Hardware acceleration setting?

[rafiki]

In another programme I have to switch off GPU acceleration because of a display driver problem which causes viewer browsing to freeze. That solves the problem there. I am getting a similar problem in iMatch with large files freezing so was looking for a similar switch but can't find one. Is hardware acceleration relevant to iMatch and can it be switched off?

[Mario]

You cannot turn this off in IMatch. I did not bother to implement a second code base that does the same IMatch does with DirectX somehow "by hand". My resources are limited and problems caused by DirectX are so rare, it's just not worth it.

I don't know what your problem is, which errors IMatch is reporting in the log file, which graphic card or driver or Windows version you use so I cannot comment further. Usually the latest stable driver for your graphic card does the trick.

[rafiki]

I don't know what your problem is, which errors IMatch is reporting in the log file, which graphic card or driver or Windows version you use so I cannot comment further. Usually the latest stable driver for your graphic card does the trick.

Thanks for your reply. The problem is in the viewer. When I fast browse a group of RAW images, after a couple it slows down giving long waits at 'Loading...' and after about six it freezes at 'Loading...'.

My graphic card is the NVIDIA GeForce GT730M and, according to Windows 10 64 bit Device Manager, it has the latest driver (December 2016). I recreated the problem and attach the log file.

[Mario]

Your graphic driver returns error code 8899000C which basically tells the application (IMatch) that the driver ran into an error and that the application should drop and re-create all DirectX resources. This is not too uncommon and IMatch handles this automatically. You usually donÄt notice that.

On your system, the graphic card returns this error right again, and again and again. Sad.

Go to Edit > Preferences > Application: Viewer. Reduce the number of pre-loaded files to 1 or 2. This will reduce the "stress" for your graphic card and should avoid the problem. IMatch will not be able to navigate as fast in the Viewer though because it cannot preload so many files.

See the help and the release notes for more info: https://www.photools.com/release-notes/?productId=110

[Jingo]

Just a side note to this: I experienced some really bad graphic display errors in my system... nvlddmkm.sys driver error randomly would appear in the error log accompanied by the driver reloading and sometimes little red dots all over the screen.  The system would freeze, graphic driver would reload.. and sometimes it wouldn't happen for days.. other times it would happen over and over again.

I followed everything I could find online to try and fix... eventually, I guessed the graphic card was just bad and threw another I had in the house into the machine.  Voila!  Not a single error......  Perhaps a memory module on the board is bad and replacing the card will resolve the issue...

Hope this is helpful is some way!

[rafiki]

Thanks Jingo. I'll take a look at that.

[rafiki]

I believe I have found the solution. By selectively disabling each of the adapters (Intel integrated and NVIDIA) I found that with the Intel graphics adapter disabled leaving the NVIDIA enabled the problem disappeared. I am assuming that with iMatch and my other problem viewer there is a conflict between the adapters. My Thinkpad support forum told me that there is a part of the system (Optimus) which seamlessly chooses which adapter is used for individual programmes. However, in case of conflicts, in the NVIDIA control panel there is a section which allows one to choose which adapter should be used on any particular programme. Selecting NVIDIA instead of Automatic has solved the problem. In the other programme I can now switch the hardware acceleration back on.

[Mario]

This is a typical case for hybrid notebooks. It's always the Intel GPU which causes the problem. I could have told you that if you had mentioned that you use a dual GPU system.

This is also true for other (usually) notebooks which el-cheapo on-board Intel graphic cards.
These are low-spec minimal hardware. Intel decided to save 2 dollars per board by using very little memory and a very low-spec hardware. The problems only show up when you try to run something that really utilizes the GPU, like a game or IMatch or Ps / Lr etc.

[rafiki]

Yes, my omission Mario. However, i don't think I understood the relevance initially. Still, I enjoyed the search, learnt something and got satisfaction from finding a solution - in the end.