Igor

Ray, Thanks, probably I can improve this fix in this case.

Al, Please say me what date of your ATI drivers? (Control Panel | System | Device Manager | Video card, Drivers tab)

Al, Thanks for details! Yes you discovered one case which I couldn't fix - when use together adjusting of gamma/brightness/contrast in ATI control panel and in Adobe Gamma, and other calibration tools. It happens because ATI control panel uses alternate ways to change gamma and no way to determine who changed gamma last time - ATI control panel or Adobe Gamma loader. The problem not in Adobe Gamma, but in ATI control panel and in ATI drivers. How you consider can we include this fix to PicturesToExe in its current state if it can cure gamma settings in all other cases?

Al, As I've understood color shift occurs in versions 5.0, 5.1 and special test slideshow? In other words new ATI gamma fix doesn't make it worse that it was before? It helped cure gamma on other ATI video cards and no effect on one ATI video card?

I consider that Geforce 7400 with shared video memory is an entry-level videocard for PicturesToExe and to get perfect playback of Pan/Zoom effect it better to prefer at least Geforce 7600 and that's also important - with onboard video memory. Windows Vista also will not work enough fast on Geforce 7400.

Mary, Yes, I adjusted manual advance mode and right mouse key for a next slide in this slideshow.

Thanks for testing! That all what I can do with bug in ATI drivers. Al, Please run Test_ATI_gamma_fix.exe and press Win button on the keyboard. Do you see shift in colors? Then click left mouse button on a slide (it will switch back to exclusive fullscreen mode). In slideshows created with v5.1 Beta or earlier you could see color shift when you pressed Win button. Now with test slideshow Test_ATI_gamma_fix.exe no shift should occur on ATI video card with calibrated display. Fred, You can solve even this problem if you set to default colors in ATI Control panel (for both modes - Desktop and Fullscreen applications) and restart Windows.

If you have ATI video card please help us with testing of new version of PicturesToExe which will solve old bug of ATI drivers with incorrect color gamma on calibrated displays under Windows XP only. Please read this topic: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7674 I very need to learn: - How it works on calibrated displays (where earlier was a problem) - And how it works on non-calibrated displays (where v5.xx always worked fine).

We prepared internal version of PicturesToExe which should fix this problem with gamma on ATI video cards. I publish EXE file of slideshow which should has same gamma as on desktop. Also you'll find inside source files of this slideshow and you can compare images and create this EXE file in current version of PicturesToExe where problem with gamma exists. http://www.wnsoft.com/test/ATIGammaTest.zip (1 MB) If all will be fine, we'll publish beta version of PicturesToExe with this fix. I will very grateful for your responses.

xahu34, Probably these products don't use exclusive fullscreen mode, just a simulated fullscreen as we used in old version 4.48?

Markus, Yes, exactly! We can save gamma settings before activating of the fullscreen mode and when ATI drivers corrupted it, load gamma profile back. The task a little complicated by a fact that ATI additionally suggests alternate desktop gamma settings and fullscreen gamma settings in ATI control panel. We have to correctly handle all these combinations of color settings. Please test special beta when I publish me, it is important to test how it will work with Pantone software.

There are good news. After reading of your message today I've experimented again with ATI settings and fullscreen mode and probably I will able to cure this ATI problem. I better understand now how ATI damages gamma settings and I can restore damaged gamma for fullscreen mode of slideshow. If my testing during next a couple of days confirms success, I'll publish the public beta for more wide testing. This problem happens only under Windows XP on ATI video cards with fullscreen slideshows (hardware accelleration). It is definitely an ATI bug. Please visit this topic next days to download special beta version later.

Yes, unaccelerated slideshow doesn't require DirectX for graphics, but we use DirectX for sound output even if you didn't add music (internal sound based timer). For sound we need DirectX 6.1 or later. Version 6.1 included to Windows 98SE, Me. If you set "Use hardware acceleration (D3D)" option, slideshow will try to use DirectX for graphics and if video card has 16 MB or lesser video memory, slideshow will not use DirectX for graphics. If you uncheck "Use hardware acceleration" slideshow never use DirectX for graphics. DirectX 8.1 is a minimal requirement for hardware acceleration of graphics in slideshow. It seems to be a bug on Windows 95/98 with very old version of DirectX (6.0 or earlier). We'll try to solve this problem, and slideshow will play, but without sound and it will show warning message "Please install latest version of DirectX".

I agree and I've added it to my TODO list. Probably it will be realized in the next version 5.2

We plan completely solve this problem in future versions (5.3) even when you don't use rasterizing to PNG option.

Tom, I would like to suggest use PteShow as benchmark: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/show/PteShow_sources.zip (8 MB, sources) PteShow (1:26) VideoBuilder in PicturesToExe 5.1 Choose "Create MPEG2 files" only option and DVD menu disabled. - Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66 GHz), 2 GB RAM, NVIDIA Geforce 8600GT 512 MB, Windows XP SP2 TV System: PAL 0:46 - AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 1 GB RAM, NVIDIA Geforce 6800 128 MB, Windows XP SP2 TV System: PAL 2:06 - AMD Athlon 1600+, 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128 MB, Windows XP SP2 TV System: PAL 3:56

All in the next version 5.2 I will rework timeline.

If you plan to buy a new laptop, I recommend Geforce 8500/8600 or 7600 with 128 MB on board video memory.

Ray, I plan in late 2008.

Regrettably Geforce 5200 is a slow video card for Pan/Zoom effects. Geforce 5500 could provide ideal playback of animation.

Beta 10 http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr-deluxe_beta.zip (4 MB) + Added "Offset" parameter to "Advanced hour hand" effect in properties of a slide. p.s. this parameter was presented in Project options | Effects, but not in individual settings of a slide.

Please write on English language. I can't reply you on French, sorry.

If you transfer slideshow to AVI format, there should be no difference between v4.48 and v5.x because final result will be in fixed video format. Probably you created AVI file (in temporal AVI codec) and watched it in media player? In this case it was not true fixed video file and had to convert it to DivX or MPEG4 final AVI file. Also you can use VideoBuilder to create perfect DVD-Video disc or as MPEG2 files.

VideoBuilder in PicturesToExe 5.1 utilizies up to two cores of CPU. Quad core CPUs will be used in future versions when VideoBuilder will create HD-DVD/Blu-Ray discs. Tom, As I've understood you used integrated video card and fast dual-core CPU? In this case CPU waits video card. If you use fast CPU, you need to use enough fast video card to load fast CPU. For very fast CPU, as Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66 GHz, it should be at least Geforce 8600GT 256 MB. I think no real need to use SLI video cards for PicturesToExe. This video system extremally fast and will wait work of CPU. But there are no 4 GHz dual-core CPUs at this moment and SLI video cards will not work in full power.

Beta 9: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr-deluxe_beta.zip (4 MB) * Fixed bug in VideoBuilder with customizing DVD menu from own template. Limey, It fixes the bug you've found. Thanks!