animations hesitate using Presenter View

[Gary Drescher]

I'm displaying a slideshow from my laptop PC using multiple monitors (slides
shown on the VGA output). If I use Presenter View on my laptop display, then
there's a problem with the animations that appear on the VGA output:
successive events that are supposed to happen with zero delay in between
instead pause for a noticeable fraction of a second between events. But if I
play the same slides *without* using Presenter View on my laptop, the VGA
output displays the animations properly, without pauses.

Is this a known problem? Any workarounds (other than not using Presenter
View)?

(PP2003, XP SP2, all updates current)

 

[Austin Myers]

Any workarounds

A faster PC video card with more ram. <g>



Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCMedia http://www.pfcmedia.com

 

[Gary Drescher]

A faster PC video card with more ram. <g>

If that were the problem, why would it only affect Presenter View? Moreover,
the animation events just involve moving two simple circles: one moves and
then stops, and then the other starts moving. It's hard to see how a
video-card limitation would always create a pause between the stop and the
start (which is what's happening when I use presenter view), even though the
motion of each of the two circles is always perfectly smooth, without any
pauses at all.

 

[Austin Myers]

Because you are running two video screens compared to one. As an
experiment, you might try reducing video acceleration. (Yes I know that
sounds backwards but it's not.)


Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCMedia http://www.pfcmedia.com

 

[Gary Drescher]

Because you are running two video screens compared to one.

No, that's not the case. As I mentioned, the animation works fine when I use
two screens but without using Presenter View on my laptop display. (You can
show the slides on the second screen with or without using Presenter View on
the primary screen. It's a checkbox option in the Slideshow Setup.)

As an experiment, you might try reducing video acceleration. (Yes I know
that sounds backwards but it's not.)

The problem occurs either way.

--Gary

 

[Troy @ TLC Creative]

Gary,

This is a bit of a hardware issue and a bit of a PPT issue. Here are a few
suggestions:
- Depending on your video card (eg. does it have onboard ram?), go to SLIDE
SHOW >> SET UP SHOW >> click the USE HARDWARE ACCELERATION
- Next, because you are using an extended desktop setup, monitor #1 gets the
priority when it comes to video card processing. Go into the displays
control panel and set the external display to Monitor 1.

With those two items in place, provided it is with a solid computer (min. 2
GB ram and 128 MB graphics card) there should be no issue in using presenter
view or viewing the slide sorter (which is what I do) and running the
presentation animations.

 

[Gary Drescher]

Gary,

This is a bit of a hardware issue and a bit of a PPT issue. Here are a few
suggestions:
- Depending on your video card (eg. does it have onboard ram?), go to
SLIDE SHOW >> SET UP SHOW >> click the USE HARDWARE ACCELERATION
- Next, because you are using an extended desktop setup, monitor #1 gets
the priority when it comes to video card processing. Go into the displays
control panel and set the external display to Monitor 1.

With those two items in place, provided it is with a solid computer (min.
2 GB ram and 128 MB graphics card) there should be no issue in using
presenter view or viewing the slide sorter (which is what I do) and
running the presentation animations.

Troy, thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, the problem occurs with or
without hardware acceleration, and regardless of which monitor is set to
primary.

My hardware is pretty weak (Sempron 2800, 256MB RAM, SiS M760GX 64MB), but I
don't think that's causing the specific problem I'm seeing. The problem
never occurs when the laptop screen uses either the slide-sorter view or the
normal view (showing the slides on the VGA-output screen); but it always
occurs when the laptop screen uses the presenter view.

The animation in question is extremely simple: a small circle moves across
the slide and stops; then (with no delay) another small circle moves and
stops. (The motion is uniform, with the "smooth start" and "smooth end"
options unchecked.) Even in presenter view, both circles' motions are always
uniform, with no hesitation. The problem is just that (in presenter view
only) there's always a pause of perhaps 0.25 seconds between when the first
circle stops and the second one starts.

Using an app other than PPT, I can run animations in which *dozens* of
circles are moving around on both screens with synchronized starting and
stopping, without any problem with the timing. So this looks like a PPT
presenter-view bug, rather than a matter of overwhelming the hardware with
too complex a task.

--Gary

 

[Troy @ TLC Creative]

Unfortunately, as I mentioned, it is part hardware and part application.
Presenter view uses a lot of resources, especially video processing. So even
with simple slides/animations, it requires a fairly robust system to make it
all run smooth.

So, working with the current application and the computer you have is not
really a good match for your needs:
- The SIS video chip is problematic. It uses shared memory (64 MB of your
256MB is set to the graphics). Shared memory means you should never use
PowerPoints "Use Hardware Acceleration" option.
- The 256MB of ram on a Windows XP and Office XP/2003 enviroment is really
pushing the limits. Upgrading to 1 GB would be good.

--
Troy Chollar
TLC Creative Services
<< Microsoft MVP, PowerPoint >>
A Blog for PowerPoint® Developers @ www.ThePowerPointBlog.com

 

[Gary Drescher]

Unfortunately, as I mentioned, it is part hardware and part application.
Presenter view uses a lot of resources, especially video processing. So
even with simple slides/animations, it requires a fairly robust system to
make it all run smooth.

I believe you. But a non-PPT app can run an animation (on both screens)
that's more complex by one or two orders of magnitude, and with at least an
order of magnitude less delay between successive events. That makes PPT
presenter view less efficient by at least two or three orders of
magnitude--which I think reasonably qualifies as a bug.

When I get a chance, I'll try it with more powerful hardware and see how it
goes.

Thanks,
Gary

 

[Troy @ TLC Creative]

Gary, for the record I 100% agree with you. Part of the problem is that PPT
only uses DirectX 6 features, where many "cheaper" applications have been
developed to use newer technology (DX9) and that makes a huge difference in
video capabilities. Like I said, it is a part application problem...

 

[Austin Myers]

One thing I'll point out, the other apps you do this with "build" a display
(as video or as a script) and then you display it. That is NOT how PPT
works. In PPT the system is doing real time rendering of the presentation
without the itermediate steps. That is why you can make changes in PPT and
then immediately play them.


Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCMedia http://www.pfcmedia.com

 

[Gary Drescher]

Actually, the app I have in mind is a physics simulator that does perform a
real-time rendering of dozens of interacting objects. It runs smoothly on my
hardware (on two screens simultaneously).

In fact, I can even run the physics sim on my laptop screen simultaneously
with the normal or slide-sorter PPT view while showing the PPT slideshow on
the other screen, and that all runs smoothly. It's only with PPT
presenter-view that the slideshow animation hesitates, and only at one
particular point in the animation.