Sunday, July 24, 2022

PowerPoint 2010 randomly stops manually advancing slides

Most of the advice out there concerning this topic is infuriatingly infantile, like "make sure advance on click is enabled", etc.

If you've tried the rest and your PPT still randomly stops on a slide and refuses to advance MANUALLY no matter how hard you try, and you're not in Kiosk mode or whatever, it is possible that your PC is just running out of puff and can't manage the PPT any more.

This obviously SHOULD NOT happen, especially with modern PCs, but it seems it might if:

•  You have "Do not compress images" checked in Options / Advanced; and/or

•  Your PPT output resolution in Slide Show / Monitors is set to a high resolution (either manually or by default).

It seems this combination causes Powerpoint to try to render your uncompressed images at a high resolution, which obviously strains the CPU / video card.

I find it incredible this is even a thing, but compressing images and setting the output resolution to a more manageable level stopped my PPTs from refusing to advance slides at semi-random points.  So it is obviously a thing.

I have older machines that have no issues with this - only my "modern" Windows 10 laptop is affected.  It's also the only one that operates at an insanely high resolution (3k x 2k), meaning it's most susceptible to this issue - especially with the relatively wimpy Intel onboard graphics.  An ancient Win7 laptop runs the same PPTs flawlessly.

Powerpoint 2010 animations and videos choppy or laggy

Problem:  As stated, even though you have an SSD and nothing else is running.

Solution:  Counterintuitively, you have to disable hardware graphics acceleration in Powerpoint.  It is likely that will clear it right up.

Why you have to turn hardware-based acceleration OFF to get BETTER performance is beyond me, and one more example of how ridiculous things have gotten.

Yes, I know 2010 is very old now.  But it's possible this might affect other versions / systems, or even extend beyond Powerpoint itself.

Monday, July 4, 2022

Logitech C920 webcam won't zoom

Problem: As stated, persists no matter what software you try (Logitech Gaming Software, Logitech HD 922 Camera App, Logitech G-Hub).

Issue: The camera has a firmware bug that prevents zooming.

No, seriously, it does

There is no fixing it since there is no firmware update utility.  Seems to affect "newer" cameras, as the "older" / original cameras don't have this problem.

Solution:  If the Logitech HD 920 Camera / Logitech Settings app doesn't work, just give up and get a C922.  

No, really, just do it.  Don't waste your life trying to fix it.  Not only does the C922 not have this problem, but it is correctly recognized by the legacy Gaming Software (v9).

Important note: The Logitech page is idiotic and will state "There are no Downloads for this Version.  You must select an OS from the little drop-down at the left:





If you have no other choice, you can use Logitech Capture to process the camera feed on-the-fly to emulate zooming.  But it is a clunky workaround.