Does anybody turn off "Hardware acceleration" option?

[Igor]

Do you turn off (for some reason) the option "Use hardware acceleration" (in Project options | Screen tab)?

I remember that was used for some menu like projects to call other slideshows and reduce loading for video card during parallel work of menu project and slideshow.

Hardware acceleration (the mode by default) is required for smooth playback of slideshows. Masks, 3D transformations, Video clips on slides and Blur feature - all they require hardware acceleration.

Should we still provide to authors of slideshows the possibility turn off the hardware acceleration?

If you need this control on this option, please describe shortly the scenario how you use it.

Thanks,

[stonemason]

Hi Igor I never turn it off even when running slideshows from a menu, and I think on by default is the right option. However unless there is a good reason to remove the option of turning off hardware acceleration I think perhaps the choice should remain.

A late happy birthday, I hope you enjoyed a good day.

Regards

Geoff

[Ken Cox]

Hi Igor I never turn it off even when running slideshows from a menu, and I think on by default is the right option. However unless there is a good reason to remove the option of turning off hardware acceleration I think perhaps the choice should remain.

A late happy birthday, I hope you enjoyed a good day.

Regards

Geoff

I agree with Geoff

"However unless there is a good reason to remove the option of turning off hardware acceleration I think perhaps the choice should remain."

it can still be used in troubleshooting

ken

[Igor]

I forgot to mention that now we have to support two different graphical engines (two libraries of code) - for hardware acceleration and software engine (based on CPU).

[stonemason]

Igor perhaps an explanation of the advantages and dis-advantages of retaining this option from your point of view would be helpful to us users but non programmers. We could better then understand your reasons for airing this topic.

Geoff

[Guest Yachtsman1]

I would assume it's something to do with the proposed adding video feature

Yachtsman1

[nobeefstu]

Igor,

There is at times projects/menus in which I turn off the hardware acceleration. I disable the setting when I launch a mixture/chain of several new version/old version slideshows from a single menu using multiple slides/pages.

I only disable the setting because when using Customize Slide Option to Run External Application there is no option to Run Slideshow/Run Slideshow with Return setting options.

Plus it would be of great benefit to users to * add special tool which will help quickly re-build all linked EXE slideshows so when they use the Run Slideshow features ... they need not bother to turn off the hardware acceleration because of possible version(s) mismatch.

Its much quicker and easier to turn off the hardware acceleration than rebuild multiple unknown version mismatch slideshows. If we had the Run Slideshow features and the special tool to quickly rebuild all mismatch slideshows ... I personally would have no need to further use the turn off the hardware acceleration feature because the Run Slideshow setting would resolve any possible conflict.

See links:

Run slideshow from slide - WnSoft Forums

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12619

PicturesToExe Deluxe 5.6.1 Beta

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9512&view=findpost&p=62520

[xahu34]

... If we had the Run Slideshow features and the special tool to quickly rebuild all mismatch slideshows ...

I do not think that this would be a general solution, it might be one in places where "everybody" uses PTE, but not in countries where people speak Dutch or German. In these countries, PTE is used by a minority, and if you want to combine slide shows of several people of a Photo-/AV-Club there will be shows created with tools like Wings or m.objects, as well. Perhaps it may be possible to restrict the software engine to a minimum of features (fade in/out of images and text objects, running external applications, ...)

Regards,

Xaver

[baumettes]

Igor

I asked the question on Diapositif forum. Nobody uncheck this option (about 20 responses).

Regards

Eric

[Igor]

Thanks for your responses!

[Barry Beckham]

No, I never do.

Recently, if you recall, I turned it off by by accident. Not so difficult to do when you use a graphics tablet rather than a mouse.

I could'nt understand why the slide shows were running so badly

If your thinking of leaving it on permanently, do it.

[dadou]

I never do it ...

[Igor]

Thanks, we will keep this option in the next version 7.0 And probably I'll find some replacement for this mode for further versions.

[baldsparky]

Hi

I have this option turned off in a menu system to call other slideshows. I have been using this menu for quite some while now.

Does this mean that if you remove the option to turn off hardware acceleration that my menu system will no longer work?

Many thanks

Kind regards

Paul

[nobeefstu]

Paul,

I have this option turned off in a menu system to call other slideshows. I have been using this menu for quite some while now.

Does this mean that if you remove the option to turn off hardware acceleration that my menu system will no longer work?

This should not affect your menu operation as it relates to launching/calling other slideshows. By turnig off hardware acceleration on the menu show... it allows full D3D resources available to the launched/called slideshows that use D3D hardware acceleration. Running multiple D3D hardware acceleration slideshows/menus at the same time can reduce/affect slideshow playback performance because the D3D resources now need to be shared among the current multiple running slideshows/menus. For the very best playback performance ... you want to keep the full D3D resources available to the current running single slideshow.

* D3D performance is going to be relative to your video card capability.

[davegee]

Like Paul, I was of the opinion that to run a MENU show which calls up other slideshows the option TURNING OFF Hardware Acceleration for the MENU show was necessary. There were many posts which recommended this some time ago.

Can anyone explain (in simple terms) what, if anything, has changed and now makes this step unnecessary?

DG

[nobeefstu]

DG,

Nothing has changed yet in PTE ... thats why Igor at the moment is keeping the option. There are still some instances where a user may need to turn off D3D hardware acceleration in the MENU.

The D3D issue/conflict is running other D3D slideshows (not just PTE slideshows) with Run Application or Run External Application ... while the (D3D) Menu is still running and using/requiring its own D3D resources for its animation playback. This means the (D3D) Menu while running and the other (D3D) slideshow running are using/sharing any available D3D resources. The playback performance can suffer/halt if there is not enough D3D resources to share.

If you are using the Run Slideshow option for slideshow execution ... there is no issue of sharing D3D resources with the (D3D) Menu and the launched (D3D) slideshow. Please note other slideshows not produced by PTE and use D3D acceleration resources cannot be launched with the Run Slideshow option.

* Also todays newer and more powerfull Pcs/video cards have higher performance ... and running dual slideshows requiring D3D acceleration resources may show no notable playback issues. It all going to boil down to how annimated and demmanding the slideshow(s) requires D3D.

[baldsparky]

Thankyou for all the answers

Paul

[Guest Yachtsman1]

I recently constructed a 9 show menu, 4 from PTE5? & 4 from PTE6?, In the O&A section I ticked the "RUN APPLICATION OR OPEN FILE" option for each show & it worked fine. Acc' was on.

Yachtsman1.

[nobeefstu]

Eric,

I recently constructed an 9 show menu, 4 from PTE5? & 4 from PTE6?, In the O&A section I ticked the "RUN APPLICATION OR OPEN FILE" option for each show & it worked fine. Acc' was on.

Yachtsman1.

Nice test of your Menu. However, if both your Menu and launched Slideshow(s) have little or no annimation, masks, 3D slide effects that demand/require D3D acceleration ... your test results may be misleading to you and other users.

If your testing with a static Menu and simple effects Slideshow(s) ... add some elements (looping annimation, masks, 3D slide effect)s to both projects and test again. If all still plays very well, your pc/video card is quite capable. Keep in mind other users pcs/video cards may not be so capable to play with the same results.

I see Igors concern as it relates to this topic ... I can imagine many users with a video object playing in the Menu and the slideshow(s)

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Nobeefstu

The menu was a semi static production with a few black slides, buttons on a picture slide & scrolling text & was constructed on my desk top W7 64bit 8GBram high spec graphics card machine. It was then copied to my laptop which uses XP sp3 3GB ram & run of the mill graphics card. Initially it was sticky on the animation, so I transferred it from my desktop to my My Pictures file on the LT & tried it again and it worked fine, & operated fine through the one hour live show last week. I thought the turning off acceleration was used on the menu production only & not the actual shows? The shows I used had some animation, panning zooming etc. Re your suggestion to try more complicared animation, "if only"

Yachtsman1.

[nobeefstu]

Eric,

I thought the turning off acceleration was used on the menu production only & not the actual shows?

Exactly. Turning-off D3D on the Menu project/build only affects the Menu only ... it does not turn-off D3D to any other applications calling for the process.

Heres a basic overview link for those who may not know what D3D (Direct3D) is and what it does :

Microsoft Direct3D - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Direct3D

[Igor]

I see several ideas how to use Direct 3D mode for Menu show. In theory we can reduce video card usage applying several optimizations and tricks. It also should be under special option in Project options window, but it would be an unified graphical engine with minor differences. Anyway any changes should come not earlier than in version 7.5

[stardealer]

In the lifecycle of every software product there comes the time when you need to sacrify backward compatibility.

Otherwise you get to the stage of unmanagable code and following this to longer development times for new features, unstability, long beta-cycles and so on.

I welcome every effort which will keep PTE in the good shape we had in all of the last versions or speeds up functional development in the main focus of PTE, even if some users need to rebuild some existing menu applications and even if it requires restricted animation-functionality in this area.

Just my 2ct,

Frank