What are the minimum system requirements?

1. PC with 600 MHz or higher clock speed.
2. Windows 98, ME,2000, XP, or NT 4.0.
3. 64 MB RAM with Windows 98, NT 4.0; 128 MB recommended.
4. 128 MB RAM with Windows 2000, XP; 256 MB recommended.
5. 3D video card with 32MB RAM or higher, supports OpenGL.
6. 800 X 600 screen resolution or higher.
7. 24, or 32 bit color depth.
8. Sound card.
9. CD ROM or DVD Drive.

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Why is my 3D-Album application running slow?
It's not supposed to, but slow-running in the 3D-Album can happen in certain cases with old computers. However, the good news is that this problem can be fixed easily.

There is nothing wrong with your 3D-Album software, your computer, or with you. What's happening is that the video card driver in your computer does not properly support the animation technology that the 3D-Album software uses.

Here is what you should do (If you're using a PC): First, you should know what type of video card your computer is using. If you had your computer custom-built, you may already know the kind of video card you have. However, if you don't know what video card you're using, click the "Start" button on your computer's Taskbar, and then go to "Settings > Control Panel". In the Control Panel menu, click "Display", which will open the "Display Properties" dialog box. From this box, click "Settings". Here, look below where it says "Display:". This is the name of the Video Card that your computer is currently using. Once you find out what video card your computer uses, you should go to the vendor's website, and then download and install the latest drivers for your video card.

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Why does my 3D Album run slow on XP?
Because Windows XP is so new, some of the graphics card drivers that were shipped with XP have not yet been developed to support XP properly.  

To solve this problem, you'll need to go the website for the vendor of your computer's video / graphics card and see if they have an XP driver available for download.  If you can't find an XP driver for your video / graphics card on the card vendor's website, you can visit the website of the manufacturer of the video chip used in your computer's video / graphics card.  Some chip manufacturers may have a generic driver for Windows XP.  

We suggest that you find out which graphics / video card you have installed in your computer, and then check below for suggestions on where you might find an XP driver for the chip used in the video / graphics card.

NVIDIA chips are used in the following Desktop PC video cards:

• NVIDIA Geforce, GeForce3 Ti, GeForce3, GeForce2 Ultra, GeForce2 Ti, GeForce2 Pro, GeForce2 GTS, GeForce2 MX, GeForce 256, TNT2 Ultra, TNT2 Pro, TNT2 M64, Vanta, 
  Vanta LT
  

ATI chips are used in the following video cards:

• RADEON 9700/9000/8500/7500/7200/7000, RADEON, RAGE 128 Pro, RAGE 128, and RAGE PRO.

ATI chips were used in the following discontinued video cards:

• RADEON VE Dual Display Edition, RAGE FURY MAXX, RAGE FURY, RAGE MAGNUM, 
  XPERT 99, XPERT LCD, 3D CHARGER (PCI/AGP), XPERT@Play 98, ATI-TV, XPERT XL (PCI/AGP), ALL-IN-WONDER PRO, ALL-IN-WONDER, XPERT@Play (PCI/AGP), XPERT@Work (PCI/AGP), 3D Pro Turbo PC2TV, 3D XPRESSION+ PC2TV, 3D XPRESSION+ 

(The above names are registered trademarks of their respective companies.  Micro Research Institute, Inc. does not endorse the use of any specific video card or chip.)

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What should I do when "Choose pixel format error" dialogue pops up?
There is a conflict between your video card driver and the current version of your operating system. To solve this problem, you'll need to go the vendor's website of look for the latest proper version of the driver for your operating system. See the answer to the previous question..

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3D-ALBUM caused an Invalid Page Fault in module USER.EXE
3D-Album has been fully tested in different Windows operating systems with different versions, In general, the invalid page fault should not be the problem of the 3D-Album program.

Invalid Page Faults are memory-behavior errors. They may be caused by too little RAM; damaged RAM; mismatched RAM; too little free hard drive space in the partition housing the swap file; poor memory management choices by the user; and overheating.

The module USER.EXE is a Windows system component that managers inputs from the user interfaces. Therefore, USER.EXE errors can be caused by device drivers, most likely, the video related problems. In some cases it is due to drivers not being up to date, and hence having conflicts with other newly installed system components, for instance, the DirectX 8.1 components.

Try one or all of the following solutions:

• Delete ALL temporary Internet files and especially COOKIES as they take up RAM.
• Delete the contents of the Favorites directory located in \Windows\Favorites
• Check your free disk space, delete useless files, uninstall useless programs and empty recycle bins.
• If the page fault happens every time when you click on the presentation style, you may need to download and install the latest video drivers.
• If the new video driver still does not work, try to adjust the Hardware Acceleration. To do this, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel. Double-click Display. On the Settings tab, click Advanced, then the Troubleshooting tab. Move the Hardware Acceleration slider all the way to the left (the None position), and then click OK to apply. Try 3D-Album. If it runs okay (though slow), close it. Then move the Hardware Acceleration slider one notch to the right. Try 3D-Album again. Repeat this until you reach a point that the 3D-Album can run without any problem.
• If the page fault occurs every time when you click the mouse, you may need to upgrade your mouse driver.
• If the page fault occurs every time when you move the cursor over an 3D-Album presentation style icon, you may upgrade your sound card driver.
• Disable Write Behind Caching: click on Start | Settings | Control Panel | System | Performance | File System | Troubleshooting, then put a check in "Disable write-behind caching for all drives."
• Close all background tasks. you may start the Resource Monitor (If you do not have this program installed, you need go to Start | Settings | Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs to add this program), and check if there is any background task that swallows system resources or system memory.
• Check and/or add RAM.

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I am using windows 98 on an HP computer with Riptide sound and modem combo. The program crashes with a fatal error in "VXD RIPTIDE" driver.
The old driver of the Riptide combo sound card (shipped with HP computers in 1998 to 1999) has a conflict with some of the DirectX components. HP has identified and fixed this problem. You need to download the fix RIP2141.EXE at www.modem-drivers.com. Make sure the driver is the one that matches your sound card.

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The application created by 3D-Album crashes after running an hour on XP.
This problem happens when you installed a video card driver that is not certified by XP. You'll need to go the website for the vendor of your computer's video card and look for the XP driver. See the answer to the previous question.

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Why does the application I copied to CD not play?
Please see the following list and make sure you followed all the instructions:

• Did you copy all files in the application folder created by 3D-Album onto the CD? If you have selected the option Do not show hidden or system files in your Windows File Explorer, you will not see any DLL files. As result, you may miss the file vaengine.dll, which is a necessary file to run the 3D-Album application on computers that have not installed the 3D-Album.
• Did your CD copy utility software change any names of the files created by 3D-Album? Don't enable the DOS file name options. Otherwise, your file name will be changed when it is copied to CD.  For example, the "MyAlbum.vexe" file might be changed to "MyAlbum.vex". The 3D-Album player will not play when the file is not found by its original name.
• Did you copy all the files into the root directory of the CD? If not, the autorun feature will not work.

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Why does the application I copied to CD not play the photos and sounds I selected?
Did you enable the Copy All Images into the application option? If not, the photos and sounds you selected will not be copied to the CD.  Also, when you selected this option, photos in the subfolder will not be copied. Therefore, please put all your photos in a flat folder.

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Important notice regarding copy image files
When choosing photo images for your slide show or screensaver, you should have all of the photo images you want to use in a single folder.  The 3D-Album software will not copy images in the subfolders.  If you want to run a presentation that retrieves images from all of the subfolders, you should select the "sharing file" option in the 3D-album's build dialog.

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I typed MyAlbum in the Application Folder text input, where can I find the folder?
Since you did not name the drive where you put the folder MyAlbum, 3D-Album assumes that you would have MyAlbum put in the Desktop's My Documents folder.

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How do I combine different 3D presentation styles into a single application?
To build a mixed photo presentation, you need to select a folder that contains several photo applications you created before. This dialogue will create a program called "3DAlbumMixer.exe" in the selected folder. You may copy the entire contents of the folder onto a CD for a mixed photo presentation.

If you do not intend to run an individual photo presentation, i.e., the photo presentations will only run from the mixer, you may delete the ".exe" and the ".dll" files located in each individual photo presentation. This will reduce the total storage space of the completed mixer application.

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Once your screensaver is created, it is ready to be used immediately. If you want to change settings afterwards, you do not need to rebuild the screensaver. To adjust the settings of your screensaver after it's been saved to your system folder, just click the "Start" button on your taskbar, and then select "Settings > Control Panel > Display" and then click the "Screensaver" tab. Select the screensaver from the drop list and then click the "Settings" button in the Screensaver tab. This will open a menu where you can make changes to the saved Screensaver, such as selecting a new image folder to use.

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c:\windows\system\vscrsaver\contents\MyScreensaver (for 95, 98, and Me), or
c:\winnt\system32\vscrsaver\contents\MyScreensaver (for NT4.0, 2000, and XP)

Where do I download more 3D presentation styles?
Click the More Styles button at the bottom left of the 3D-Album Window, or visit this page: http://www.3d-album.com/newstyles.html. Click the download link attached to a new style to download the style.  The style is contained in an .exe file you download.  To add the new presentation to your 3D-Album application, start the installation by clicking the "Open" or "Run From Present Location" button in the dialogue when you download the file.

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Do I need restart 3D-Album after downloading a new style?
Not always. If the style is located in an existing category, you do not need to restart the 3D-Album. However, if the new style is in a new category, you will need to restart the 3D-Album in order to show the new category.

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If I want to delete a downloaded style, where can I find it?
In the new style list on the 3D-Album web page, there is a location specification attached to each style. Suppose your 3D-Album is installed in:

c:\Program Files\3D-Album

Exhibition/PhotoDisplay_3

c:\Program Files\3D-Album\Presentation\Exhibition\PhotoDisplay_3

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When I try to download the new style, the Explorer loads the QuickTime and ask me to upgrade the QuickTime. Why?
To download 3D-Album new styles, QuickTime movie player is not required. The 3D-Album new style package is a self-expand executable file that can run on your PC by itself and does not require any additional software for installation.

However, some versions of the QuickTime IE plug-in on Windows 98 may take the ".exe" file as a QuickTime movie and try to play it. It pops up a dialogue to ask you to upgrade the player when it detects the actual content in the file is not a QuickTime movie. Neither upgrading nor uninstalling the QuickTime would help.

To avoid this problem, try click the right button of the mouse on the download link, and then select the "Save Target As..." menu to save the EXE file to disk. When download finished, you can double click the saved file to install the new style into your 3D-Album software.

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Yes.  However, please be aware that the size of the slideshow will be big if there are a lot of images or sound files in your slideshow. To create a file that can be e-mailed to your friends, you will find two options in the 3D-Album's Build dialog. One option is to create a "Zip" file from your slide show.  This will create a compressed version of your entire slideshow that can be opened with an "Un-Zip" utility application.  The second option is to create a self-expandable .EXE file.  A self-expandable .EXE file can be run on a computer without having to be unzipped.  Once you have built your screensaver or slideshow, you can e-mail the folder containing the zipped or .exe files.  Please note that for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me operating systems, you cannot create a self-expandable .exe.  This function is only enabled for Windows 2000, NT 4.0,  and Windows XP.

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My friend received the zip file but cannot run the application when unzipped, why?
Make sure the unzip utility used by your friend did not change the file name. Some old fashioned zip/unzip utility software does change file names to DOS format. For example, the "MyAlbum.vexe" will be changed to "MYALBUM.VEX". The 3D-Album player will not play when the file is not found by its original name.

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When I try to load the HTML page built by the 3D-Album, an error message dialogue pops up, why?
Please check the following list:

• Do you have fire wall installed on your computer? You need to let the fire wall allow the files created by the 3D-Album to be downloaded to your computer.
• Did you have the correct link reference? For example, if you want to put your presentation files in the folder http://www.myweb.com/mydemo, did you type this correctly in the URL Address of the 3D-Album Build Dialogue?
•  Note: When you are building the HTML page you do not have to fill out the URL address 3D-Album will do the rest. 
• Did you upload all the files into the URL address you selected?
• When the files were uploaded to the URL address on the web server, did the FTP utility software change any file names? Especially for Unix servers, did the FTP utility software change the cases of any letter?

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How do I create a full-window presentation?
To create a presentation that occupies the entire web browser window, you need to modify the HTML page as follows:

• In the HTML body tag, set the left margin and the top margin to zero:
  <body leftmargin=0 topmargin=0>
  
• In the OBJECT tag (for Microsoft Internet Explorer) or the EMBED tag (for Netscape), set the width and the height to "100%".

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How do I add a photo into the currently selected folder?
Select a different image folder in the folder tree at the left of the 3D-Album Organizer. Right click on the thumbnail image that you want to add, and then select the "Copy to the Current Folder" menu.

Alternatively, you can drag the thumbnail from any folder into the dock frame at the top of the Organizer. Return to the current folder by clicking the "Current" button, and then drag the thumbnail from the dock into the current folder.

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How do I delete a photo from the currently selected folder?
Right click on the thumbnail image that you want to delete, and then select the "Delete" menu. If you want to restore the deleted photo, go to the Recycle Bin in the Windows File Explorer, right click on the deleted file and select the "Restore" menu.

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If you want to delete a photo thumbnail (shortcut) from the dock frame, just carefully click and drag the thumbnail image out of the dock frame, and then release the mouse button. This will remove the thumbnail image from the dock frame. While you are deleting photo thumbnails, you have to be careful not to accidentally drop the thumbnail into a selected folder; this will cause the image to be copied into that folder.

Another way to delete the thumbnail shortcut in dock frame is to right click on the thumbnail and select the "Delete Shortcut" menu.

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What size photos should I use in 3D-Album?
3D-Album can display photos in any size. However, a large size photo is not necessary for screen display and it will reduce the performance significantly. The appropriate size is anywhere between 500 X 500  pixels to 1000 X 1000 pixels, depending the screen resolutions.

A large size photo does not create better images. 3D-Album has to reduce the size in order to make it acceptable by the graphic hardware. Because the reduction must be executed in real time, the results will not be as good as a reduction performed by a photo editor's "resample" function.

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What photo preparation should I do for 3D-Album?
You may need to crop the image into an appropriate shape for certain types of 3D presentation styles. For instance, wider images are preferable in some presentation styles, while square images are preferable in other presentation styles.

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How do I display photos in a transparent background?
You may use an image editor to remove the background and save the image into a RGBA 32-bit PNG file.

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How do I edit photo images?
You will need to select an external image editor using the "Set Image Tool" button in the 3D-Album Organizer. Then, you can right click on the thumbnail image and choose the "Open to Edit" menu.

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My photos are blotchy in 3D-Album. How do I fix this?
Please check the following list:

• At the bottom of the 3D-Album window, there are number of round buttons in different sizes to control the image quality. Did you accidentally selected the smallest button (the lowest quality) button?
• If you have an ATI's Radeon 7500~8500 card, make sure that the option Enable texture compression is disabled. To do this, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel. Double-click Display. On the Settings tab, click Advanced, then the OpenGL tab. Toggle off the Enable texture compression button.
• If you have an ATI's Radeon 9000/9700 card, make sure that the option Texture quality is set to the highest. To do this, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel. Double-click Display. On the Settings tab, click Advanced, then the OpenGL tab. Set the Texture quality slide to the rightmost.
• If you have an nVidia GeForce4 card, chances are that you happened to get an nVidia's driver released at the beginning of 2003, which has a problem to display colors correctly. nVidia has fixed this problem in their new version. Downloading and installing the latest driver from nVidia's web site should solve this problem.
• If your 3D-Album CD is labeled in a version smaller than 2.03, download the patch, which will enhance the image quality of your presentation. You also need to re-download the new styles if you download them before May 24, 2002.

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The color of my photo is not correctly displayed in 3D-Album. How do I fix this?
Make sure you have selected the True Color for your display settings. click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel. Double-click Display. On the Settings tab, open Colors droplist and select True Color(32 bit) mode. Please note that a few low-end or very old video card does not support True Color. To display your photo colors correctly, 3D-Album requires 24 or 32 bit color depth. See also My photos are blotchy in 3D-Album. How do I fix this?

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The 3D-Album software allows you to play sound files with the following file extensions: .wav, .mp3, .wma, .midi, .rmi, .riff, and .aif.

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My MIDI file does not play in the application, how do I fix this?
The Windows Media Player does not play a MIDI file with path longer than 142 characters. (This bug only applies to MIDI sound files.) Make sure that your 3D-Album application is not built in a folder that has a very long path name, and make sure that your midi sound file does have a very long file name.

Please note that the path "My Documents" is actually a long path name, something like:

"C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.WORKGROUP\My Documents"

"C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.WORKGROUP\Application Data\visviva"

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Why does the WMA song not play when my photo presentation CD is run on a different computer?
If your WMA song was converted from a Music CD (.cda), then the WMA song is licensed only for the computer where you first converted the original format. This license cannot be transferred to a different computer. If you want to play the WMA on a different computer, you will have to license the WMA song on that specific computer. To license a WMA song, double-click the sound file you want to license, and then the Windows Media Player will ask you where you would like to send the requirement for the license.

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About Visviva Animation Capture

How do I determine the total number of frames in VAC?
A movie contains a sequence of still pictures to be played one by one in a fast speed, which gives you an illusion of the motion. Typically, a movie will play 24 or 30 pictures per second. The total number of frames is the number of all still pictures will be contained in the movie that you are going to produce. This number will determine how long the movie will be played. For example, if you are going to produce a 600-second movie which will play at a speed of 30 still pictures per second (or 30 frames per second, i.e. 30 fps,) you should have 600x30 = 18000 frames in total.

If you have selected a 3D-Album style with an interval setting that lets you control intervals between pictures. Suppose that you have 20 pictures, and you have set the interval to 5 seconds. If the movie will play at a speed of 30 fps, you need 20x5x30 = 1000 frames. If the style has opening animation, you need to add more frames for the opening.

In general,

The total frames = fps X movie time (seconds), or
The total frames = fps X number of pictures X interval (seconds) + fps X opening time

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VAC only captures the first picture and does not move on to the next, why?
Have you enabled the auto play mode when you created the 3D-Album application? Please note that not all styles are suitable for movie capture. In particular, some styles are interactive by nature and pictures will not show or move until interacted by the viewer via the mouse, keyboard, or joystick, which is impossible in a movie.

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The movie captured by VAC plays faster than the application. How can I control the actual timing in movie for displaying just the pictures I selected?
If your computer cannot play in real-time, the 3D-Album application will run slower than the real-time. However, the movie captured by the VAC uses the real-time timing, that is why you will see the movie captured by VAC will play faster than the application running on the computer.

If you have selected 20 pictures, which requires 150 seconds to finish in the application on computer and its real time may be 100 seconds. As result, if you make a 150-second movie, you will see 20 pictures finished in 100 seconds and then pictures will start over again from the first. To avoid this problem, please try the following:

• Try a style that alows you to set intervals so that you can expect the accurate time in capture. If you have set the interval long enough, for example, 5 seconds, most computers can catch up the real time.
• Or, you can do a little bit experiment in a short and small movie and see how faster the movie will be. Then you can get an idea how long the movie you should have.
• Or, set an alarm clock to the time when you estimate all picture will finish, then watch from the preview window and press the stop button to finish the movie before the picture starting over.
• Or, you can use a movie editor to cut off the part that you do not need.

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Why does The EZ CD creator does not recognize the SVCD file created by VAC?
As of October, 2003, EZ CD creator does not support SVCD format. Please choose other maker of CD creator that supports the SVCD formats. You may try Nero or NTI.

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Why NTI CD maker does not take the SVCD file created by VAC?
Have you selected the SVCD option? If you are in the VCD option, NTI will not take the SVCD format.

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VAC aborted during capture, how do I fix this problem?
There are three issues that have been found to cause the VAC abort. All can be avoided. Please check the following list:

• Try the new version 2.03. The version 2.04 uses Mater/Slave process model which may be disabled by some other video capture software. This is not a problem of VAC, any application that uses Mater/Slave process model, e.g. Microsoft C++ Studio, will be disabled. Although you may choose to uninstall the video capture software, we have avoided this conflict by using a normal process model in the new version 2.04.
• Have you installed any shareware or freeware to play MP3 or MPEG video? Some shareware or freeware, when installed, will replace Microsoft's default decoder and may cause run-time exceptions if it is not well tested. VAC uses the current default MP3 decoder installed in your computer to process MP3 sound waves. An unstable MP3 decoder may abort the VAC when a MP3 sound is used. To fix this problem, uninstall the software and resume to the default one. In our test, you should not have any problem to use Microsoft Media Player, WinDVD or RealMedia player.
• If you use ATI's Radeon 9000 on your laptop, you may have a driver that has a bug in reading images from the buffer when the "Smooth Vision" option is enabled. You may choose to either download and install the the new driver (if your laptop configuration allow you to do so) from the ATI's website, or, simply disable the "Smooth Vision" option. To disable the "Smooth Vision" option, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel. Double-click Display. On the Settings tab, click Advanced, then the OpenGL tab. Toggle the "Smooth Vision" off.

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