Crashing Painter 6.03

[gmotto]

Hello, can anyone tell me what to do about Painter 6.03 crashing when working on files larger than 1 meg.? I am running on a P3 PC with windows 98 se.
When I try to reopen the file I get a message saying "Bad RIFF Data.

[athena]

Hellooo Felix!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> All fluff, no substance.
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] Au Contraire, your messages were sooo packed with information -- I was coming up with probably 50 to 100 questions and comments I wanted to make about all the great stuff you posted! I've been coming back and re-reading them just because they were so well said.

You may want to save some of these great postings of yours to disk "just in case" something should ever happen to this data. This is just too good to leave to chance.

The time you spent putting these postings online is very appreciated. I want to second Monastic Bat's sentiment -- Thank you Felix.

And let me also add to the thank you, Welcome! please make yourself at home here. And please feel free to share whatever images, tips, or advice you can spare.

Thank you again,

Athena
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

[shanenkrat]

PC 100 ram vs the old EDO Ram

Painter 6 worked better with the old EDO RAM, however will now get rid of the 100 MHz RAM and put in 133 MHz next week when I upgrade the motherboard. Some motherboards specify a particular brand of ram, but I failed to read the manual (sound familiar?)regarding the "suggestion." got rid of one 128 mb. stick and that improved the performance - hmm, 384 mb RAM to 256 MB improved the performance. egads! the manufacturer was actually correct! amazing.

"Computers and software are all buggy and should be avoided as much as possible" said Sue. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]

Also, I didn't have a Wacom tablet, then finally bought one, and *that* helped nearly eliminated the locking up. Removed the tablet, kept the drivers, Painter didn't seem to know the tablet was gone. hmm, code must stipulate a tablet?

[gmotto]

Hello, can anyone tell me what to do about Painter 6.03 crashing when working on files larger than 1 meg.? I am running on a P3 PC with windows 98 se.
When I try to reopen the file I get a message saying "Bad RIFF Data.

[gmotto]

Stecyk66
Thanks for the advice, I generally save as PSD most of the time. I go back and forth to Photoshop with most of my work. I am just now figuring out the way Painter 6 uses plugins. I guess I am relearning Painter since I gave up on it after the sell out.

[athena]

stecyk66,

Welcome to the painter forum!

Saving in both .psd and .rif format to avoid data corruption is an excellent idea. I had certainly never thought of that solution.

(but your .psd files survived the round trip from G4 to iMac back to G4? mind boggling)

Speaking of data corruption, trial and error (in other graphics programs) has taught me to save the same file under two (or more) different names just in case one of the saves gets corrupted.

And if some people are thinking that saving one image under different formats or different filenames is extreme, . . . think of the time you might lose if you don't. Disk space is cheap -- time isn't. (Especially in something like painter, sometimes you just can't duplicate that perfect combination of strokes.)

Athena


[This message was edited by T. Athena Hatton on September 09, 2000 at 03:43 AM.]

[athena]

Michael,

I read your first post and racked my brain over how to answer. I finally decided to offer some generic Troubleshooting questions that you can answer and maybe a fellow Mac user will be able to help or maybe we'll get an answer this way (at least we'll give it a sincere try [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] )

1. Question
2. What System are you using, System 6, System 7, System 8, System 9 ? These Macs last forever so that would be helpful to know.
   
3. how old is old?
   <ul>
4. you say you are having problems on an old Mac. Are we talking pre-PowerMacintosh??
5. If so, we may be severly out of luck here.
6. The Painter 6 program needs:
   <ul>
7. Power Macintosh
8. System 8 or later
9. a minimum of 32 MB of RAM
10. (64 MB of RAM recommended) I have 128 MB but I could easily see where more could be much better. Felix, I am soo envious. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]
11. 24 bit color display recommended (I don't know how you adjust that on Mac but I will bet almost anything that the Mac has some help files on that)

[/list][*]How much RAM do you have? Since you mentioned RAM Doubler in your first post, I suspect your "old" Mac may be low on memory (but we'll only know when you tell us [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] )

As a general rule in computing (PC or Mac) software emulation(like RAM Doubler) is always slower than actual hardware. so if RAM doubler only costs $40 or $50 (I really have no idea how much it costs) you may think it is worth the gamble but I think you could put that same money toward the purchase of some actual memory chips and the money would be better spent.

Thinking back, in '95 when RAM Doubler made a big splash, I remember hearing good things about it. (OK I'll be specific -- 1 sales person told me it was good and 1 person who had actually used it to run win '95 on a 386 -- a machine that win 95 was not supposed to work on -- does that make a majority? of course not. )

You'd have to make sure that the current version of RAM Doubler runs on the version of Apple's System you have.
[*]if you really had your heart set on RAM Doubler, I'd definitely check the box and see if they have a 30 day money back guarantee (but even those are a pain to follow up on)[/list]

That's the best I can offer 'til you tell us what ya got in your "old" Mac [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] .

Athena

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

PS In case you dove straight to this posting because of the Mac title, do read Felix's post above. It may give you a better feel for how much RAM you need.

[athena]

Timbre2,

This may have no bearing on your problem in Painter 6 but I remember in Painter 5, if my program took a long time to load, it was because I had many more fonts than 300 fonts loaded. My point is that maybe too many fonts are interfering with the Painter's text tool. If you have some kind of font manager, you could remove your less essential fonts and see if that helps. (This is just a guess.)

I also know that Painter seems to enjoy being the star of the show. Meaning that it works best if you only have Painter running. (And to make certain Painter's feelings aren't hurt, I will re-start the computer so that Painter is the first program I run in a given computing session -- no internet, nothing -- just Painter. Computing has gotten so complex these days, you just can't tell what is the culprit sometimes).

And finally, always take time to speed disk or defrag your hard drive. That will also help Painter run better.

Re: Painter 7
I have no contact with Corel but from what I've read and from the fact that a month or so ago they (Corel) had a live chat with program developers that was open to the public. I would expect that a Painter 7 is in development. We'll have to see.

Good Luck,

Athe

[athena]

Hello!

I have Painter 6.03, Win '98 SE, 128 MB of RAM, and an AMD K6-2 350 processor.
<ul>
<LI>I opened a .bmp that was 2.72 MB in size. (Incidentally, in geekspeak we type the letters MB as shorthand for MegaByte --- what you called meg.)
<ul>
<LI>I had no problem opening a 2.72 MB .bmp[/list][/list]
<ul>
<LI>Then I saved the .bmp as a .rif file.
<ul>
<LI>The size of the .rif was now 1.49 MB in size.[/list]
<LI>I then opened the 1.49 MB .rif -- no problems
<ul>
<LI>Since this is larger than 1 MB in size, if this were a problem inherent in Painter 6.03, then I should have had the same problem.[/list][/list][/list]

This leads me to suspect that you have something else going on here. If you are unfamiliar with computers, and if no one else maintains your computer for you, you may need some digital spring cleaning in your computer.

One thing I always do, especially when programs misbehave, is defragment (or if you have Norton Utilities it's called Speed Disk) my hard drive.

<UL>What does defrag or speed disk do?
<LI>The short answer: it sorts out your digital files on your hard drive.
<LI>The long answer: over time, your hard drive can become like my physical desktop --- cluttered and unorganized. I have jumbled stacks of papers, disks, books, pens, pencils, in very disorderly stacks and piles.
<LI>Disorderly is the operative word here. Defragment or Speed Disk both take the time to bring order to your digital files on your hard drive.

<LI>Disk Defragmenter comes, "free" with MS Win '98 SE (goto Start Button, Programs-->Accessories -->System Tools -- >Disk Defragmenter ) everyone I know hates this program because it is slow [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_mad.gif[/img]
<LI>
Speed Disk from Norton Utilities is far faster (and to my mind) does the job just as well as defrag.</li
[/list]

That is the best info. I can offer at the moment. If you give us more details, then maybe someone else will be able to jump in with better advice.

Good Luck,
Athena
;

[This message was edited by T. Athena Hatton on August 28, 2000 at 01:30 AM.]

[rosebytes]

xxx

[This message was edited by rosebytes on October 12, 2000 at 04:16 PM.]