heh- you mean Gimpshop has been rolled in the main code track at last?

I've had problems running the regular versions in Windows.
and I gave up in the end but will try portable one and the free-floating dockable fell off for me

FWIW there's a version over at portableapps.com -- I've had problems running the regular versions in Windows.

Thanks much, looks very nice indeed.

The GIMP is an image editor often compared to Photoshop and the like in scope and power. It's free, open source and cross platform.

One of the biggest complaints (especially from PS users) was GIMP's "lack" of a single window UI, favoring separate, free-floating dockable, pinnable elements instead. While single window mode is still not the default (select it under "windows" drop down on top bar) 2.8 DOES finally have it, and it works quite well. Other improvements have been made to this release including UI beautification, layer groups, speed enhancements, and more.

GREAT software!

great program

Thanks, missed this when you first posted. looks like a decent app. :)

I think it might be a fair, if somewhat limited alternative to CorelDraw, giving you design/graphics capabilities you won't easily find elsewhere, at least in a package that's as easy to learn & use. If you're graphically inclined at all, if you haven't tried using a vector graphics app like this I strongly suggest it. Vector graphics are instructions for your PC/laptop on how to draw something, as opposed to a raster image like a .jpg file which is the result once drawn. It's how/why a font can look sharp at 5 points or 50. The downside is that for more than simple shapes vector graphics can get very involved -- some people take to it, some don't [it's like 3D modeling in that respect] -- but don't let that turn you off vector graphics entirely... treating everything more-or-less as objects, apps like Xara &/or CorelDraw can be great for layout, & you can import whatever raster images. One of the neat things about CorelDraw for example is you can use any shape as a lens -- think of making a cutout, maybe in the form of a star, to a piece of paper that you hold over a photo, & any portion of the photo can show through as you move that piece of paper.

This is an older version of Xara -- I've downloaded v.7 but not tested yet -- & with the free v. 5 I think there are 2 possible advantages to Corel, 1 being obviously the price, but the 2nd being Corel has had installation & compatibility issues for quite some time now. That said, version 7 will have to include some decent improvements over this free version to be a better value than the CorelDraw Home/Student Suite which is comparatively priced -- the Home/Student version is basically the full package minus some commercial printing features. As far as Corel *issues* go...

I've been using CorelDraw almost since the beginning, back in the 1st 1/2 of the 90s. Corel had a Very nice stable of apps, but fell on harder times under questionable leadership, & wound up selling off a lot of apps they'd bought the rights too [Corel once sold a neat, easy to use game development app, a few 3D apps like Poser, a full DTP app etc.]. They also had a harder time adapting when Vista came out -- they actually tried to do things right the way Microsoft said to do them, and wound up with a huge mess... many of their apps wouldn't install properly with UAC off, when of course many, many people turned UAC off very first thing. Long story short Corel today is a shadow of its former self. Any & all of their apps I've tried over the last 3-5 years have compatibility & installation problems, to the point that I try my best not to upgrade unless I have to, which is alas made easier because they've cut back the number of new features whenever they've released a new version. It's gotten to the point that I don't generally recommend Corel for anything to anyone anymore -- I can't recall installing one of their apps without problems in one or more of my Windows installs since Vista was in beta, & I'm not talking minor glitches. [When it was dirt cheap -- I paid $13 -- I thought Paintshop Photo Pro X3 worth the risk as long as you were forewarned.] I bought their Paintshop Photo Pro X3 many months (a year?) ago, I still can't get more than 1/2 of it installed in XP Pro, & in win7 I still get its installation dialog popping up when I go to open certain formats of video files. I can't get CorelDraw X5 to print to my Epson printer without a color cast -- Paintshop Photo Pro at least gets that right.

But even given all that I'd buy the CorelDraw suite again if I didn't already have it. The CorelDraw vector graphics app is very cool, & if you're into graphics &/or layout design you can do things with it you can't in a regular image editor. It's cheaper & easier to use than the Adobe competition, Illustrator, & much more evolved than the free, open source Inkscape. Corel Photopaint is somewhat unique in its approach to layers -- it uses floating objects that you can convert to selections & vice versa in a way that can be faster/easier than dealing with layer transparency, masks etc. in something like PhotoShop, but still achieves the same results. It has decent enough pen/tablet support, I really like their brush on masks much better than PhotoShop's, & I just really like it compared to all the other images editing apps I've used over the years. But it takes some time to learn & maybe that's why it was never hugely popular when Corel tried selling it on its own?

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer seems like a nice, if limited version of those 2 apps, CorelDraw & Corel Photopaint. If I'm a bit shy in praising Xara's web design capabilities, it's because I think some people get into trouble using tools like that to create their web site, then later run into problems when they start to get more serious about web design, finding that they need to use another app or set of apps, finding themselves back at square one all over again... You do a graphic or image, you do a video, when you're done you're done, but when you do a web site you're talking about an evolving entity you're never done with until you take it down. That doesn't mean you can't use Xara for web design, but I think you should maybe only use it as part of your design & implementation process if you use it at all.

I was worried initially about Xara 5's setup, as it added things like the WMV9VCM from 2003 -- that's why when I installed it outside a VM I chose my win8 install, because I know that's going to be short-lived as newer versions are released. I'm very slow right now -- even slower as I try to get over the Flu -- but sooner or later I'll have some info on the v.7 trial. I've got mixed feelings/experiences with Magix, so I'm maybe a little extra cautious, but thinking a year or so out I may want to go with Xara rather than Corel in win8, so I'm looking at it from that perspective.

Thanks, missed this when you first posted. looks like a decent app. :)

In case it helps... just got done testing this...

I used Universal Extractor on the downloaded setup file, giving me product & addon folders. In the product folder, rename "Xtreme_Foto_Grafik_Designer_5_Silver_en-GB_setup.ms_" to end in .msi, run that & the app will install, skipping all the installations in the addon folder. After doing that in a VM I got a message starting Xara that XML 4 was missing -- going to the addon folder, running the necessary msi file in the msxml folder took care of that, note that there was a Microsoft hotfix available through Microsoft Update afterwards.

The benefit was skipping 2 C/C++ runtime installs plus updates, skipping the Screenshare app, skipping the Photomanager & database install, & skipping the Magix Online Print Service install, & seriously cutting down on installation impact. I don't like the XML4 install since it can overwrite v.6 -- I had problems quite a while ago when an install added XML4, & I wound up having to re-install v.6 + updates -- but mileage can vary. The runtime files aren't a huge deal since they're added to the WinSxS folder where such things coexist side by side, but it's extra bloat in this case I think -- hard to imagine you don't have the correct runtimes already. My main beef was with the remaining apps, which in a VM where I can record this stuff, made numerous changes that I suspect could/would cause problems for other installed software. That said, I don't wish to imply that the Xara program install is low impact without these add-ons, but it's nearly 4000 registry entries were less than 1/2 of what it was otherwise, & other than the xml4 install I didn't see the same sorts of changes that concerned me with the full package.

Cool, now I don't need to write a long text - mike was faster - LOL (I too are a bit under the weather...)

I found the info here at Gizmo's TSA:

This Graphics Package Was $90 But It's Free Until 24th November

Please read the article and the comments, there are explanations about toolbars and the registration.
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Besides that, you can even get a 30% discount if you update this older version to the latest version 7.
Read it here: http://www.xara.com/eu/products/designer/upgrade/

graylox says nitey-nite now.

I'm still a bit under the weather so keeping this brief out of necessity, Magix is giving away an older version of that Xara app -- I've no idea if it's a limited time or forever deal so wanted to get something posted. In a nutshell it's a nice package with a horrible installation that may or may not cause you problems depending on what else you have installed... DO visit Microsoft update afterwards. DO backup 1st if you decide to try it.

You can find info on Xara with Google/Bing -- it's an old company formerly associated with Corel, that had bad luck &/or timing... they came out with some really neat tech, just as advances in Windows & hardware eliminated the need. Now Magix has them -- there's quite a lot of info available on Magix as well.

What you get is a database app for organizing photos, a web page design app, a vector graphics app [think limited version of CorelDraw!], & an image editing app [think a limited version of Corel Photopaint]. While it is an older version I installed it in the win8 dev preview this morning where it seems to work just fine. During install choose the custom setup so you can say no to the toolbar -- otherwise unfortunately you can't skip any portions of the complete install. That said, Universal Extractor does work with the setup file, so if you wanted you could experiment, e.g. trying just the app setup to see if that would work [there are separate product & addon folders].

While Magix' claims of it being a Photoshop killer are vastly overstated, the vector graphics app in this package is nicely done, does a nice job of letting you draw vector lines/graphics freehand, & it handles some DTP &/or page layout. The image editor is a bit odd, like Corel Photopaint using an object metaphor rather than handling layers like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro. Personally I like Photopaint's way better, but that's of course up to the individual -- I only mean to say it can work about as well to do much the same things. Corel used to include Xara's web design app with their CorelDraw! suites, using it to help fill out the bundle so you felt better about spending a couple few hundred dollars on 2 main apps & a ton of clipart & fonts. It was usable, had it's fans, but I've never heard it mentioned in serious design circles or discussions.

http://www.magix.com/?id=9192&L=52&partnerid=2&utm_source=magix&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=fgd5silver&utm_campaign=US_44_inaktiv&newsletter=us/fgd5silver/000/ohne/header

or

http://goo.gl/yYsTm

Same here Graylox. I'm going to check the add-ons later once I've done my emails etc. I'd forgotten how much fun I had playing with this program (though only the demo). I was really surprised when I saw that it was free. (I was looking for editing software as at the time I was looking to start creating objects for Battlefield 2 maps, but as usual i never finished what I was doing. Terragen was advertised with some other software that you could use to create landscapes. Can't remember what the other programs were called. I was hoping i could port over the resultant creations into the Battlefield 2 editor as it seemed a lot more accurate than the BF2 level creation tool.

Thank you for reminding me about this program.

I didn't realize that you can also download a free version of Terragen 2, I only saw the end bit of your post. that's really cool. Can't wait to try it out. :)

WOW - a superb idea, Idunno.

Yes, WR, Terragen is not new, I posted this just to recall a powerful programme.
Like you I gave Terragen a try several years ago, as my old PC was rather slow, I lost all interest in working with the tool. Now I'm happy to see, that not only my machine "grew", but the programme too - and it is still free.
Looking forward to play around with it.

graylox

Thanks, Graylox. :D

Hi Whiterabbit,
Your latest posts in the 'GG2G' threads about the digital equivalents to boardgames, brought back to mind the classic approach to board design.
This quick test demonstrates the principal of generating a printable 'Hex Map', with the help of free software...

'Create Hexagon Grid' Plugin for Paint.Net:
http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/3078-

Paint.Net (Freeware):
http://www.getpaint.net/

A Wiki Describing the Traditional Hexagonical Gameboard is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hex_map

This is really weird. I was talking to a friend on Skype last night about this program. I used to play around with the demo several years ago. This hwas made freeware about 4 years ago, got a copy somewhere but not played much with it since. You can create some amazing scenery that looks like real locations.

Terragen™ 2
.

.

Terragen™ 2 is a powerful solution for rendering and animating realistic natural environments. Create entire worlds from your imagination, or import real world terrain datasets and use Terragen 2 to create the most realistic visualisations possible. You control the weather, landscape, rivers, lakes and oceans, suns, moons and stars. With Terragen 2 you have complete control over the shader networks used for terrains, textures, micropolyon displacements, clouds and object distributions. You can reorganise the planetary shading pipeline to suit your goals. Place grass and trees wherever you want, as well as other objects in OBJ format that you can model in third party software. It's easy to find great plants and objects modelled by other Terragen users or elsewhere on the web.

.

.

Terragen 2 is available both as a free download and as a purchase option for Terragen 2 Deep Edition. The free version may only be used for non-commercial purposes and is limited in the following ways:

Render Size Maximum: 800x600
Render Detail Maximum: 1.0
Antialiasing Maximum: 3
Maximum Number of Rendered Populations: 3
Maximum Render Detail for Micropolygon Export: 0.1 ...
System Requirements:
PC

Any version of Windows including 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7
Minimum 1GB of RAM - 4GB recommended
Minimum 1Ghz CPU - 2Ghz Dual Core recommended

Mac

OS X 10.4 or newer
PPC or Intel - TG2 is a Universal Binary
Minimum 1GB of RAM - 4GB recommended
Minimum 1Ghz CPU - 2Ghz Intel Dual Core recommended

Download Terragen™ 2
.
For the absolute beginners - like me - is the classic version available:
Terragen™ Classic

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.

...Despite the fact that Terragen Classic can be used for professional landscape visualisation projects, it is accessible and easy to get started with. You could be rendering your first landscape image in as little as 15 minutes after installation.

You can view a gallery of images created by Terragen users here.

Terragen has a native user interface, using facilities provided by the operating system of the respective platform, as opposed to the custom user interfaces used by many similar applications. This means Terragen can follow the usage conventions of each platform as closely as possible, which ensures that it looks and feels just like the other applications you use and means there is no learning curve with respect to the basic operation of Terragen....
...Terragen runs on Microsoft Windows XP, Me, 2000, Vista and 7 (for Intel/AMD & compatibles)...

You'll find on the site galleries with lots of images, plugins, and some free plant objects as downloads.

Did I say it's FREEEE for non-commercial use?
Pictures and text: http://www.planetside.co.uk/

graylox (going to create her own island now....)

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/ (Benchmarking it will tell you if you need new ram video Card so and it free to try 30 days)http://filehippo.com/download_sandra_lite/

Sandra Lite 2010 SP1 (16.36)
SiSoftware - 24.19MB (Non-Commercial Freeware)

I went the other direction, assuming perhaps the GHz was the mistake - it being much easier to type a 3 instead of a 1 rather than three Is instead of a 4. On top of that I had just been reading about overclocking processors and the heat they produce as a result and, being mostly ignorant of the physics behind it, it seemed feasible that a 1.4GHz Pentium III processor could be overclocked to 3.3GHz with some very extreme cooling involved. After all, the things I don't know would fill a warehouse of libraries! Either way I'm glad we don't have to call out the white coat brigade. :)

With a Pentium 4 it's a different story. You may be able to upgrade the processor, depending on the motherboard and CPU socket. If the current, OEM graphics card is on-board then installing a third-party board ought to help a bit more than just upgrading from one card to another.

A third option would be to completely wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows. That would clean out anything clogging up the system, but you would also, of course, have to reinstall all of your programs.

Returning to your original question, I don't know that a new video card helps as much as it used to, with the possible exception of going from on-board graphics to a separate graphics card.

Yes, I am surprised too. I am referring to the "Pentium III processor" that I listed as my CPU in my original post. I noticed my mistake about five minutes past too late. My CPU is a Pentium 4.

My days are filled with my mistakes. My computer keyboard is a particular nemesis of mine. I have to type with one hand. I have almost full use of my right hand and very little use of my left. I constructed a hybrid modular keyboard with out board user interfaces. Also almost everything on my computer can be controlled by voice. My voice recognition system is constantly working in the background. It (Dragon) is always waiting for an opportunity to commit all types of mischief when it senses that I am not paying attention to what it is doing.

I am sure that many people recognized the "Pentium III mistake" that I made. Most seemed content to let it pass probably figuring that I have a fragile psyche. Cognizant of my delicate state most readers probably decided that the polite and prudent thing to do would be to pretend that the mistake was never made.

I thank you. You guessed correctly and your discretion is appreciated. I do have a fragile psyche and had my mistake been pointed out to me in a bare metal format a detainee months to recover from the trauma.

Bigun

Without a doubt a dedicated video card will improve the overall functionality of a PC, and I'm not even a gamer! It really becomes noticeable when multitasking. For example I'll often have two browsers running at the same time (IE8 & Firefox), MS Word 2007 (sometimes even Excel), and streaming audio content. There will be background applications running such as the OS, security programs, Bluetooth, Unlocker, SRS Premium Sound, Web Cam Central, Messenger, etc; take a look at your Taskbar. As Wizzard mentioned PC's today have high spec's. But that's because the hardware has to keep up with today's ever more complicated and graphic intensive software, that's most often taken for granted by a user.

Incidentally, the dedicated video card I purchased for my Dell Latitude E6500 was the 256MB NVIDIA QUADRO NVS 160M. The PC didn't come with a dedicated card, it was strictly optional; the processor by the way is the Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 2.8Ghz. An other option was a flat black display with 1900 x 1200 screen resolution (don't let anyone kid you, the good stuff is in the commercial line but the manufacturer(s) don't exactly promote their availability to the general public, however, I caught on to that little secret...lol).

You can check out more NVIDIA products - http://www.nvidia.com/page/home.html

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

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2404-7.html

try Graphics, Display, Video so on Video on upgrade Video Card don't know if good or not?

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/computer-graphics-channel.htm

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the Pentium III running at 3.3ghz - what kind of cooling do you use to keep that going?!

With something that old I might look into replacing the system over upgrading, the Pentium III having not been produced since 2003. I think there's been 5 or 6 new Intel processor families since the Pentium III, not to mention the many AMD has produced.

These days a decent system can be built with just a few hundred dollars. Perhaps that would be a more economical route in the long run?

Regarding video cards(trying to get back to original thread,here),I remember reading somewhere about it only being cards drawing over 75w power requiring extra connections from the power supply,so most mid range cards should be ok.Again compatability with the motherboard is all important,age and type of board can severely limit the power and type of available cards(as I found out to my cost,a few years ago as the only card I could get to fit my board wasn't much better then what I had).
I was also having the same negative thoughts regarding linking 2 pc's(swapping mouse and keyboard about with flashlight)until I found Multiplicity and realised that the mouse and keyboard were connected only to the 'Primary PC' and the software did the rest,through my network,and all the hardware needed was a monitor for each pc.

Wizard

My thinking was along same lines. With everything operating in the "giga" range, is doubling the amount of RAM on a graphics card going to make a great difference? In the old days, every time a computer magazine mentioned increasing performance, at the top of the list a video card update was almost always mentioned. I cannot find anything definitive now. I have only recently started playing games on the computer so my question involved general performance rather than graphic rendering (80/20).

I have noticed that I am unable to play most of the games that you have been posting because of my present graphic card's limitations. One reason for asking about card specifications is that if I up-grade my graphic adapter card, I would like to find one that would enable me to play a few more games. I did check my power supply specifications and made a few measurements prior to asking my question. I can safely add a card that will not draw any more than 100 W more than my present card requires. I have no idea what the power requirements are for new graphic cards. My audio card does not put much of a strain on the power supply but I would like to limit a replacement graphic card to requiring 200 to 250 W. Mother board stress and strain can only be a guess

Yes, the mode was hijacked to beat the band. It made for some interesting reading. As for new computers and hard drives, I recently put in two hard drives to replace some aging ones for friends. Their new hard drives held about four times the information of the old ones. I hoped that cloning (I believe that is what I ended up doing) using the Acronis True Imaging program would make for an easy transition - and it did. The first changeover took about an hour and the second one no longer than twenty minutes.

I recently downloaded a program where the same keyboard and mouse could be used on two computers. I have not installed it yet but I believe it is the same one that Desert mentioned in his post. I put off installing the program because I was not sure that I want to leave both computers connected to the same mouse and keyboard all the time and I did not relish climbing on the floor with a flashlight to switch cables every time that I wanted to switch from one system to the other. I did not realize that both computers could be operating at the same time and all that it took to switch the keyboard and mouse could be done through the software package. I am not sure how the cables from the keyboard and mouse need to be connected. I will think it through tomorrow when I am more awake. With my years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, my first thoughts started along the lines of designing and building an electronic USB switch. While that is not all that difficult, and I think I have the parts to do it, I wondered if being able to use a good keyboard with both computers was worth the trouble. My conclusion was my time would be poorly spent building a switch. I have poor use of my left hand so most projects are easier thought through than actually carried out.

I believe there may be some confusion about Bigun's question.

Can a video adapter upgrade be expected to increase a computer's performance in a way other than the quicker rendering of a complex graphic?

I know that, like you say Bigun, the graphics cards would make the computer run smoother. However with all the bigger specs, I wonder the same. I can tell you that the computer I had just a few years ago, actually did run a little faster when I *discovered* the ease of video card installation, and that was going from an older card to a newer one. I would think that the dedicated memory on the card would have to make it easier on the processor and thus allow it to focus it's power elsewhere. But again, with such high spec's these days, it may not even be noticeable.

Something to remember about adding a video card is compatability with the motherboard,a lot of the newer video cards won't work with older boards,and can require extra power leads from your power supply(one of mine requires 2x extra leads).

Bigun to answer your question. Yes, video cards absolutely help. I'll give a rough demonstration. Now days, video cards are little graphics computers.

What they do is, all the complex algorithms for graphics are done solely just by the video card. Otherwise, the algorithms are chopped up an sent to the processor and in doing this, it takes space on the ram and I guess the cache. We are talking about billions of lines of code per second, just imagine playing a 3d intense game.

All those algorithms are being analyzed and calculated till it is outputted for your monitor. If the video card is not doing the work, then everything else is.

Understand?

===========
What cards to by- just dont buy a card under 40 bucks and you should be ok for basic gaming, but for a 60 to 80 dollars you can buy 240gt that will do everything you need including play high def movies for tv.

WOW!!! Great Hijacking of a thread!

To the OP, Bigun, I really don't know. But I have always felt more memory can't hurt. Hopefully someone will come along with some knowledge about this.

video card upgrade my XP had 35 MB no good not play games so up grade to 250 MB it went like a new P C if you only go on the net you don't need a very good card, Do you play games do Paint so on?

Going back in history fifteen years or so, the performance of a slow computer (generally slow in all respects) could be increased (some) by adding a faster video adapter board. At least in the mind's eye, one's perspective of increased performance seemed possible by going from a twenty-five dollar board to a seventy-five dollar graphics card. I suppose the graphic processor and onboard memory were responsible somehow. I wonder if the same is true today. It has been many years since I have heard a person in the know suggest a video adapter board upgrade to increase a computer's overall performance

Given a 32-bit Windows XP Pro with SP three, 3 GB of RAM memory and a single core Pentium III CPU running at 3.3 GHz sporting a 128 MB OEM video card:

Is anyone familiar with empirical data (or strong personal opinion)showing any of the following (?):

Can a video adapter upgrade be expected to increase a computer's performance in a way other than the quicker rendering of a complex graphic? If better performance can be expected, what would the specifications for a video card upgrade need to be? Would increasing the memory on the video card from 128 to 256 MB make any appreciable difference?