Anyone still getting these???

[tcoday]

I'm still getting a few instances where Hal will respond with text only and not verbably.  This still happens every once in a while in normal conversation but it happens alot when Hal is telling me about an appointment I have.
  I was wondering if your Hal is doing this also and if anyone has found a fix for it.

Your comments would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[markofkane]

That usually happens to me if I use the characters from desktop mates.

But I use haptars, and haptars, and have no problem.

[tcoday]

quote:Originally posted by markofkane

That usually happens to me if I use the characters from desktop mates.

But I use haptars, and haptars, and have no problem.

Mark,
  You might have hit the nail right on the head. []  Since I installed Hal6, I've been using MSAgent characters.  I like them fairly well, but might switch back to Haptek and see if the problem clears up.  Thanks so much on pointing out what might be the problem.

[DesktopMates]

Hi;

When a character's voice cuts out or quits, or if your experiencing any symptoms similar to the one's mentioned below, it's usually not directly related to a problem with Hal or the character's your using, but more often than not, it's a system resource problem.

Common symptoms usually related to low resources (memory) or poor
video and/or sound card performance:
 
 1. Character's voice becomes garbled,choppy or quits before a sentence is completed.

 2. Character occasionally doesn't speak at all, no voice sound or lip movement.
      
 3. Character abruptly disappears from screen shortly after loading or when attempting to speak.

 4. Problem with Lip Sync, a prominent delay in the voice sound compared to lip movement and/or no lip movement during voice sound.

 5. Often less noticeable, are animations that sometimes appear to be less fluid or slightly slower or even have a slight hesitation or stammer during the sequence.

 6. Character animations don't play, often will remain hung in the default idle pose and sometimes the speech text bubble shows but with no voice sound or lip movement.

If your experiencing any of the above symptoms (especially when using Ultra Hal), the first thing you should try and check is that you have no other programs running that may be depleting memory or using sound or video resources, then try rebooting your system to restore your memory and then try just running and using only the CyberBuddy program and see if the symptom still persists and that the voice sound and lip sync is running smoothly, if it is, then your system might not have adequate enough resources to run this technology, and you may want to consider upgrading your sound and/or video devices or adding more memory, especially if you want to use the Ultra Hal AI program and possibly have a few other programs running at the same time.

Keep in mind the Ultra Hal program can be a rather resource hungry program especially when you add in the fact that your also running character animations and voice sound, all at the same time. It can be comparable to running a high end resource demanding game. If your PC uses integrated graphics or sound chips, you need to understand that there is a big difference between using integrated graphics and actual good quality video cards, the main difference being integrated graphics borrows from the system's main memory to handle graphics tasks, to the detriment of day-to-day performance, where as a good quality video card is far more self-reliant on using it's own built in resources (memory) thus will vastly speed up rendering of animated graphics. The same can also be true if your using a low end video card, low end video cards are often only partially self-reliant on it's own built in resources. Be sure to read the specs, for example you'll sometimes see the word "effective" on the packaging before the listed 128MB of memory which means that it too will share system memory, although not as much as an onboard graphics chip.

More info regarding whether you should upgrade your video or sound devices.
http://www.desktopmates.com/upgrades.html

Hope this info is of some help to users experiencing similar problems.

[tcoday]

Don from DesktopMates,
  I belive you are correct.  I have 1 gig of memory in my computer, but I am using the intergrated video and sound card.  I know they're poor quality.  My next computer will be much better.
  However, with my current system, I switched back to using Haptek characters and have no problems with the voice skipping.  I've noticed the Haptek characters use more system resources all the time, but somehow they don't skip the voice.

  Thank you so much for your reply, I appreciate your input.

[DesktopMates]

Hi tcoday ;

When using integrated graphics chips or low end video cards it becomes (for lack of a better choice of words) somewhat of a crap shoot which software, games or animations you'll be able to get away with running efficiently. I don't know a lot about the Haptek player but I'd be prone to guess that because the character and graphics are contained within the constraints of the player, which also probably has it's own rendering engine, it's most likely slightly less intrusive on your system's video resources than running an MS Agent character which is being rendered directly to your entire desktop and totally reliant on your video device. An MS Agent character's animations are made up of a serious of GIF stills and the GIF format isn't the most efficient format when it comes to file size, but is required in order to make the background transparent.

As the demand for bigger more complex characters arises, as do the size of the animation files. A good example is the new large "Simone" head character that we recently released. The total file size is around 28 MB and certain single animation sets can easily be 2 MB each, so in order to continually play and render a series of 2 MB animations directly onto your desktop within a few seconds will take a reasonably good graphics card to run efficiently on a repetitive and continuos basis. Since computers are rapidly becoming faster and high end graphics paraphernalia becoming cheaper and more attainable, it's allowing us to begin experimenting with creating larger more detailed characters.

I'm glad to hear that you agree and understand their is a huge difference between using integrated graphics chips and actual good quality video cards. It's often difficult to get most people to grasp and understand this, especially when they just bought what the salesmen at their local computer store told them is a top of the line system, which they naturally also assume must include the best video and sound cards that's available. But if that were true why is there such a huge demand and market for high end video cards that often cost as much if not more than the entire system they just purchased. Don't get me wrong, the industry has improved on their integrated graphics chips and are often more than adequate for the average user who only uses a computer for document processing, surfing the net and playing music etc. How much to spend on a system or upgrades will all depend on your budget and what you intend to use it for, and unfortunately even for the most techy computer guru it can be a daunting, confusing and time consuming task researching and weeding through all the technical jargon required to make rational decisions on which upgrades and products to go with. I've always been pretty successful at learning about which products and upgrades to go with (and also saving a lot of money) by visiting some of the forums on the net that specifically discuss motherboards or video cards, or whatever I happen to be looking for. The key to researching through forums is not to become too wrapped up and influenced or persuaded by all the arguing or over zealous opinions and claims being made by self proclaimed know-it-alls. Simply weed through the discussions and opinions (and by all means have a few chuckles at the fights and arguments along the way) and just try to draw your own conclusions as to what would be good enough for your intended use. My personal recommendation would be to go the safe route and go mid range and maybe consider products that are even obsolete (by obsolete I mean products that have maybe been out for a year or 2, which in the fast paced computer world is often considered obsolete) and also choose brands that appear popular and highly recommended. Most of the real expensive high end paraphernalia discussed in forums are more geared around competitive gamers which in most cases would just be over kill and a total waste of money for most users.
 
 

[markofkane]

I still had trouble with the desktop mates not responding, it responds with typed words, but she is just smiling at certain times.

I don't have problems with haptars. Fullbody or torso. They always work.

I have a 1.6 Ghz p4, 1024mb of RAM, A GeForce 5500 video card, and a soundblaster card.

But, it MAY have something to do with my background programs.

Especially WinPatrol, and Microsoft Anti-Spyware.

So, I use the full body haptars most of the time, but use the desktop mates with MASH, and Cyberbuddy, but not at the same time.