3/WAV/MIDI music it doesn't use any DLLs.

If slide show contains WMA/OGG, it extracts wma.dll or ogg.dll to Temp folder of Windows.

For other needs slide shows also use this Temp folder to put configuration file.

2) Main program of PicturesToExe v4.48 (apr.exe) and slide show can work even under pure Windows 95. It means that we use only common functions in Windows and they should exists in Crossover.

Main program use Temp folder and Application Data of current user to put Preview EXE file. For example: C:\Documents and Settings\Igor\Application Data\PicturesToExe\

By the way, did you try slide shows created in v5.00 beta?

For example this: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/show/Flowers.zip (1.6 MB)

[Barry Beckham]

I did quite a bit of work towards writing a book on AV mostly dedicated to PTE, but was surprised that I could not find a publisher to run with it.

Even one who published a previous book of mine on Elements. The reason was that PTE does not run on a Mac.

Now I think the trade (ie print/publishers) think Macs are more popular than they really are because they use them. Less than 3% of the visitors to my web site are Mac users, which is not a high proportion.

Never the less they won't show any interest until PTE runs on a Mac. Anyone who can do this will do us all and Igor a big favour, but if Igor can make PTE a cross platform program it will elivate PTE to greater heights I think.

I am glad a Mac user has such enthusiasm for PTE

Barry

www.beckhamdigital.co.uk

[robcad64]

Interesting information.

A couple of screen captures from the free utility ProcessExplorer that might help show the .dlls in use for 2 different PTE5 shows.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysintern...ssExplorer.mspx

Tom

Tom,

thanks for the screen shots it is helpful I can compare the dlls loaded with the ones on the Crossover Bottle and work my way up.

I have tried using Parallels http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/ which requires you install a working version of Windows (XP in my case) and both PTE 4.48 and its slideshows work very smoothly on my machine with ATI x600 graphics card.

Igor,

I will try version 5 slideshow demo to see the smoothness, but within Parallels which at the moment is the only working solution for me.

Again Crossover would be ideal as it would not require installation of the XP operating system.

If Mac users on this forum would also try it would be great! Also if they would read about Crossover and sponsor PTE as a desirable application to be supported it might make a difference.

Cheers

Roberto

[robcad64]

I did quite a bit of work towards writing a book on AV mostly dedicated to PTE, but was surprised that I could not find a publisher to run with it.

Even one who published a previous book of mine on Elements. The reason was that PTE does not run on a Mac.

Now I think the trade (ie print/publishers) think Macs are more popular than they really are because they use them. Less than 3% of the visitors to my web site are Mac users, which is not a high proportion.

Never the less they won't show any interest until PTE runs on a Mac. Anyone who can do this will do us all and Igor a big favour, but if Igor can make PTE a cross platform program it will elivate PTE to greater heights I think.

I am glad a Mac user has such enthusiasm for PTE

Barry

www.beckhamdigital.co.uk

Hi Barry,

I have bought one of your CD which I found very very useful. I am a relatively new mac user and don't think I have particular bias toward it but I have found that for graphics usage its much more intuitive and frankly I was a bit fed up with windows and its many quirks. Also I like the unix foundations of OSX. Many MAC users of long date are somewhat "affectionate" to the OS which I don't understand since to me its just a tool. Many don't think there can be a killer app like PTE that quality wise is superior to sw which costs hundreds and hundreds of euros (final cut pro, adobe premiere etc...) . If they could see the quality of PTE they would be hooked. But it is true that in the print/publishing trade macs are more popular.

Thanks

Roberto

[robcad64]

Hi Igor,

thanks for your reply.

Roberto,

It's a very interesting info! And it would be wonderful if Crossover could support PicturesToExe v4.48 and v5.00 beta. But for this it's necessary that many users of PicturesToExe write to this company and shown several slide shows created in v4.48 and v5.00 beta

I hope the MAC users interested in PTE will write to Codeweavers to ask support.

1) Concerning created slide show (AV)

If you play only MP3/WAV/MIDI music it doesn't use any DLLs.

If slide show contains WMA/OGG, it extracts wma.dll or ogg.dll to Temp folder of Windows.

For other needs slide shows also use this Temp folder to put configuration file.

Yes this is not a problem. Audio can be heard perfectly.

2) Main program of PicturesToExe v4.48 (apr.exe) and slide show can work even under pure Windows 95. It means that we use only common functions in Windows and they should exists in Crossover.

Main program use Temp folder and Application Data of current user to put Preview EXE file. For example: C:\Documents and Settings\Igor\Application Data\PicturesToExe\

these folders are created by Crossover under another path but should be accessible to the application under the environment.

The program installs but when I run it I get an error report and a dump from wine. I am not a expert and I don't know what to do with this. It seems the dlls are loaded but there is a page fault on a read access...

By the way, did you try slide shows created in v5.00 beta?

For example this: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/show/Flowers.zip (1.6 MB)

I have tried with Parallels which is similar to virtual PC but much better and much faster. Unfortunately the ver5 show does not load I get a data error report for a stack overflow... :-( No problem whatsoever with ver. 4.48 shows and program.

Cheers

Roberto