Hi,

I am running the downloaded, but paid for and unlocked version of Xara X while I await my CD to arrive.

I was SO excited to see that you folks have created so many nice brushes to use with the program. It's too bad that they overload the program and make it crash, at least from what I surmise. I have been reading through the "crash" posts and most of them seem to be the exact same thing I am experiencing. I add brushes to the program and all of a sudden it is slowed to a crawl, loads really slow and then I try to use the "Freehand" option and boom "Serious Error: Access violation exception at offset 0x0003DDBC pops up and then the program, work unsaved, shuts down.

Now before anyone starts in on what they think is wrong with MY setup. I am running Windows2000 with the service pack II, I have upgraded the drivers for my NVIDIA TNT II just an hour ago, it's wonderful by the way, WOO HOO [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] and I went in and reset my swap files to 770 and I have 525 MB's of RAM on board. I have a fairly new system with a Pentium III processor and all my DLL's, at least most, are signed by Microsoft. So my system is as good and optimal as it gets!!

One thing I have observed is that the default brushes are between 12 and 24 points and are on 2 .xar files. These new brushes are HUGE in size and I think that may be one of the things that is causing what's going on here. I know everyone wants to show off their stuff, but I think, and I'm no tech, that it overstuffs the program with too much stuff to load on start up and also slows down the program. Then when you want to use the "Freehand" option and that little viewer comes up, I think it's already overloaded and the program takes a dump. Maybe I'm wrong, but I took the "Fur Brush" called "catfur.xar" and 1) reduced the page size, (most of those brushes are created on WAY to large a sized paper (A4) and that is just to large a space for what you are trying to accomplish here), I resized it down to 303 X 404 and it's nice, (I did that with most of the other brushes), then I reduced the points size down from 72 points to 48 points and then I inserted it onto the default brush page, Natural Media (created a copy of it, just in case) and restarted XaraX and it didn't crash. I then tried it with another "Fur Brush" and it didn't work out, so at least I tried. And at least I can use the Catfur.xar brush with no complaints.

I think that all you wonderful brush creators out there might consider re-doing your brushes and limiting them to the default size, between 12 and 24 points. They may not look like much but I think the sige, thickness, fluffiness and all that will be handled by the other dialog called "Strokes and Shapes" next to it. I don't know what else to suggest.

I was SO pleased to have found XaraX and such a great group of people that are excited about it to create such wonderful add ons, but I think that guidlines need to be established, at least for now, untill Xara, Ltd. can fix this glitch. There shouldn't be limitations but obviously there needs to be for now. I don't think it's necessarily it's any one persons setup, I think it's a glitch in the program more than anything else. ATTENTION XARA LTD. Please fix this!!!

So has ANYONE found a way to make them work besides suggesting that everyone that wrote them re-do them and re-post them???? We shouldn't be limited to using the defaults, I think these brushes are WONDERFUL!! And SHOULD be able to be implimented with out all this crashing stuff!!

Thanks for hearing me, I hope there is some sort of a solution, it would be a shame to NOT be able to use these wonderful creations after all.

RAMWolff [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[This message was edited by RAMWolff on November 06, 2001 at 16:31.]