Loss of transitions in exe when moved from Vista to XP

[apcranswick]

I have just bought PTE 5.1 and loaded it to Vista. In spite of some warnings I had seen about using it on Vista, everything I have tried (given I am a novice) seems to be working. I have just created my first exe for a competition and since my laptop usually ends up connected to the projector, transferred it to try it there. Not very successful: none of the fade transitions work and most of the other transitions do not work, but some do. The pans and zooms are also largely not working. Music slide timing is fine. My laptop runs XP with an integrated graphics controller using shared memory. My desktop runs Vista business with a separate graphics controller. I have seen some comments about problems with graphics controllers; is this likely to be the problem?

Any help would be appreciated as I need to get it working by Thursday.

Many thanks.

[Barry Beckham]

Alex

I am not sure I can really pin down your problem, but I switched to Vista Business recently and have not experienced anything like you describe. It doesn't sound like a Vista issue to me, but one with a solution on your machine I expect.

Does the show run OK on your new Vista Machine?

Is you laptop old ?

If so, it could be that it is just not up to the rigors of PTE5 and animation.

Run your completed show on your Vista machine, if it runs OK on that, the laptop is your problem.

If so try updating the graphics card drivers of you can locate some. That may not be easy if the laptop is old

[fh1805]

Alex,

This is not going to help you solve your problem but it may head off other problems before they arise. In the world of computers it is always better to build on the lowest spec machine. Then, when you transfer that work to a higher spec machine it will usually perform OK. Building on the high spec machine and then expecting it to work OK on a lower spec one is always going to be prone to unexpected problems.

[tomg]

I have just bought PTE 5.1 and loaded it to Vista. In spite of some warnings I had seen about using it on Vista, everything I have tried (given I am a novice) seems to be working. I have just created my first exe for a competition and since my laptop usually ends up connected to the projector, transferred it to try it there. Not very successful: none of the fade transitions work and most of the other transitions do not work, but some do. The pans and zooms are also largely not working. Music slide timing is fine. My laptop runs XP with an integrated graphics controller using shared memory. My desktop runs Vista business with a separate graphics controller. I have seen some comments about problems with graphics controllers; is this likely to be the problem?

Any help would be appreciated as I need to get it working by Thursday.

Many thanks.

Alex,

We discussed this issue at length a month or so ago. I think the basic problem is that Vista is resource hungry and to run PTE successfully you need a good graphics card and plenty of memory. The technical manager at my local PC World store said to me, as a generalisation, that where you could get away with 1Gb of RAM with XP, you need 2Gb with Vista. Having said this, Igor did say that he was working on "a fix" - something to do with using PTE in windowed mode. Microsoft have admitted that XP has problems with a number of graphics programmes ( including PTE) and I understood that they were planning to issue a service pack to address the issue. I bought an Vista laptop for my camera club : I thought it had a decent spec but it suffers from the Vista/ PTE issue.

Regards,

Tom

[apcranswick]

I have just bought PTE 5.1 and loaded it to Vista. In spite of some warnings I had seen about using it on Vista, everything I have tried (given I am a novice) seems to be working. I have just created my first exe for a competition and since my laptop usually ends up connected to the projector, transferred it to try it there. Not very successful: none of the fade transitions work and most of the other transitions do not work, but some do. The pans and zooms are also largely not working. Music slide timing is fine. My laptop runs XP with an integrated graphics controller using shared memory. My desktop runs Vista business with a separate graphics controller. I have seen some comments about problems with graphics controllers; is this likely to be the problem?

Any help would be appreciated as I need to get it working by Thursday.

Many thanks.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Tom,

XP has no problems with PTE at all. Any problems running a particular show on XP are hardware centric. Vista machines "usually" have more powerful graphics cards which "can" be of significant value. The clue to this problem by the OP is "integrated graphics" and "shared resources".

Bottom line is that the notebook he has isn't up to the task of running a show which stresses the graphics environment beyond propriety for the hardware available.

The solution, I'm afraid, is a new notebook, one with sufficient video to handle the PZR and probably size of files he is using.

Best regards,

Lin

Alex,

We discussed this issue at length a month or so ago. I think the basic problem is that Vista is resource hungry and to run PTE successfully you need a good graphics card and plenty of memory. The technical manager at my local PC World store said to me, as a generalisation, that where you could get away with 1Gb of RAM with XP, you need 2Gb with Vista. Having said this, Igor did say that he was working on "a fix" - something to do with using PTE in windowed mode. Microsoft have admitted that XP has problems with a number of graphics programmes ( including PTE) and I understood that they were planning to issue a service pack to address the issue. I bought an Vista laptop for my camera club : I thought it had a decent spec but it suffers from the Vista/ PTE issue.

Regards,

Tom

[tomg]

Hi all,

I guess it was obvious but I incorrectly refered to Microsoft saying XP had a problem with some graphics programmes. I meant Vista of course.

Tom

[JEB]

Hi Tom,

I'm not qualified to contribute anything more than has been said by the previous responders all of whom are stating previously discussed and well proven facts.

However there MAY be a possible temporary, short term and less expensive solution.

You state yourself to be a novice so forgive me if I ask you if you, have downsized your images to something like 1024 x 768 at about quality 6? If not and you are working with images directly from your camera downsizing could make a big difference.

Others may wish to comment lest I have given you false hope.

All the best

John

[tomg]

Hi John,

I do crop down to VGA size, except for the odd image that I want to pan or zoom. In my case PTE works more or less with Vista - it's just that some EXE files hang at the end, when they are programmed to go back to the desktop. There is also a slight stuttering with some of the transitions. Another problem, not related to PTE, is that the calibration profile for the Vista laptop takes an age to appear - unlike my XP laptop. I've calibrated both laptops using a Spyder3.

Regards,

Tom

[fh1805]

Tom,

When you say the EXE files hang at the end. Are these ones that you created using v4 under XP and are now trying to run under Vista? If so it's a known problem for which Igor has produced a fix. Search the forum using "v4.49" (without the quotes) to find his post about this fix.

[apcranswick]

Thanks for all the replies - I forgot to add that I had tried the exe on the Vista machine (bought Jan 08) first and it was fine. The laptop is a couple of years old with 768Mb, of which 128Mb is used for the graphics. I often run Photoshop, Faststone and Neat Image on it simultaneously with no problems and I have also run PowerPoint presentations with complex transitions and video, so I wasn't expecting serious issues when running a single exe. I have tried it on another XP desktop now and it nearly works; most of the transitions are there, but they are shorter than they should be and not smooth. So I have three PCs and three results;

Desktop (Jan 08): Vista Dual core 2.3GHz 2GB RAM 128Mb graphics card – result OK, but some of the pans could be smoother

Desktop (Jan 07): XP 2.9GHz 1Gb RAM 128Mb graphics card – All transitions present, but some curtailed and jerkier

Laptop (Dec 05): XP 1.6GHz 768Mb RAM shared with 128Mb integrated graphics – All fading transitions missing except first and last ones, some other transitions missing, zooms and pans present but curtailed.

So PTE does need a lot of resource to achieve its results. I have to say I am surprised that a 1.6Ghz machine even with an integrated graphics card can not handle the transitions, especially since a PowerPoint autorun slideshow can handle similar sized images and transitions with no problems – it doesn’t do the music, pan and zooms so well however and is difficult to synchronise. I will try downsizing the images that are not panned and zoomed and see if that makes a difference.

[bwat]

Thanks for all the replies - I forgot to add that I had tried the exe on the Vista machine (bought Jan 08) first and it was fine. The laptop is a couple of years old with 768Mb, of which 128Mb is used for the graphics. I often run Photoshop, Faststone and Neat Image on it simultaneously with no problems and I have also run PowerPoint presentations with complex transitions and video, so I wasn't expecting serious issues when running a single exe. I have tried it on another XP desktop now and it nearly works; most of the transitions are there, but they are shorter than they should be and not smooth. So I have three PCs and three results;

Desktop (Jan 08): Vista Dual core 2.3GHz 2GB RAM 128Mb graphics card – result OK, but some of the pans could be smoother

Desktop (Jan 07): XP 2.9GHz 1Gb RAM 128Mb graphics card – All transitions present, but some curtailed and jerkier

Laptop (Dec 05): XP 1.6GHz 768Mb RAM shared with 128Mb integrated graphics – All fading transitions missing except first and last ones, some other transitions missing, zooms and pans present but curtailed.

So PTE does need a lot of resource to achieve its results. I have to say I am surprised that a 1.6Ghz machine even with an integrated graphics card can not handle the transitions, especially since a PowerPoint autorun slideshow can handle similar sized images and transitions with no problems – it doesn’t do the music, pan and zooms so well however and is difficult to synchronise. I will try downsizing the images that are not panned and zoomed and see if that makes a difference.

Hi

Have just found this topic when searching for an answer to my problem and they may be related. I have downloaded some templates from The Dom Sharing Group but find that althouigh they run Ok on my Vista machine any exe file produced from them with not run an Ap machines (have tried it on three differnt computers). The animation is ferky and finally just grinds to a halt. This is particulary so using the '10 Card TPL'.

I similarly use my Xp laptop connected to a projector for AV shows which is a Dell 5150 with 1GB ram and a NVIDA GeForce 258k video card.

I would have liked to incorporate some of The Dom templates into my shows and was considering purchase of others to give added variation and interest but if they will not run on Xp this is out of the question.

Are advanced animations impossible to run on Xp or is it a local problem to me.

[Lin Evans]

It's not an XP issue, it's an issue of resources. If you are using some of Dom's more advanced animations it takes a decent video card to handle the motion smoothly, especially if you are using larger images. The problem is that many older laptops simply do not have the video power to handle the animations. The amount of video RAM isn't the issue, it's the GPU (graphical processing unit). Top nVidia cards have no problems with even 128 meg of RAM but many of them used in laptops just don't have enough power to run the animations smoothly.

Again, it has nothing to do with XP. "Any" animations done in PTE will run perfectly under XP or Vista providing there is sufficient resources for the type animation "and" size of images.

Create your shows on the XP machine and pay particular attention to the size of the original images. Some of the most sophisticated animations possible have been created with older XP machines with only 32 meg video cards but the authors pay particular attention to the RAM requirements and don't try to load large original images. Keep in mind when you are creating PNG files that the transparent areas are not "empty" but are very much part of file size. For example, create a small PNG object with a large transparent background and the same but trim all excess transparency. Compare the file sizes and you will be very surprised.

I created two thirty two piece puzzle samples to point this out. They each have nearly identical total file sizes as executable but one will run on virtually "any" PC while the other taxes even the extremely powerful video cards. The difference is that in one the puzzle pieces have all excess transparency trimmed and the other uses full size frames but nearly all transparency with the only visible part being the puzzle pieces. When these files are compressed they have virtually the same size but when they expand in memory the differences are tremendous.

The way compression works is not always understood well. For example, let's say you have a jpg file which is 4000x3000 pixels but only 1.5 megabytes in size. When that file is loaded into memory it expands to the identical size as an 8 bit tiff of the same pixel dimensions. It could easily end up being as large as 12 megabytes. So the user loads a few of these as objects thinking that not too much memory is required but when they expand in memory to the full 8 bit uncompressed size the memory requirements overwhelm the video. The secret then for running a smooth PTE show on a limited resource computer is to keep the file dimensions in pixels (not file size in megabytes) down to 1024x768 or so.

The "secret" then is to prepare your slideshow on the "weaker" computer rather than on the Vista computer which has greater resources. If if runs smoothly on the resource challenged computer it will work fine on the other.

Again - it has absolutely "nothing" to do with XP or Vista but with available resources, pixel dimension, etc.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi

Have just found this topic when searching for an answer to my problem and they may be related. I have downloaded some templates from The Dom Sharing Group but find that althouigh they run Ok on my Vista machine any exe file produced from them with not run an Ap machines (have tried it on three differnt computers). The animation is ferky and finally just grinds to a halt. This is particulary so using the '10 Card TPL'.

I similarly use my Xp laptop connected to a projector for AV shows which is a Dell 5150 with 1GB ram and a NVIDA GeForce 258k video card.

I would have liked to incorporate some of The Dom templates into my shows and was considering purchase of others to give added variation and interest but if they will not run on Xp this is out of the question.

Are advanced animations impossible to run on Xp or is it a local problem to me.

[bwat]

It's not an XP issue, it's an issue of resources. If you are using some of Dom's more advanced animations it takes a decent video card to handle the motion smoothly, especially if you are using larger images. The problem is that many older laptops simply do not have the video power to handle the animations. The amount of video RAM isn't the issue, it's the GPU (graphical processing unit). Top nVidia cards have no problems with even 128 meg of RAM but many of them used in laptops just don't have enough power to run the animations smoothly.

Again, it has nothing to do with XP. "Any" animations done in PTE will run perfectly under XP or Vista providing there is sufficient resources for the type animation "and" size of images.

Create your shows on the XP machine and pay particular attention to the size of the original images. Some of the most sophisticated animations possible have been created with older XP machines with only 32 meg video cards but the authors pay particular attention to the RAM requirements and don't try to load large original images. Keep in mind when you are creating PNG files that the transparent areas are not "empty" but are very much part of file size. For example, create a small PNG object with a large transparent background and the same but trim all excess transparency. Compare the file sizes and you will be very surprised.

I created two thirty two piece puzzle samples to point this out. They each have nearly identical total file sizes as executable but one will run on virtually "any" PC while the other taxes even the extremely powerful video cards. The difference is that in one the puzzle pieces have all excess transparency trimmed and the other uses full size frames but nearly all transparency with the only visible part being the puzzle pieces. When these files are compressed they have virtually the same size but when they expand in memory the differences are tremendous.

The way compression works is not always understood well. For example, let's say you have a jpg file which is 4000x3000 pixels but only 1.5 megabytes in size. When that file is loaded into memory it expands to the identical size as an 8 bit tiff of the same pixel dimensions. It could easily end up being as large as 12 megabytes. So the user loads a few of these as objects thinking that not too much memory is required but when they expand in memory to the full 8 bit uncompressed size the memory requirements overwhelm the video. The secret then for running a smooth PTE show on a limited resource computer is to keep the file dimensions in pixels (not file size in megabytes) down to 1024x768 or so.

The "secret" then is to prepare your slideshow on the "weaker" computer rather than on the Vista computer which has greater resources. If if runs smoothly on the resource challenged computer it will work fine on the other.

Again - it has absolutely "nothing" to do with XP or Vista but with available resources, pixel dimension, etc.

Best regards,

Lin

Thanks Lin. This is an important point as my AV Shows (outside of home) are usually shown on Camera Clubs equipment. Certainly my Clubs laptop is a poorer specification to mine and I suspect most Clubs laptops have been a conpromise on price/specification without much chance of them being upgraded due to the restricted finances generally of Clubs.

I have successfully used some templates as 'introductions' to shows and launching 'menus'. I will test future templates on my Xp laptop before spending any time on adapting them for my use.

Thanks again

bwat

[Conflow]

Alex,

Just a 'quik' reply to your query concerning your Laptop XP and the PTE Program and to stop you chasing

your tail...Lin Evans is quite correct.

You Wrote:-

"....Laptop (Dec 05): XP 1.6GHz 768Mb RAM shared with 128Mb integrated graphics – All fading transitions

missing except first and last ones, some other transitions missing, etc,etc..."

Some 'quik' Maths:

768Mb.Ram - 128 for Graphics Card (if used)= 640.Mb - 256 for Op.System = 380mB Reserve Ram.

Sorry, thats too small, you need at least 1.Gb of RAM (Overhead) to run Pte 5.1 and all other devices.

Looks to me as if the Laptop came with 512.Mb RAM and you bought the extra 256.Mb Memory Card....

Change the 256.Mb Card for a 512.Mb Card or better still a two 1.Gb Cards, and all should be OK.

(Check Spec Sheet to see if it supports 2 x 1.Gb Cards)

Buying Memory today is still cheaper than buying a New Laptop.

Brian.Conflow.

[Guest Dick Le Bleu]

Been there done that... Nothing significant to add, but I have also experienced this. Any PZR effects really exercise the graphics controller. I was doing a slide show of mostly portrait images, and to make better use of the screen, I was creating two image slides appearing side by side... Nothing fancy - just simple fades using opacity changes.

Result on the notebook was a flickering image appearance, just like a movie film being shown at slower frame rate.

My only solution was to discontinue PZR, and show the images one at a time, side my side. Pity I could not hold them together but with long transition times the effect was similar. Result was very fine, but no fancy effects.

As Brian suggested, it could also have been memory starvation - I only have 256mb on the notebook. But I try to use images at 1024X768 to minimize file sizes.

Dick

[bwat]

Been there done that... Nothing significant to add, but I have also experienced this. Any PZR effects really exercise the graphics controller. I was doing a slide show of mostly portrait images, and to make better use of the screen, I was creating two image slides appearing side by side... Nothing fancy - just simple fades using opacity changes.

Result on the notebook was a flickering image appearance, just like a movie film being shown at slower frame rate.

My only solution was to discontinue PZR, and show the images one at a time, side my side. Pity I could not hold them together but with long transition times the effect was similar. Result was very fine, but no fancy effects.

As Brian suggested, it could also have been memory starvation - I only have 256mb on the notebook. But I try to use images at 1024X768 to minimize file sizes.

Dick

Further to Lin's explanation of the graphics resources above I have reduced the length of the Cards template and it will run ok with up to 5 cards, with 6 it sticks. It will also run ok when pasted at the beginning of one of my existing AV shows consisting of 65 slides at 5 sec display and fade effect. I can then use animation effects as an introduction at the beginning of shows but need to ensure that I do not 'overload' the graphics resources.

I had previously thought that once a slide had 'closed' in the sequence it did not continue to use graphics resources. This would appear not to be the case and that resources are tied up until completion of the entire show. Also it indicates the amount of resource required for animation.

Thanks to everybody using this Forum, it is a wealth of information and help particularly to relative novices like me.

Regards

bwat

[Guest Dick Le Bleu]

Further to Lin's explanation of the graphics resources above I have reduced the length of the Cards template and it will run ok with up to 5 cards, with 6 it sticks. It will also run ok when pasted at the beginning of one of my existing AV shows consisting of 65 slides at 5 sec display and fade effect. I can then use animation effects as an introduction at the beginning of shows but need to ensure that I do not 'overload' the graphics resources.

I had previously thought that once a slide had 'closed' in the sequence it did not continue to use graphics resources. This would appear not to be the case and that resources are tied up until completion of the entire show. Also it indicates the amount of resource required for animation.

Interesting! In my opinion this sounds like problems in the delivery chain somewhere? Images are not arriving fast enough for the graphic system to display them? Perhaps memory or hard drive limitations? As I understand it, the graphic controller is just given a block of memory to display, and it will show what ever is there. If this block of memory is not refreshed fast enough well...

Dick