A very SIMPLE TEST for your Video Cards

[Lin Evans]

There have been numerous questions over the last few months about various video cards and how they perform with RAM loads.

I created two 30 piece puzzle slideshows (very brief) which are virtually identical in practical appearance but which differ greatly in their use of video RAM. Each uses 30 layers with 30 puzzle pieces each of which are PNG files but one will run on low RAM systems very smoothly while the other taxes even the very best video cards. Below are links....

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/puzzlesmallRAM.zip

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/puzzle.zip

The first link is to the low RAM version which runs smoothly on almost all systems. The second link is to the RAM challenging version which even challenges the Radeon 9800 Pro. Put these two versions on a Flash media card and take them with you when you shop for a notebook computer. If the computer runs the high RAM version half-way smoothly, it has a decent video card.

Best regards,

Lin

[bmccammon]

Thanks Lin. I ran the RAM heavy test on a Dell 8300 with a NVIDIA FeForce FX5200 video card and it played. But please tell me... is there supposed to be a fairly long display of a black screen with music in the background prior to the puzzle pieces showing up? The puzzle pieces moved smoothly but rapidly... is that what I'm supposed to see? The show completed by dissolving to the "uncut" picture so I'm guessing that I got what you wanted to deliver. True? Thanks

Bruce McCammon

[Lin Evans]

Thanks Lin. I ran the RAM heavy test on a Dell 8300 with a NVIDIA FeForce FX5200 video card and it played. But please tell me... is there supposed to be a fairly long display of a black screen with music in the background prior to the puzzle pieces showing up? The puzzle pieces moved smoothly but rapidly... is that what I'm supposed to see? The show completed by dissolving to the "uncut" picture so I'm guessing that I got what you wanted to deliver. True? Thanks

Bruce McCammon

Hi Bruce,

Yes, that puzzle was compiled to an executable on an earlier beta version. There is a delay with a blank screen with the music playing for about 7 seconds before the puzzle pieces begin. The puzzle pieces all move at their own speeds - some very fast, some slowly and it does end as you discovered with an uncut image. This version loads 147 megabytes at the same time into Video RAM so that even powerful 128 meg RAM video cards are challenged. If it runs fairly smoothly then you know that almost anything created with PicturesToExe will run very well on that computer because no one would normally create something with this type of requirement. When I first created it, it ran very well on my ATI RADEON 9800 Pro - which is one of the more powerful cards available. There was a bit of "jitter" with the piece which is rotating in the very front but this is because the show is pushing the very limits. Once I heard back from several people who tried it and found it to be rather "jerky" I did another (puzzlesmallRAM) which had a relatively tiny RAM load and runs well even on older video cards.

The issue is that when files are compressed they show only their compressed sizes when you look at them in Windows but once they load in memory on the computer they expand to their true size. Even though the zipped file size of puzzlesmallRAM.zip and puzzle.zip are very close, the expanded sizes are quite different.

The puzzlesmallRAM version should run smoothly on nearly any system, and it loads much quicker so there is only about a 2.5 second delay before the images appear. Either of these would load much quicker were they compiled with the latest beta which loads 30% faster than the older betas.

Best regards,

Lin

[bmccammon]

Thanks Lin. I guess I'm good to go.

B

[Nettleton]

This version loads 147 megabytes at the same time into Video RAM so that even powerful 128 meg RAM video cards are challenged.

Lin

I'm sure there are lots of people out there, like me, who will value the information you give re Video Cards.

Incidentally the second 'Puzzle' version runs excellently on my main computer, Dimension 5000 with ATI Radeon X300.

Regards - Nettleton

[ContaxMan]

Both versions run fine on my new Dell Latitude D820 which has a NVidia Quadro NVS 110M.

[JEB]

Lin,

Thanks for this tool. I thought others may be interested in these results.

5 year old PC with GeForce 2MX small file ok with a few jerks. Large file would not play images only music.

PC with GeForce FX5600 both files fine

Laptop with ATI RADION XPRESS 200M small file fine but large file a little jerky.

Regards

John

[Conflow]

Lin,

My hat off to you ~ You have two very clever pieces of Engineering there and they certainly work.

It's always refreshing to run 'Acid Tests' on PC's rather than 'Theoretical Tests' about what should be ?

I for one would like to see a small series of 'Practical Tests' for 'Downloading' for PC's which

would greatly enhance the 'perceived performance' of PTE (any version) examples as follows:-

* Video Card/Adapter Test(s) yours (excellent0.

* Standard Audio Tone- Stereo @ 1.0 Kilohertz at 0.db for Sound-Setup.

* Standard Test Card (like TV Sets) for Linearity & Resolution Setup.

* Al Robinsons Gif.Grids for Image Placements.

* 9 Band Grey-Scale Test for Contrast/Brightness Setup.

* 16 Hatch Standard Colour Card for Colour/Gamma Setup.

The 'Tests' could be delivered in one single Zip Folder for Downloading. (So what if it costs a few Euro)

These 6 Tests would bring some level of 'Standardisation' to PTE.PC Presentation & AVI.DVD

Shows so that the 'Playing Performance' can be standardised across the PC.User spectrum and they

would certainly be a 'boom' in AVI.Competitions.

They will be needed when PTE.5xx is finally released...they are used in TV Programs now, why not PTE ?

Brian.Conflow.

[JohnB]

Lin,

My hat off to you ~ You have two very clever pieces of Engineering there and they certainly work.

It's always refreshing to run 'Acid Tests' on PC's rather than 'Theoretical Tests' about what should be ?

I for one would like to see a small series of 'Practical Tests' for 'Downloading' for PC's which

would greatly enhance the 'perceived performance' of PTE (any version) examples as follows:-

* Video Card/Adapter Test(s) yours (excellent0.

* Standard Audio Tone- Stereo @ 1.0 Kilohertz at 0.db for Sound-Setup.

* Standard Test Card (like TV Sets) for Linearity & Resolution Setup.

* Al Robinsons Gif.Grids for Image Placements.

* 9 Band Grey-Scale Test for Contrast/Brightness Setup.

* 16 Hatch Standard Colour Card for Colour/Gamma Setup.

The 'Tests' could be delivered in one single Zip Folder for Downloading. (So what if it costs a few Euro)

These 6 Tests would bring some level of 'Standardisation' to PTE.PC Presentation & AVI.DVD

Shows so that the 'Playing Performance' can be standardised across the PC.User spectrum and they

would certainly be a 'boom' in AVI.Competitions.

They will be needed when PTE.5xx is finally released...they are used in TV Programs now, why not PTE ?

Brian.Conflow.

Hallo Brian,

I've attached (I hope, I'm not good at forums) a test card I've used for a couple of years. It's a collection of grey scale patches and tells you at once if there are any colour problems in your set up because some of the patches become tinted. This is a far more sensitve test for the human eye than an array of coloured patches.

A correctly profiled lcd monitor viewed on good conditions and a correctly profiles digital projector should show all the patches, except perhaps the 1% and 99% ones. A good CRT monitor may show all the patches; my old iiyama CRT would show all the patches provided the weather was not too bright (the 1% and 2% would disappear if the sun was shining brightly outside).

I think your idea of a standard set of tests is excellent and hope lots of people come up with good ones.

John

[Ken Cox]

Brian

this has been posted by me before

http://www.eye4u.com/home/

select special

i set my 19" lcd monitor to match the greyscale

then double checked it with my onboard scan of my macbeth colourchecker chart

ken

[JohnB]

There have been numerous questions over the last few months about various video cards and how they perform with RAM loads.

I created two 30 piece puzzle slideshows (very brief) which are virtually identical in practical appearance but which differ greatly in their use of video RAM. Each uses 30 layers with 30 puzzle pieces each of which are PNG files but one will run on low RAM systems very smoothly while the other taxes even the very best video cards. Below are links....

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/puzzlesmallRAM.zip

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/puzzle.zip

The first link is to the low RAM version which runs smoothly on almost all systems. The second link is to the RAM challenging version which even challenges the Radeon 9800 Pro. Put these two versions on a Flash media card and take them with you when you shop for a notebook computer. If the computer runs the high RAM version half-way smoothly, it has a decent video card.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi,

I don't get any sound with either version; I'm using a Creative Sound Blaster sound card which normally works very well indeed.

My computer is not too happy with the 'big' version, but runs the low ram version OK. Should the final 'uncut' puzzles be different sizes? On my machine, one has the words underneath the puzzle and the other has them over the puzzle, is that right?

John

[Lin Evans]

Hi,

I don't get any sound with either version; I'm using a Creative Sound Blaster sound card which normally works very well indeed.

My computer is not too happy with the 'big' version, but runs the low ram version OK. Should the final 'uncut' puzzles be different sizes? On my machine, one has the words underneath the puzzle and the other has them over the puzzle, is that right?

John

Hi John,

Yes, the final sizes should be different and the large RAM version has the words "Ta Dah" underneath while the small RAM version has the word "Ta Da" in the center. They were intentionally made to appear differently so you can easily determine which puzzle program is being used without checking the file names.

The sound for both is a midi file which may explain why you are having problems hearing it, however the large RAM vesion will tell you about your video card's capabilities. If the movement of some or all of the pieces is jerky, then you know that your video card may present issues with some shows which have very large RAM reqirements. The small RAM version usually runs fine on most any video card with at least 64 meg RAM.

You may want to check your Sounds and Audio Devices via the Control Panel to see what you have set for Midi sound defaults. Not being able to hear either means there is likely a setting which is incorrect. If you could not see the image at all with the large RAM "puzzle.exe" then I would suspect your video card was not up to the task, but since you can see it you "should" be able to see any slideshow created with the beta versions of PTE. The fact that you can't hear the Midi sound is almost sure to be a setting issue.

Best regards,

Lin

[jgayman]

Hi,

I don't get any sound with either version; I'm using a Creative Sound Blaster sound card which normally works very well indeed.

My computer is not too happy with the 'big' version, but runs the low ram version OK. Should the final 'uncut' puzzles be different sizes? On my machine, one has the words underneath the puzzle and the other has them over the puzzle, is that right?

John

I tried three different PC's and did not get any sound on any of them. All these video tests are interesting but... it's not YOUR video card that matters. What matters is the video cards in the PCs of all the folks to whom you give a copy of the slide shows!

[Ken Cox]

do you have midi files enabled in the sound system

i was listening with the wrong head set the other day

ken

[Lin Evans]

I tried three different PC's and did not get any sound on any of them. All these video tests are interesting but... it's not YOUR video card that matters. What matters is the video cards in the PCs of all the folks to whom you give a copy of the slide shows!

If you didn't get sound, then you have an issue with sound set-up on all three systems. The sound is recognized by the vast majority of present systems it's been tried on (hundreds now) and only those which have not had midi enabled have had issues.

It's both "your" video card and the card of any "other" user which matter. All PC's in the near future will have decent video or they will be unable to run the new Windows Vista operating system so it will soon become a moot point. So all Windows based PC's sold in a year or so will be able to play high resolution video type slide shows with Ken Burns effects. Some of the older equipment can't do it without upgrades. Progress is a simple fact of life with technology. If you have a system which only runs DOS and doesn't have sufficient resources to run Windows they you either must upgrade or run DOS. If you have a system which has limited resources for video then you can't run 3D games or high resolution video with multi-layer slideshows.

This is why the release version of PTE will have both engines. Don't give slideshows with Ken Burns effects to your friends who have systems with limited resources - instead use the older engine which will play on nearly all video equipment. It's a very simple choice. If you want smooth pan and zoom effects with mult-layer effects you need sufficient hardware resources to run it. Other slideshow programs which use software rendering for Ken Burns effects can't produce the smooth pans and zooms with high resolution images - in fact few, if any, can produce smooth pans and zooms with any hardware. I have some of the most powerful hardware available with huge RAM (4 gigabytes), state-of-art video (ATI Radeon 9800 PRO), 800Mhz front side buss, 3.2 Ghz Pentium 4 processor, etc., and I get jerky pans and zooms on panoramas with nearly all programs having Ken Burns effects except PicturesToExe which works flawlessly. This is the way of the future. Other slideshow software manufacturers are scrambling right now to try to implement hardware rendering like Wnsoft has done with P2E.

So the bottom line is that we must build slideshows for the level of sophistication of our viewers. If you suspect that they have low resolution systems with limited resources, then create a low resolution DVD or executable slideshow without Ken Burns Effects for them. If they have upgraded hardware then give them all the great quality which the program can produce.

Use the two puzzle files as a test to determine whether or not the user's equipment can run a high resolution slideshow. Include them with a menu on your CD along with both a high and low resolution slideshow- they are quite small in terms of storage. If the user can see and hear both and even the large RAM model runs reasonably smoothly, then they can be assured that their hardware is up to the task of delivering superior results from a P2E slideshow with multi-layers and PZR effects. If not, then suggest they run the low resolution version. As I mentioned earlier, soon this will all be a moot point because all systems sold after Vista is standardized will have hardware capable of supporting high resolution video and 3D games.

Best regards,

Lin

[JohnB]

Hi John,

Yes, the final sizes should be different and the large RAM version has the words "Ta Dah" underneath while the small RAM version has the word "Ta Da" in the center. They were intentionally made to appear differently so you can easily determine which puzzle program is being used without checking the file names.

The sound for both is a midi file which may explain why you are having problems hearing it, however the large RAM vesion will tell you about your video card's capabilities. If the movement of some or all of the pieces is jerky, then you know that your video card may present issues with some shows which have very large RAM reqirements. The small RAM version usually runs fine on most any video card with at least 64 meg RAM.

You may want to check your Sounds and Audio Devices via the Control Panel to see what you have set for Midi sound defaults. Not being able to hear either means there is likely a setting which is incorrect. If you could not see the image at all with the large RAM "puzzle.exe" then I would suspect your video card was not up to the task, but since you can see it you "should" be able to see any slideshow created with the beta versions of PTE. The fact that you can't hear the Midi sound is almost sure to be a setting issue.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin,

Thanks, While I searched for my Creative installation disc, I remembered that when I first installed the sound card I had disabled MIDI saying to myself, "I'll never need MIDI again". It was easy to add MIDI to the installation and I can hear your sounds now.

Your test is excellent and I now know for certain that I'll have to buy a better video card sometime soon.

Thanks again for your always helpful letters,

John

[PeterFrampton]

Now you have got me worried!!

I've been happily playing AVs with smooth zooms, pans and spins for years on my DeskTop (NvidiaGForce 128 Meg) and LapTop (ATI Radeon 7200). So what is this Puzzle AV that neither of them will play?

Do I have to upgrade my PCand buy a new LapTop just to play this new breed of AVs?

More info please.

Peter Frampton

[Ken Cox]

peter

you are likely ok

but download Lin's test files

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....t=0entry30503

ken

[PeterFrampton]

Hi Ken,

That's the problem - I downloaded the tests, they both play the 1st one but neither will look at the second.

I just get a black screen!

What's the score?

Peter Frampton

[Ken Cox]

well Peter here is

LIN"s description

There have been numerous questions over the last few months about various video cards and how they perform with RAM loads.

I created two 30 piece puzzle slideshows (very brief) which are virtually identical in practical appearance but which differ greatly in their use of video RAM. Each uses 30 layers with 30 puzzle pieces each of which are PNG files but one will run on low RAM systems very smoothly while the other taxes even the very best video cards. Below are links....

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/puzzlesmallRAM.zip

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/puzzle.zip

The first link is to the low RAM version which runs smoothly on almost all systems. The second link is to the RAM challenging version which even challenges the Radeon 9800 Pro. Put these two versions on a Flash media card and take them with you when you shop for a notebook computer. If the computer runs the high RAM version half-way smoothly, it has a decent video card.

Best regards,

Lin

and to quote you

I've been happily playing AVs with smooth zooms, pans and spins for years on my DeskTop (NvidiaGForce 128 Meg) and LapTop (ATI Radeon 7200). So what is this Puzzle AV that neither of them will play?

ver 5 only came out in May of this year - so what have you been playing

have you read this thread

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4298

have you downloaded the test/demos described here -- did they run?

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4327

i cannot run some of igor's demo's on my 1 gb ram system with a 16 mb video board

did you run the

start/run/dxdiag/display

and how much video ram do you have??

ken

[Michel]

Dear Peter,

I think (with the beta#3) that the ATI Radeon 7200 is not enough powerful for the second test. I have also this videocard with a PC test and it's a problem.

The full puzzle need a great videocard and even with a geforce 6800, I have a little jerk (you can consider that the loading in memory of the videocard is very large).

Even with a powerful PC/videocard, each don't go out of the limits: to keep a smooth motion is advised for the perfect shows.

Also with the final release and the use of the classic engine, you must remember that.

Best regards.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Ken,

That's the problem - I downloaded the tests, they both play the 1st one but neither will look at the second.

I just get a black screen!

What's the score?

Peter Frampton

Hi Peter,

Run dxdiag and I think you will find that the reason you can't run the large RAM model is the need to upgrade DirectX which is a free Windows download. The latest version is 9.0c.

No one in their right minds would ever create a normal slideshow with the RAM load I used in puzzle.exe - it simply pushes the envelope on RAM use, but it does provide a way of testing the efficiency of one's system. Even if your system had a mediocre video card (it doesn't - you have decent hardware) it should play the high RAM puzzle, just not very smoothly. The fact that you get nothing indicates an earlier DirectX version. So as Ken suggested - from the START/RUN prompt type in "dxdiag" and click on O.K. This will run a diagnostic and reveal among other things the version of DirectX being used. If it's not current, just go to Microsoft's Windows upgrade center and install the latest version and everything should work perfectly.

The AVI files you have been running for the past few years with pan, zoom, rotate were made with software rendering and low resolution. Typically programs such as ProShow Gold, ProShow Producer, MemoriesOnTV Pro, etc., render at 800x600 or less for DVD output. Even if they create an executable file at higher display resolution the files are interpolated up from the rendering resolution so that the final model is a low RAM, low resolution show. Hardware rendering such as used in creating PicturesToExe Beta 3 shows renders at the resolution you use for the originals. The higher resolution images coupled with multi-layer presentations raises the bar both on video card RAM requirements and on producing beautiful high resolution displays.

As I said - no one would normally use 32 layers of full resolution objects on a single slide as I did in the high RAM requirement puzzle. As you will see when you get your DirectX upgraded, the actually appearance of the two puzzle models is quite similar but the video card RAM requirements have enormous differences. When we create our shows we quickly learn what to avoid to make them palatable to the majority of average video cards.

Here's a link to one of my shows which uses high resolution images, but doesn't push the envelope on RAM. Try this and I think you should get excellent results with either system - but by all means test for the latest version of DirectX and make sure you are current with each computer.

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/vger2.zip

Best regards,

Lin

[LumenLux]

As I said - no one would normally use 32 layers of full resolution objects on a single slide as I did in the high RAM requirement puzzle. As you will see when you get your DirectX upgraded, the actually appearance of the two puzzle models is quite similar but the video card RAM requirements have enormous differences. When we create our shows we quickly learn what to avoid to make them palatable to the majority of average video cards.

H

Lin

Ever since you first posted these execellent comparison demos/tests, I have wondered as to what all the differences are that you implemented to lighten the video card load. Can you elaborate? I apologize if I have missed an already-included explanation.

[Lin Evans]

Ever since you first posted these execellent comparison demos/tests, I have wondered as to what all the differences are that you implemented to lighten the video card load. Can you elaborate? I apologize if I have missed an already-included explanation.

Sure, when I created the original puzzle I used 30 pieces each created in PhotoShop and with precise positioning assured via the fact that they were all "cut" out from a single layer jpg file. By leaving each piece in it's original position I maintained that position by creating a separate layer for each with the PNG files each having full original pixel dimensions. The pixel spacing not used to display the actual individual puzzle piece was just transparency but acted as a "place holder". Imagine the top right puzzle piece on a file which was large enough for all 30 pieces but which had transparency everywhere except where the actual top right piece lay in its original position. Now imagine the same for each piece. A full sized file with only a 1/30th of it containing an actual visible puzzle piece and the rest of the pixels consisting of transparency.

The "beauty" of this model is that each puzzle piece occupies its original position assured by the fact that proper placement is guaranteed as long as each layer has the same original dimensions. This made it extremely easy to assemble the puzzle by simply using zero pan, zero zoom and zero rotate for the final assembly on each piece of the 30 separate layers. So do whatever in terms of animation - zoom, rotate, transparency, pan, etc., but at the end of the timeline just set all the PZR, etc., back to zero and everything aligns perfectly. The problem? Huge overall RAM requirement because the transparent portions of a file are only visually transparent, they still have significant memory requirements so the final product was the sum of 30 pieces each having a significant file size plus the two additional layers incorporated by the seamless end and text - a total of 32 layers and huge RAM requirements.

With the small RAM model, I cropped away all excess transparency leaving only each puzzle piece and a tiny bit of "rectangle" of transparency surrounding it. This effectively lowered the RAM to nearly the requirements of a single file of the physical dimensions of one puzzle piece with the surrounding transparency. Of course the down side was that all precise positioning was destroyed and I had to manually place each puzzle piece in its correct position for final assembly. To do this I had to carefully size each piece then tweak its position to fit perfectly with the adjacent pieces. After getting everything lined up perfectly for the assembly I had to manually copy down the zoom and pan coordinates for each piece so that after applying various animations, opacity, etc., I could put the proper numbers into the program for final assembly. It wasn't easy and took several hours. Of course unless one is creating puzzles, this precise placement is a moot point and for "normal" slideshows it's unimportant. What is important to remember is to crop away all excess transparency when creating PNG files, and to not make them any larger than necessary for creating the resolution desired.

Best regards,

Lin

[LumenLux]

Very good Lin, thank you. As you say, the "puzzle" usage is a very narrow use, but your concept is an important one to remember as we develop our "habits" in PTE5. My so-far brief journeys into Ver.5 are comprised of so much "exploration", I wonder if I will ever establish any "habits" in it.