Igor

Gareth, What video card used in your laptop? If it's an integrated graphical solution and overall system memory 256 MB, video card might take 64 MB for own needs, so you have only 192 MB of system memory in slide show. 1) First possible reason - lack of video memory. 2) Lack of system memory. Or both reasons together. To handle very large images in slide show it's necessary to have NVIDIA or ATI video card. Newest laptops with integraded graphical card based on Intel 965 platform (codename "Santa Rosa") also should be enough fast. p.s. Lin adviced very well solution for this particular image which will keep same high quality and smoothness of animation on your laptop.

Lin, I also was not able reproduce this problem even with EXE file KGHalbe sent me. By the way, using of "Desaturate" action in Photoshop to make grayscale image give not perfect result. Because it just removes color information without analyse of color components. Green, Red and Blue colors have different brightness in our eye. So true converting color image to grayscale should know about this moment and sets different brightness. It's interesting, but calling "Grayscale" option and then back "RGB" will do correct converting to grayscale image. Please look on attached screenshot: p.s. PixBuilder Studio performs correct converting to grayscale image.

Al, It's because in v4.48 slide show ignores time for loading of images (not synchronize mode): Loading 1st slide + time of slide + Loading of 2nd slide + time of this slide, etc. In v5.0 slides show exactly specified time as you see on the timeline.

Dave, Amazed! Without your help I couldn't solve this problem! Please say me - this problem happened only with grayscaled JPEGs saved in Photoshop 7 or with later versions, too? And this bug occured in v5.00 only or in v4.48, too?

Al, v4.48 renders simple slide with main image faster than version 5.0, because in old version it always fully opaque rectangular image which can be quickly copies to the screen. In the new version slide may contains animated objects, semi-transparent images - rendering of such potentially complex slide a little more long process. We can't write individual codes for every case, we have to use universal code. Version 5.0 still small 270 KB slide engine with built in support of JPEG, MP3, PNG, BMP, GIF. And two graphical engines. All Pan/Zoom effects and other code in 270 KB of code. Main purpose of PicturesToExe - displaying of slide show with usual time interval - several seconds and Pan/Zoom effects. And I hope version 5.0 operates well for this task. p.s. Probably you're still using old Pre-Release build, log file says that it is not latest version.

Al, Please add additional parameter: effective-av_5-0.exe -log -frametimes And send me again log file. Also let me know what screen resolution you use? Absolutely right because compressed log in ZIP in 4-20 times smaller.

Al, Thanks, I created two EXE files in v4.48 and version 5.0 from your project files. I see identical results in both variants - no skipping of slides and same smoothness. You can test speed of loading of slides. Start notepad. Type: effective-av_5-0.exe -log Save this file as "Log.bat" Run this bat file, after closing of the slide show you will find log file created in this folder. Preload time means time spent for loading of a slide. p.s. please don't forget to use newest Pre-Release version published yesterday. It contains vast optimizations for transition effects when hardware acceleration disabled.

I think overall value of FPS you will reach same in v4.48 and 5.0 (just v4.48's slide show plays longer). In v4.48 you may have difficulties with synchronization of slides to music for this task. Probably v4.48 better for this task. But in v4.48 you can't use Pan/Zoom effects

Al, I would like to correct my previous posting. There is major difference in behaviour of version 5.00 and v4.48. In old version if set close interval between slides (say 10 ms) PicturesToExe shown all slides, but duration of slide show was much longer than duration of a slide x number of slides. For example if you show should be 1 minute, it could take 3 minutes. Opposite version 5.0's slide show works exactly specified time. But if it can't load all slides in time, it skips some slides. For this reason, (even when Hardware acceleration not used) you may thought that version 5.0 loads slides in 5 times longer that v4.48, but it's not so.

Al, Version 5.0 converts GIFs to 32-bit format (almost as PNG). I suspect that very well optimized GIF smaller than our format. But in other cases size of an EXE file should be same. Slide slide engine of version 5.0 is 276 KB in v4.48 - 250 KB. Unfortunately it's impossible to create well optimized engine for such different tasks. If we optimized it for Pan/Zoom effects with ideally smooth animation, we couldn't optimize it for fast show of slides.

Al, Thank you! I only would like to recommend use only PNG for text. Because high quality text has smooth edges and only 32-bit PNG image can keep partially semi-transparent edges of a text. Transparent GIF is a very limited storage for a text and it gives such artefacts as aliasing on edges, especially noticable when you use animation.

Today I discovered that the most popular cracks/discussion forum in Russia (about 2500 new messages every day in various topics dedicated to particular products) contains a topic "PicturesToExe" which is pinned to the top of a forum (no other pinned topics for other products). Cracks published in this topic are not fully workable so it's not a problem, but I think we will see new customers soon. Thanks to this funny "advertisment".

I think VMWare, Virtual PC and Paralles will provide much faster work of graphics in emulation of Windows soon. Because they want to support new 3D graphical interface of Windows Vista which uses DirectX 9.

Of course! p.s. I move this topic to "Ideas and suggestions"

Harry, Please try updated Pre-Release version: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr-deluxe.zip (4 MB) We fixed those problem with Windows 98 and slow graphical engine. Igor,

PicturesToExe Deluxe 5.0 Pre-Release: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr-deluxe.zip (4 MB) Updated: June 15, 2007 Final Release scheduled for Monday. New features in PicturesToExe Deluxe 5.0 http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4327 What new in Pre-Release * Fixed bug with slow work of transition effects (Fade in/out and others) in second CPU based graphical engine (when "Hardware acceleration" option disabled, or on PCs with slow video cards). Now it should work as in v4.48 * Fixed bug when slide shows created with previous betas of version 5.0 didn't work under Windows 95/98. Please post bug-reports in special topic: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6455

It is defined in the code of PicturesToExe, not in .ini file, sorry. I added this moment to my TODO list and you will able customize such parameters in the next version.

Hartmut, Thank you for letting me know about this problem! 1) Please try to encode another small slide shows (say several slides, 10-20 seconds). Will this problem occur now? If no, please send us all files of these 3 slides shows your added for this DVD. Or at least .pte project files. 2) Also please send me screenshot of a third page of VideoBuilder with burn settings (where you press Start button to start encoding DVD) 3) Please try to again burn this DVD with these 3 projects. Start VideoBuilder, press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Q you'll see a window with special settings. Set checked "Save DVD.XML" option, click OK button. Now try to create DVD as you did previous time. When program will show an error, close VideoBuilder and open temp folder in Explorer: C:\Users\Hartmut\AppData\Local\Temp In this folder you'll find DVD.XML file. Please send it to me. 4) Make sure that you have enough free space on disc C: Your DVD required at least 3 GB of free space. p.s. I sent you PM message.

24 minutes of slide show on DVD. 1 second = about 0.9 MB. 1440 seconds x 0.9 MB = 1.2 GB VideoBuilder also creates temp files and overall free space required about 2.4 GB in your case.

Harry, With your help I found the bug with Windows 98 in time (it could be terrible discover it after publishing of version 5.0). Also we'll add vast optimization of transition effects in this second CPU based graphical engine. We'll prepare new Pre-Release build on Wednesday. I believe that all will be work and you will feel better!

Prashant, This slide show created with v4.48 There is only one case when slide show created in v4.48 stops on a first slide. When no sound card installed or it disabled. Slide shows created in version 5.0 always play with or without sound card.

1) Please let me know - what exact beta version you used for your slide show? 2) What version of Windows on PCs of those people where it didn't work? If Windows 98, we know about this problem and it will be fixed very soon. Please ask them try to run this slide show: http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/show/PteShow.zip (8 MB) 3) I couldn't download your slide show, the download URL doesn't work.

Do you have "Auto spread slide along music" option enabled in "Customize Synchronization | Timeline" window? If no, please attach to your message .pte project file.

Harry, You're right, slide shows (fullscreen) created in latest beta versions don't work under Windows 98. We'll fix this bug soon.

Cor, Thanks, I just asked update Reg_Spanish.rtf file and today I've received updated Reg_Italian.rtf file.