TBS 4.0 and Vista

I currently run TBS 3.5 and have held back upgrading to 4.0 until the kinks have been iorned out. So far most of the issues I read about are with MAC’s.

I have a Tablet Gateway running XP (not Wacom Technology) and now learning that Gateway has gone back to Wacom technology I plan to buy a new machine.

Their top line Model C-140XL with independent graphics card and running WACOM technlogy at just $1000 should be adequate.
I wonder if anybody is using this machine here?

With my existing Gateway Tablet (using Finepoint instead of Wacom and running Pentium M, 64 bit indeendent graphics, 1.5G ram memory) my biggest problem with TBS is trying to draw in the drawing view. Using this machine …in TBS drawing view there is a marked delay inking in the drawing view.

I found that I can however, draw in the camera view …with no problem. You guys know that drawing in the camera view is not how TBS was set up to run. After months …with a new Gateway running Wacom …new Vista 64bit platform …new dual core CPU …I’ve decided to get a new machine.

Can anybody say specifically if using the new gateway (running Wacom) they have any issues drawing in the drawing view?

In fact …even if you don’t have a Gateway Tablet PC …if you have any other Tablet machine using Wacom Technology (Lenovo, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Acer etc) can you say if you encounter any problem drawing in the drawing view of TBS?


I understand Vista has some some issues of its own, despite that …how does TBS 4.0 run on Vista?

Does TBS 3.5 takes advantage of Vista 64 bittechnology?
Should I expect to see better performamce running the software on this platform?

Does TBS 4.0 takes advantage of Vista 64 bit technology?
Does TBS4.0 run better on Vista… if so why?

Any future patches scheduled for TBS 4.0? What issues are being addressed and when is it expected?

Please … no sales pitch … I demo TBS 4.0 on XP…didn’t have time to get into it throroughly before the time expired. The few chances I had with it I didn’t see any issues.

Can work done in TBS 3.5 interchnageable with TBS 4.0 and vice-versa? I ask this just in case I find problems with 4.0 and want to go back to 3.5.

Thanks

I refuse to start this post by saying “Hello Tiger” ;D, I’m certainly not a Hooter’s girl (not that I have ANYTHING against them).

The hardware configuration you are asking about is quite specific, so I cannot say anything there. The Vista part I can comment on. I currently run TBS 4.0 on a seemingly powerful machine I put together myself at a fraction of the cost (Intel, however, Core2Duo 2.3 Ghz, with 2Gigs of RAM DDR2/667) and TBS runs smoothly and hasn’t crashed once since I used it on that one. However, (when live previewing) it did drag a bit with the integrated video card, which wasn’t too bad (256Megs), but that’s because Vista is quite demanding on graphics. I put in an NVIDIA 8400 with 512Megs of DDR2 RAM, manufactured by XFX (best I could find where I live) and now I’m doing quite fine even if Vista’s own evaluation tool gives it a 3.4 rating out of 5 (I’m quite impressed actually, because I work with streaming music in the background and messenger and other image editing software, and it doesn’t even blink). I did have an issue with my tablet. I’m using a generic Genius tablet (I know, I know, I’m gonna get a Wacom some day, when I get a second mortgage on my house) and Vista has tablet and TabletPC integration capabilities, so its software for that interfered with the tablet driver (or duplicated it, I guess). Because of that, I got a delay between what I did on the tablet and its appearance on screen. I solved that by disabling something called “pen gestures” (I think) which lets you control navigation buttons and common tasks with slides of the pen.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you get a Vista machine, make sure you get yourself a powerful Video card and lots of RAM. I recommend an NVIDIA 8800 GPU, with at least 512 of memory, because that one is designed for video editing. Processing power is important, so better not get the economy line of processors (Intel Celeron or AMD Athlon). I noticed that hardware is falling behind a little with Vista, so what now is THE ABSOLUTE BEST, will only be average in the Vista immediate future. Of course, get yourself the same machine and put XP on it and it will fly!!!

Hope it helps!

Renato

Sorry, I can’t answer your specific questions, because I’ve never used a Tablet PC, and I wouldn’t run VISTA if someone gave it to me. (Actually I have an upgrade voucher that came with my laptop, but I’m not about to install it.

<a href=“http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/what_went_wrong_with_windows_vista.html?kc=EWKNLNAVFEA1"”>“http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/what_went_wrong_with_windows_vista.html?kc=EWKNLNAVFEA1” What Went Wrong with VISTA?

From that article, we can hope that something better comes down eventually, for now, XP is the way to go.

Thought I’d mention that Wacom now has a 12 x 12 inch version of their Cintiq http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/12WX.cfm available for $999.

A friend who has a 21 inch Cintiqu says:

" It really isn’t the ideal tool for vector because you’re always putting your hand right in from of where you want to pull a node arm or plot a point.

For pure drawing and sketching and painting in Photoshop or Painter, I honestly can’t tell the difference between a drawing I do on paper and on on the screen with the Cintiq. "

Would this be the way you’d describe working on your Tablet PC?

re: Gateway Tablet PCs in particular, I ran a Google search last night and read a few reviews. Most of them were older reviews, but they were generally not particularly favorable.

While I realize that my laptop is NOT a Tablet PC, I ran a test last night to see if I would experience lag time in drawing view - I couldn’t remember that ever happening, but then I can’t say that I pay that much attention to whether I’m in drawing or camera view all the time.

On my IBM (pre Lenovo) T43p, Pentium M , Centrino -2.0 Ghz processor, with 2 gigs of RAM, and anATI Fire GL V3200 video card with 256 MB of RAM - Wacom 3, 6x8 tablet.

I opened Adobe Bridge, (massive memory hog) selected an image and opened it in Photoshop, (also a memory hog), I had my internet browser open, and opened ToonBoom 4 and started drawing in Drawing View. Every stroke was instantaneous. I increased the brush size to the maximum 100 pixels and scribbled all over the top of a drawing I already had on screen - there must have been LOTS of points there - no lagging at all.

http://www.patriceart.com/flipboom/drawing_view.jpg



Thanks for the links. First about Vista, I have never used it and had read briefly where it runs slower than XP. Very surpising since Vista was supposed to take advantage 64bit architecture …more lanes equal faster performance …or so I was told.

It would be nice to hear from the TBS people what they think of how their software runs on Vista compared to XP.

The issue will be I bet …that buying a new laptop now I won’t be able to get XP instead of Vista if I wanted to.

I read your assesment of Wacom with your machine and I think you may have mis-understood me. My Gateway is a full fledged lap-top as well as a tablet. I have Wacom Intuos3 and use it at times with my Gateway…like you I have absolutely no problem … no lags …what-so-ever. But I have never perfected the hand-to-eye coordination with the Intuos3… I’ve gotten better … but longed for something closer to paper on pencil.

Its when I use the machine in the tablet mode that I experience the lag. And like I explained I took a chance and got Gateway back then that didn’t use use Wacom’s technology. Instead they used a technology developed by a company called Fine-Point. Its great if you use the machine to take notes …like many of its users does… but with TBS …I encountered problems.

However I would recommend Gateway to most people (since very few use TBS) because beside the quirk with TBS …the machine works fine. Now that Gateway went back to Wacom …I’m considering buying another one.

When I last looked at Wacom’s site a (few months ago) I don’t recall seeing the $1K version of the Cintiq …back then they only had the $2.5K version.

I have a day job, this is my hobby, and $2.5K was way too much for a machine that does only one thing! The Tablet PC gives me all the Cintiq has to offer plus its a complete laptop when you want it to be a laptop… …for just under $1100! Sometimes I’ll run down to Starbucks …get a few cups of java and animate … pretty difficult to lug along a lap top + a Cinting to boot!

I wrote this message to try and get some kind of feedback from anybody who has a tablet employing Wacom’s technology …Lenovo, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Acer etc. I did this just to see if there were any issues using these machines with TBS.

However …at $1K for a Cintiq …my friend you’ve just opened up a can of worms. Because now I’m starting to think … my existing Gateway …with XP works fine, at $1K why not now consider a Cintiq?

Wait a while for Vista and the hardware to be perfected and in a year or 2 buy a souped up pure lap-top only to use with the Cintiq going forward.

Decisions, decisions …Dam you P.Boone …Dam you!!! ;D

However …at $1K for a Cintiq …my friend you’ve just opened up a can of worms. Because now I’m starting to think … my existing Gateway …with XP works fine, at $1K why not now consider a Cintiq?

Ha! Let’s just say that I know what I would do if I had 1k to play with!

If you’re in the USA, there’s sure to be an Office Depot or some such store nearby. Check out the business executives’ laptop carriers - briefcase - portfolio - not sure what they call them.

I bought a black ‘fabric’ one for under $25 with a stretchy, comfort shoulder strap that will hold my laptop, Wacom and pen, sketching paper and pencil, a digital ‘film’ card reader, camera battery charger, some blank CDs and/or blank DVDs, and a smallish wireless mouse. (high end Logitech - works great!) When I’m ready to spend a few days on my boat, it’s easy to pick up and go.

I suspect a 12x12 Cintiq would be somewhat larger than the 12x12 dimension. With a laptop briefcase, you might still need to carry the Cintiq. No doubt they give the exact physical dimensions on Wacom’s site.

When I bought my first Wacom, after I tried one in a store and realized it was possible to zoom in and out to work on details, so size didn’t really matter - I cut a piece of cardboard to try out and decided the 6x8 worked well. I could hold it in the crook of my left arm, like an artists’ palette, or an archaic clipboard.

Sorry I can’t answer your real question - but I just thought if it was me…



:slight_smile:

Hi Tiger,

Concerning the Vista compatibility, to run the software itself you should not have any problems although as with pretty much every other software if you run Toon Boom Studio on Vista and XP (same machine specs) you will notice that the XP will be slightly faster. Then again this is an overall thing with the OS and hopefully service packs should be solving those. Also be aware that getting a 64 bits Vista might not be the best option since we are not yet 64bit compliant (mainly because Quicktime is not officially supported on Vista and XP 64 bits).

So as of today, if you have the change go for XP (and you still should but hurry up because the time is running out). As for the future, well we can’t tell but hopefully things will get better as time goes by.

Regards,

Ugo

Actually this good news. I’m never a pioneer when it comes to technology, usually I wait untill the kinks have been iorned out. But because of my situation with my Tablet, I have stopped animating …waiting to get a better machine that no longer have any compatibility issues with TBS. I was hesitant on 3 counts:

1) I wanted to make sure …very sure that TBS ran well on other tablets using wacom technology.
2) I heard about Vista and was very wary
3) My Gateway is still fairly new, I couldn’t recover much selling or trading it… just because it didn’t run well with one application …TBS. For everything else my gateway runs fine.

Now I think I’ll buy this $1K Cintiq instead and run it on my Gateway which runs XP. In a year or two Vista shoulbe be fixed, and there should be even faster dual cores on the market. Making a PC upgrade worthwhile. In addition …if I get the Cintiq …I’ll no longer need a tablet …that way I can buy a standard laptop with even better features, faster CPU, better video card etc.

Whats surprising is the results from Vista …my understanding is that these system has more lanes to transmit the signals … …64bit instead of 32 … that alone I thought would make Vista considerably faster.
And BTW …when will TBS conform to 64 bit technology?

Remember how I was always complaining that TBS crash when the file size grows? I was thinking 64 bit technology would go a long way to fix this.

In fact when you guys advirtised that TBS is Vista compatible I was thinking that it took advantage of the 64 bit technology!

Umm, I think VISTA is too busy phoning home.

Let us know how you like your Cintiq!

I’m excited for you, and even a little green!

:wink:

Hi Tiger,

The 64 bits compatibility is somewhat out of our hands at the moment. The application itself works on 64 bit OS but all the Quicktime features (export and such) fails since Quicktime simply isn’t compliant on the OS. On a quick note make sure not to upgrade your Quicktime right now (made a sticky post but since I was in the subject) they seem to have completely remove the Flash support and we need to find an alternate way to get the thing done but for the moment your best option is to stay with 7.3.0 at most.

Best regards,

Ugo

Ugo thanks for the information. However, correct me if I’m wrong here …Apple and Quicktime doesn’t exist to accomodate TBS does it? In other words do you get in conference with Apple to talk about updates of their product?

Not sure what the solution is … but hitching your wagon to QT …might not be the best thing. Don’t we know how software companies behave?

First they give the product away for free …to get people hooked. The next phase is to start charging for it. QT has a free version along with a paid version, maybe Apple is stripping away the functions from the free version to force people to buy the paid version!

And … the people here bought TBS … not QT. This seems a bit different from say windows …which is a platform to run other software …and thus the dependence.

Not sure what the answer is …but TBS might want to rethink hitching their wagon to QT and allowing those people to jerk us around at will.

If I’m looking at this wrong …explain.

Hi Tiger,

QT is a standard for exporting. You would noticed that Premiere as the same export window interface. Since Quicktime as a good amount of codec available for free it is currently the best option for consumer level who don’t plan on buying any extra codecs.

Also be aware that it should be working under 64 bits OS but simply cannot guarantee everything will be working to its best.

Anyway we are looking for alternative way of doing thing but completely removing Quicktime from the install is most likely out of consideration at the present moment since it would take more then one development phase to get done and involves way too much.

Regards,

Ugo