PDFs/eBooks/Comics Inefficient

[frosty-theaussie]

Is there another way to view Game Manuals, eBooks and Comics without extracting the PDF or images from a comic book .cbz archive? It takes about five minutes just to load one, which doesn't make sense for the .cbz in particular (readers like CDisplay show them on the fly, it's instantaneous - I can understand if this is the only way to do it with PDFs if it's Adobe's proprietary format). Is it possible?

[greatflash]

Is there another way to view Game Manuals, eBooks and Comics without extracting the PDF or images from a comic book .cbz archive? It takes about five minutes just to load one, which doesn't make sense for the .cbz in particular (readers like CDisplay show them on the fly, it's instantaneous - I can understand if this is the only way to do it with PDFs if it's Adobe's proprietary format). Is it possible?

I have the same problem with straight pdf manuals, sometimes they can take several minutes. Also, if the computer is doing anything in the background, gameex can actually stop responding! The pdf files take seconds to open in acrobat reader. Perhaps this is something worth looking into? I thought it was just me!

[frosty-theaussie]

I have the same problem with straight pdf manuals, sometimes they can take several minutes. Also, if the computer is doing anything in the background, gameex can actually stop responding! The pdf files take seconds to open in acrobat reader. Perhaps this is something worth looking into? I thought it was just me!

No, it's not just you. It's because it converts the entire PDF into single JPGs when you open it.

[greatflash]

No, it's not just you. It's because it converts the entire PDF into single JPGs when you open it.

No wonder it takes soo long.. There must be another way - TOM?

I added a complete archive of vintage computer magazines recently, and sadly it is not worth looking at them from GameEx - just take WAY TOO LONG. I quit gameex and use an external program. Shame really

[stigt]

Same for game manuals. It would be nice to take a peek at them before playing a game, but with minutes to load I rarely do that. Would it be possible to speed this up?, that would be a great addition.

Arjen

[headkaze]

I'm afraid there is no "easy way" around this as there is no simple (and free) library to do it. I did alot of research on it trying to find an alternative but GhostScript is the only way I could find which is how Tom is already processing pages. And yes it is slow depending on the quality of the pdf.

I think this could be sped up a little using some of the command line options that effect the quality of the image generated.

The command line options I use in CPWizard are as follows

-dGraphicsAlphaBits=4 -dTextAlphaBits=4 -dQUIET -r150 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=png16m

I believe lowering the quality using these options could improve rendering time quite a bit.

[Tom Speirs]

I'm afraid there is no "easy way" around this as there is no simple (and free) library to do it. I did alot of research on it trying to find an alternative but GhostScript is the only way I could find which is how Tom is already processing pages. And yes it is slow depending on the quality of the pdf.

I think this could be sped up a little using some of the command line options that effect the quality of the image generated.

The command line options I use in CPWizard are as follows

-dGraphicsAlphaBits=4 -dTextAlphaBits=4 -dQUIET -r150 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=png16m

I believe lowering the quality using these options could improve rendering time quite a bit.

I think I may add a setting for lower quality. I have actually been thinking about this for a while

For the comics, its does extract the entire archive and create all the images first, but its the image processing which slows things down. For PDF it does not create every image first, it does I think 10 and then it displays and then creates the rest on the thread, but displays first.