Performance

 

Contents    Living Scenes Jigsaw Puzzles

 

Performance

 

Most computers that are below the recommended system requirements listed above will still be able to use the Living Scenes Jigsaw Puzzles program without any issues.  However, the program may appear sluggish on those computers when playing Living Scenes jigsaw puzzles.

 

 

The Performance LEDs

 

The yellow and green LEDs in the lower left corner of the control panel indicate your computer's ability to play Living Scenes jigsaw puzzles at full speed.  The yellow LED is lit when the computer is displaying the puzzle at anything less than full speed.  Often, there is no visible effect of this condition, and it is not an indication of an error.  However, in some cases the puzzle's video may appear to run in slow motion and the movement of puzzle pieces may become sluggish.

 

The green LED is lit when the computer is displaying the motion in a Living Scenes jigsaw puzzle at full speed.  In this case there are no performance issues.

 

Note: The performance LEDs are unused when a Living Scenes puzzle is paused or when playing still image jigsaw puzzles.

 

 

Improving Performance

 

There are steps that can be taken to help improve performance if the yellow LED stays lit consistently and slow motion or sluggish puzzle piece movement is exhibited:

 

Ensure your computer's color setting is "Highest Color" (32 bit).  This can make a big difference, especially on Windows XP!  The computer's color setting can be changed by clicking the button below to access your computer's Display Properties panel:

 

 

     Computer Display Properties    

 

Note:  If "Highest Color" (or "True Color") is shown as 24 bit, rather than 32 bit, in your Display Settings panel then use a color setting of 16 bit.  16 bit color will perform better than 24 bit color on computers that do not use 32 bit color.

 

Close any programs not being used while playing Living Scenes Jigsaw Puzzles.

 

Download and install the latest video driver available for your computer's video graphics card.  Current video drivers are normally available at your video graphics card manufacturer's web site.

 

Ensure the Refresh Control Panel Tables Continuously option is turned off.

 

Install more RAM storage on your computer.  This will usually improve the performance of your other programs as well.

 

If the computer's mouse pointer casts a shadow try turning the shadow off.  The setting is normally found by going to the Windows Control Panel and double clicking Mouse.

 

Change the puzzle's bevel setting to "off" (see Options).  Note that the "off" setting removes much of the 3D appearance of the puzzle pieces and therefore may not be worth the performance gain.

 

Decrease the size of the program window.  The smaller the table surface playing area the less computer power is needed to display it.  This change is especially effective on computer monitors set to a large screen area setting.

 

Check for and remove any spyware and adware that may be on your computer.  The presence of spyware slows down a computer and can make programs run sluggishly.  Most people who have spyware on their computers do not realize it.  We recommend Microsoft's free AniSpyware program for detecting and removing spyware and adware.

 

 

System Requirements

 

Required:

 

Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, or XP
"High Color" (16 bit) color setting
800x600 screen area
4.4 megabytes of hard drive disk space
100 megabytes of temporary hard drive disk space
Mouse (or notebook equivalent)

 

Recommended:

 

"True Color" (32 bit) color setting
1024x768 screen area
64 megabytes of RAM (128 megabytes for Windows 2000 and XP)
500 MHz CPU (700 MHz for Windows NT 4.0, 2000, and XP)