New User - Need tips to improve performance and graphics ability

[TatianaTheDog]

Hello,

I'm a brand new user. I loaded Windows 7 64-bit today, and it seems to operate properly. (I only used Explorer.) I downloaded CrazyTalk by Reallusion and the software is lagging terribly, and the image is blurry. On the CrazyTalk forum, they recommend updating the graphics drivers to resolve blurry images. At the NVIDIA website, when I ask it to automatically detect the driver update, it says none are available for my computer (my Mac).

Question: They do have driver updates for Windows... When I am on Windows via Fusion, do I need different graphics drivers than the ones on my Mac? If so, does that mean I need another graphics card? ** Obviously I'm not super technical. **

I'm attaching a screenshot of my Graphics/Display info:

Also, in Fusion I increased the RAM to 3 GB (3000 MB), but it did not improve this situation.

CrazyTalk allows the user to make a photo "talk".. it is animated and contains audio. Usually I save the files as uncompressed AVIs which are about 4 GB in size (when I was working directly on a PC) but on today's test it obviously was "too much" for this system. (It would have probably been about 2GB). So I saved it as a MP4 (3.7 MB) , which still took a loooooooong time to save - about 30 minutes.

Other info:

Model Name: iMac

Model Identifier: iMac9,1

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 3.06 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 6 MB

Memory: 4 GB

Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

Boot ROM Version: IM91.008D.B08

SMC Version (system): 1.37f3

I'd very much appreciate any advice and/or links to info that will assist me.

Thank you,

Dora

[rcardona2k · Accepted solution]

I'm a brand new user. I loaded Windows 7 64-bit today, and it seems to operate properly. (I only used Explorer.) I downloaded CrazyTalk by Reallusion and the software is lagging terribly, and the image is blurry. On the CrazyTalk forum, they recommend updating the graphics drivers to resolve blurry images. At the NVIDIA website, when I ask it to automatically detect the driver update, it says none are available for my computer (my Mac).

Welcome to the Fusion community.

Question: They do have driver updates for Windows... When I am on Windows via Fusion, do I need different graphics drivers than the ones on my Mac? If so, does that mean I need another graphics card?

Your don't need another graphics card. By necessity, VMware cannot pass-through your iMac's native graphics card to any guest OS including Windows. VMware provides their own substitute graphics adapter (WDDM 3D or VMware SVA II), with it's own drivers. Apple takes care of providing you with the latest drivers for OS X, so you never need to download any drivers directly from the graphics vendors. Details about the virtual hardware and its differences from host capabilities are covered in

As for the VMware graphics drivers those are in the VMware Tools and are taken care of if you installed Windows 7 using the Windows Easy install feature during the new machine wizard. If you didn't use Windows Easy Install (or can't remember), the VMware blue squares icon in the System tray is a visual indicator these are installed. But you can confirm the video adapter by using the Control Panel, search for Display > Change display settings > Advanced Settings to look at your display adapter. For Win7 the default is VMware SVGA 3D.

Anytime you want to refresh the VMware drivers you can select Virtual Machine > Install VMware Tools to install or run the repair option after the welcome screen.

Also, in Fusion I increased the RAM to 3 GB (3000 MB), but it did not improve this situation.

Based on the CrazyTalk6 system requirements I could find, you don't need to allocate this much RAM (3GB). Depending on your other Windows 7 needs, 1 GB to 2 GB would be better, based on your host RAM size.

Pentium IV 2GHz or higher recommended

512MB RAM or higher recommended

1GB disk space or higher recommended

Duplex Sound Card/VGA Card/Keyboard/Mouse/Microphone/Speaker

Display Resolution: 1024 x 768 or higher

Video Memory: 128MB RAM or higher recommended

Windows 7/ Vista/ XP SP2

Internet Explorer 6 or above, Firefox 2 or above

DirectX 9 & WMEncoder 9 are required for WMV exporting

Recommended hardware:

Dual core CPU or higher recommended

1GB RAM or higher recommended

2GB hard disk or higher recommended

Video Memory: 256MB RAM or higher recommended

Things to try:

The Aero 3D interface can tax the virtual graphics adapter, so you might try disabling that by getting Properties of the background desktop, choose Personalize and change the Theme to Windows 7 Basic.

More drastically, you can shutdown the virtual machine, and disable 3D graphics in Virtual Machine > Settings > Display > uncheck "Accelerate 3D graphics". This will cause Windows 7 to use the legacy VMware SVGA II adapter. The older non-3D adapter looks like it meets the system requirements except for needing DirectX 9 encoding for WMV exporting. If you're saving uncompressed video this may be OK. If the non-3D adapter does not meet the requirements, I'm sure the program will squawk.

[TatianaTheDog]

Thank you, rcardona2k - you explain things very clearly. I forgot to mention that I had already replaced the Aero theme with Windows 7 Basic - but it's good that the info is on this thread now, in case someone else needs those steps. I did do the Easy Install, but checked the driver anyway, and it is the correct one.

After I read your reply, I disabled 3D graphics in the virtual machine (and lowered my ram to 2 GB) - still experienced the same problem. Then I remembered that CrazyTalk 6 had problems (kept crashing) when I originally downloaded it directly to a PC using Windows XP Media Edition, in 2009. Updating the drivers resolved the issue - but since VMWare's drivers are already up-to-date, I couldn't see any more that I could do here.

So... I installed a previous version that doesn't require as much graphical support: CrazyTalk 5. It WORKS !!!!

Oh, and I turned 3D graphics back on, because Live Movie Maker wouldn't run without it. (CrazyTalk 5 works whether I have the 3D graphics enabled or not.)

I am having a problem getting my CrazyTalk AVI video imported into it, though: "Files can't be added directly from a network folder into Movie Maker. Copy the files to your computer, and then try again." Hmmm.. I'll check "A Beginner's Guide to VMware Fusion" and probably find an answer there.

I wanted to respond to this today, though, to thank you for the very thorough response. I'll mark this as answered, because I'm satisfied that I can at least use CrazyTalk 5. Perhaps when Apple starts providing Boot Camp support for Windows 7 I may try Boot Camp. (I'm assuming that if I use Windows 7 directly from Boot Camp, that it will use my Mac drivers and this may enable me to use CrazyTalk 6?) We'll see... I still want to purchase Dragon Dictate, and that would be great to have on this virtual machine.

Thank you,

Dora

Message was edited by: TatianaTheDog -- trying to edit this post to say "question has been answered".

[TatianaTheDog]

Just FYI: I was searching through Microsoft forums.. the error, "Files can't be added directly from a network folder into Movie Maker. Copy the files to your computer, and then try again." is happening even to those not using a virtual machine. I mainly used Movie Maker to compress my AVI and change it into a WMV - because when I tried to make a WMV file directly from CrazyTalk, the quality was horrible. (Always has been - it's not a Fusion problem.) I'll just research and purchase some converter software, since I don't really need a movie editing program in this case.