slow running .exe file

[dofminster]

I have a sequence of 30 slides, all with animations of some sort. When run via preview they all run quite happily, but when converted to an .exe file the show hangs up for about 30 secs on always the same slide, just about halfway through, and then restarts two slides later, having missed out about 30 secs. It would appear that some part is taking too long to load and the time schedule just misses it out. Any ideas ?

[JEB]

Dofminster,

This sounds very like your images are too big.

Have you resized them since taking them off your camera?

What size are they typically?

Regards

John

[leroyvanhee]

I have a sequence of 30 slides, all with animations of some sort. When run via preview they all run quite happily, but when converted to an .exe file the show hangs up for about 30 secs on always the same slide, just about halfway through, and then restarts two slides later, having missed out about 30 secs. It would appear that some part is taking too long to load and the time schedule just misses it out. Any ideas ?

I've had similar problems playing the slideshow from the cd drive the first time played. Playing it a second time was not interupted. I also tried playing the exe file from the harddrive on my old laptop. It also had inturruptions the first time through. The second play was ok. On my newer desktop, it plays ok from the harddrive the first time.

I think there is a problem loading some buffer that causes inturuptions. When the program is transferred to RAM (during the first run) it doesn't encounter the same buffer. At least that my take on it.

[fh1805]

LeRoy,

I go along with John on this; it sounds as though your image files are too large for the available resources in your PC. I've been using PTE for three years now; and I have never encountered anything like this problem except when using deliberately large files during attempts to recreate problems reported by other members of the forum.

What size (in pixels by pixels) are your images, typically?

regards,

Peter

[leroyvanhee]

LeRoy,

I go along with John on this; it sounds as though your image files are too large for the available resources in your PC. I've been using PTE for three years now; and I have never encountered anything like this problem except when using deliberately large files during attempts to recreate problems reported by other members of the forum.

What size (in pixels by pixels) are your images, typically?

regards,

Peter

I agree that the problem gets worse with large files, but you need large files to zoom/pan without loosing resolution. That is, the smallest part of the photo that will be displayed fullscreen should have enough pixels to view good definition. Also, if the panning and/or zooming is rapid, the required bit-rate is very high. The question is how much data can the CD drive process in an uninterpretable stream? Is this the same for all hardware configurations/speed? Does this maximum change when the slideshow is run from the harddrive? Does it change the second time the exe is played?

I think what you're saying is that if it doesn't work, the file must be too big. I'm saying there's no maximum file size except the limitations of your hardware.

[fh1805]

In a sense you are right: the hardware can be a limiting factor. And therefore the sequence needs to be built taking that into account. A CD is just about the worst media on which you could store a PTE sequence - from the point of view of speed of access. A USB memory device is a much better option - it is only marginally slower than your hard-drive. I don't have any detailed technical information to hand to give precise numbers but if Brian (userid =Conflow) reads this post I'm sure he'll be able to give us all the precise details.

I would think that all computers these days buffer their data. By this I mean that the data from, let's say, your hard-drive is read into an area of memory called a cache. The operating system will keep the most recently referenced/most frequently referenced data in the cache in order to improve access times and thus give you, the user, a quicker response. This cache is not infinite in size. Some of it may exist in the disk controller hardware; some of it may exist in main memory. So, if your system is at all memory constrained you will suffer a performance level that is sub-optimal because you cache will be constrained in size, too.

Also, when your file is read into memory the first time around there may well be a virus check run on it. If, on the second run, the file is still in memory/cache the virus check might not take place again.

By keeping the file size no larger than absolutely necessary you reduce the impact of these, and other, adverse factors.

regards,

Peter