Q
15. I just made my first title and when I check it on my ZIP drive on my Windows machine I don't see a speed gain?A
A zip drive isn't the right device to check speed. You have to check it on a CD-ROM.
All the CD-ROM players have the same problem yes even those new 24x speeds. When they have to move to another location on the CD it takes about 1/5 of a second to move to that new position. A zip drive doesn't have this problem it moves fast from one position to another. If you want to verify speed you should check on a CD. When on your screen there is only one picture you won't see a big difference. But when you have a dozen of pictures on the same screen the CD-player has to move a lot and then you will notice the difference.
You have to know that on a DVD, the device that will replace the CD-ROM, the problem is even worse...
Q
14. I have done all the steps according the manual but the title won't run.?A
1. First always try the AMT Accelerator on a small title, for example with one screen containing one picture.
2. Check if you placed the 3 MediaDB's files in the right folder.
- Open the file Hierachy.k in a wordprocessor: (file is located in SOURCES folder) .
and look for the word "GMEDIADB".
You will see something like this:
RelativeFolder is cDefaultFolder
with
Name is "";
Items is [
cDefaultFolder
with
Name is "MEDIA";
Items is [
GMEDIADB, -- <<>> MediaDB Extra V2.1In the above example the 3 mediadb files must be located in MEDIA Folder.
3. Didn't compiled the "Title" with the correct runtime maker.
You have to download from our web-site the correct "CODES" folder when you have done this. Place the "CODES" folder. next to the Runtime Maker application, so it will use that one. (move the old "Codes" folder to another location.
Q
13. I just accelerated my title for the first time but when I run my title I got an error message that he can't find the media xxxxxx.?A
This means that your title can't locate the MediaDB.dbb file be sure you have placed in the right media folder. For more information see at the end of the chapter 3. Quick Start.
Q
12. I just accelerated my title for the first time it worked fine on the Macintosh but when I run my title on Windows I got an error message that he can't find the media xxxxxx.?A
Your file names can be bigger 8.3 combination but be sure that your folder names have only 8 characters.
Q
11. Is it still possible to store media in a folder?A
Yes, AMT accelerator leaves you in control of which media you store in the MediaDB and which don't. If it can't find the media file in the MediaDB it will look for it in the standard MacOS folder. So during the development process you can still add some extra cContainer's (or screens) and add the media already in the Media folder. At the end of the day you can create a new MediaDB that contains this new media. As you can see we don't change much about the way you work with AMT. It is also possible to set a special option in the MediaDB library, that forces the application to use first the file in the media folder, if this file exist. This is helpful during the design process of your title. I wouldn't advice you to set this option in your final tittle because this slows down the opening of your AMT screens.
Q
10. What happens when the MediaDB is not stored in the right folder?
A
When the AMT title can't locate the MediaDB (for the MacOS this means if it can't locate the "MediaDB.DBB" file and the file "MediaDB.IN1") it will act as a normal AMT title and will use the files stored at their normal location. So this means you can use the same application to work with Accelerated data or with the normal media.Q
9. How much extra memory does the AMT Accelerator library use?A
AMT Accelerator generates 3 files: "MediaDB.DBB", "MediaDB.IN1" and "MediaDB.IN2". The "MediaDB.DBB" contains the actual media, "MediaDB.IN1" contains the search data for the MacOS platform and "MediaDB.IN2" contains the search data for the Windows platform. The files MediaDB.INx are during startup completely read in memory to allow a fast lookup. So to find out how much memory AMT Accelerator uses, you take the size of one of the "MediaDB.INx" files and you add an extra 50K.
Q
8. Can the size of the Search Index files be influenced?A
Yes you can, the size of the Search Index depends on the number of media and also on the length of the longest file name. Als by choosing "unique" medium name in the Preferences, your index file will be about 30% smaller.
Q
7. Is there a limitation on the MediaDB size?
A
The number of media's stored in the MediaDB can't be greater then 65535. This is just to keep the search index as compact as possible, if any of you need to surpass this limitation please let me know. The MediaDB.DBB file itself can't be bigger than 4 GB. This isn't a problem because the MacOS doesn't support files bigger than 2 GB. The number of different File Types can't be greater than 256. Currently the supported file types are: PICT, MooV, K__W (Wave file), K__T ( AMT Text) so I don't think the limitation of 256 is a big problem.
Q
6. Is it possible to store other Media types in the MediaDB?A
Yes, as long as all the data of your media is stored in the datafork of the file, it can be stored in the MediaDB. Take a look at Appendix II of the documentation.
Q
5. Is my AMT title really going to run 2 to 4 times faster?A
2 to 4 are average speed enhancements, For example a screen with 1 big picture (200 kBytes) and 20 small pictures (24 Kbytes each) you can easily get a speed enhancements that is 8 times faster. On the opposite when you have 2 or 3 media's on one screen you won't see a big enhancements. We also noticed that most of our clients start building in other way their AMT titles because now a screen with a lot of small media opens very fast.
Q
4. Is it a stable product?A
Currently we shipped already more then a dozen versions, a part from a packaging problem we haven't received any bug reports. Some of the titles that were shipped using the AMT Accelerator technology were distributed on more then 10.000 copies.
Q
3. After we order the product how long does it take to get it?A
Normally you can have it in 3 days (for the USA). If it is really urgent we sometimes shipped the tools by e-mail.
Q
2. How long does it take to accelerate my 200-screens based title?
A
Most of our clients didn't had to much problem in using AMT Accelerator, after a few minutes they had their first title accelerated. For those of you who are creating a 200-screens based title with 6204 media's, I can tell you that it takes about 17 minutes on a PowerPC 7200 32MB to accelerate your title.
Q
1 What versions of the Compilers are used to build the libraries:
A
· 68K libraries are build with Symantec "SC" compiler version 8.1.02
· PPC Libraries are build with Apple "MrC" compiler version 1.0
· Windows Libraries are build with Visual C++ 1.5.1 (the make file that was used is the same as the one you can find in the RUNTIME folder of AMT 1.2).