Xara Flash Content Playback in Windows 7 64-bit

[KultiVator]

Hi guys,

This is not directly a problem with Xara - I'm just fishing for ideas really.

I create a lot of training animations using Xara - and this weekend upgraded to Windows 7 - 64-bit edition. Following the upgrade, I'm seeing some strange things during playback of my Xara-drawn flash content...

1) Glitching / stuttering - animations are not smooth like they were on Vista 32-bit.

2) Animations run faster (some are set against a timed soundtrack in PowerPoint, so it's not good when the animation completes several seconds ahead of the audio!).

3) Some apparent tearing of images during movement.

I've been through the usual steps of swapping out the default video driver that Windows installs for the latest Catalyst drivers, I've updated FLASH player to the latest (and removed/reinstalled manually a couple of times).

Wondering if this is just due to the Flash player not being optimised for Win 7 64-bit - or whether anyone else has thoughts on what might be affecting playback?

(I see some improvement in playback when switching to 16-bit colour mode in my display settings, but there is still some jitter and speed issues).

Kind Regards,


KultiVator

[Soquili]

Hi KultiVator,

Welcome to Talkgraphics.

Many 64-bit users (XP, Vista, and Windows 7) have reported problems with glitching and stuttering. I think the primary cause could be that many programs are not optimized for 64-bit OS systems.

Multi-core processors seem to add to the stuttering. So a 64-bit OS system with a quad core CPU seem to experience more stuttering. This problem seems to be related to how a program is optimized to handle multithreading.

Because most software is still being targeted for 32-bit OS systems these intermittant glitches on a 64-bit OS are probably to be expected.

[Soquili]

I'm currently running 32-bit Vista Ultimate on hardware that supports 64-bit dual core processor. I have not experienced any of the problems 64-bit OS users have been reporting.

If you purchased Windows 7 DVD you have both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. If you are inclined you may want to try the 32-bit version to compare with how things are working on the 64-bit OS.

[KultiVator]

Hi Guys,

Many thanks for taking time out to respond to my distress call ;-)

I had kind of arrived at the conclusion that I'd be switching back to the 32-bit edition of Windows 7 - my post here was a last ditch attempt to find some way out that allowed me to stick with Win64 (It kind of pains me that reverting to 32-bit will once again impose the 3GB limit and ignore the extra RAM in my production systems).

Oh well - dreaming of a day when most key apps and media playback software are better optimised for multi-core/multi-threaded 32/64/128-bit environments

(Windows 7 is only just out, but MS are already gearing up for upcoming 128-bit CPU's in their Windows 8 roadmap).

Thanks again,


KultiVator

[steve.ledger]

Something of an explanation from Adobe here.

Though I have W7 Pro 64bit installed - I haven't run across any flash lag/stutter yet.
I also have had the 64bit version of W7 RC on an AMD dual-core Toshiba laptop for a good part of the year, no issues with playback there either.

Some people have had issues with multiple installations of various browser versions of the player to which Adobe have responded with a player removal tool. You can remove all players from all browsers, then start with a fresh installation of the latest version.