Reviews of FastPictureViewer

1. 
   axelr

   Reviewing 1.0.57.0 (Nov 3, 2008)

   Hey, Blaxima, howdy?
   
   I never mind a little controversy, but I also see that it's a lot easier to write a bad review than to write good software.
   
   I'm very happy that you like ACDSee, the very app that gets thoroughly trashed in this forum for being utterly slow and bloated, have you seen what people think of ACDSee Pro? I hope you can still sleep, what a bunch of ignorant, uh? Don’t they see the light like you do? ACDsee is *the* thing. You still compare FPV with ACDsee, leading me to believe that you never actually tested it, and just skimming through a website does not count.
   
   The free version is a JPEG viewer, no more, no less, most people don't see a problem with that while ACD does not offer a free version at all.
   
   Now you compare FPV with Lightroom, forgetting that LR is a $299 product, which is also by far the slowest of all viewers because it starts by rendering its own previews of everything, trashing your hard disk for hours in the process. FPV is not meant to replace LR, but to complement it. You have never driven a Porsche, did you? If yes you'd know the feeling and also probably know how to spell the name. Anyway, I did not say it, a major German computer mag did, and they shipped 380’000 copies on their cover DVD.
   
   It looks like you missed about 90% of FastPictureViewer's features, but that's okay, you can also continue to trash it the very moment I update my listing here, that's also okay.
   
   I got a whopping 336 downloads in 6 months from this site so far, compared to about 1500-1800 downloads I get *every day* on my own website, from which must be added several mirrored download sites, so you will understand that I consider everything said here with a little grain of salt, moreover when written by someone thinking of himself as a universal software expert ("I've used all the viewers that claim to be many things..."). Gesh! What was that? But that's okay, too, you are not the first armchair, internet forum software connoisseur pretending to have seen it all that I'm dealing with :-)
   
   Can you write a line of code, by the way, one that actually does something useful and that people are willing to use? You mention memory consumption visibly without having a clue, preloading images eats memory; it’s a typical resource vs. speed tradeoff that every CS student learns in its first year. Not surprisingly, you completely missed the resource usage controls offered in the program options. With pre-loading turned off FPV is the leanest image viewer of all, consuming 7MB (seven megabytes) of RAM after launch. As said already, everything above that is image data. What part of that sentence did you miss?
   
   You did not answer any of my questions, though: does ACDSee support true color management? XMP rating? multi-processing? GPU acceleration? Instant zoom? Instant copy? Instant histogram? Can you decently browse a folder with 200,000 images in it?
   
   You may argue that the questions are well chosen, because the answers to all of them is a resounding "no", but wait, I could ask more questions: does ACDsee supports tethered shooting, you know, when a modern camera is connected to a modern computer and modern software display images as they are shot? Of course not. What about color-managed raw previews? No. Persistent bookmarks? No. Can you actually open NASA’s Hubbles images with it, some weighting 466 megapixels? No. The list goes on and on, really FPV and ACDsee really are not in the same league, one is a light, sharp and fast special purpose tool excelling at what it does, and the other is a old bloated and outdated app trying to be everything to everybody. Again, if you prefer it, that’s fine!!! I can certainly add stupid features like musical slideshows much quicker than they would be able to get their act together and support modern computer hardware like Direct3D cards and multicore CPUs (I understand that those are distant concepts to you, that’s again perfectly fine, if you chose to run your computer with nearly 5 years old OS revisions, that’s also your choice but it also completely disqualifies you as an expert of anything…). Then again, what a musical slideshow would have to do in a professional photographer’s culling tool?
   
   One of my customers has volunteered to create a comparative video where FPV trashes ACDsee (his previous fastest viewer) by a factor of three when browsing large TIFFs hundreds at a time. Be certain that I'll keep you posted when it goes online on YouTube :-)
   
   Finally you can also go on with your unsubstantiated assertions about the support I'm providing to my customers, you are just borderline of defamation, but I guess it’s okay in anonymous internet forums, at least for a while. At this point I could not care less about what you think behind your pseudo, I just take it from where it comes from, you sound like a retired who believe he could still make a difference.
   
   That’s fine too.
   
   See ya on the next release!
   
   @arjesus: are you running a 64-bit version of Windows by any chance? On those platforms a cost is incurred on the first load, as Windows has to load the WOW64 layer on which all 32-bit apps run. Subsequent loads must be much quicker and SuperFetch (if you are running Vista or Server 2008) should take care of that in the longer run. On x32 the load time should be pretty short, typically less than one second. Ultimately I'll release a native x64 version.
2. 
   arjesus

   Reviewing 1.0.57.0 (Nov 3, 2008)

   No, I'm using Vista Ultimate SP1 x86. But I use a notebook, and i reduced the process power to 60% for batery saving. Using 100% process power it opens instantly, but at 60% it takes almost 2 seconds, i know it sounds few, but it's a ruge time for me to open "just" a viewer.
   Anyway, it's a very nice program, and i gonna use it as my default viewer for now on, but two things:
   - file association option: Where do i find it!? Only in the instalation?
   - Is the program goin to support PNG files?
   
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   Very good viewer, my only complain about it is the time it takes to open and close, not the photos, but the program itself. Once open, it's the fastest viewer i ever tried, but till the program is open... optimize that would make it perfect
3. 
   Blaxima

   Reviewing 1.0.57.0 (Nov 3, 2008)

   EDIT
   I am removing everything I have said because the short comings of this program pale in comparison to the pretentiousness of its author. I am removing my original 3 rating to offset his 5 spamming.
   
   Why wouldn't I let people now EXACTLY what the limitations of this program are? It only makes sense seeing as your patting yourself on the back with each review.
   
   A word of advice axelr, if you are going to try and get on your high horse and talk about how me reviewing your software is hiding behind the anonymity of the internet you shouldn't turn around and make personal attacks on reviewers because that is the definition of what it is you seem to think your above. If your going to speak of assertions you shouldn't then make all kinds of assumptions.....what a hypocrite
4. 
   axelr

   Reviewing 1.0.48.0 (Sep 22, 2008)

   @Blaxima: the program uses about 5 to 7MB of memory for itself, everything else is image data.
   
   Last time I checked, ACDSee color management was still not working properly with custom-profiled monitors, and, by the way, where are it's XMP rating functions? Instant zoom? Instant copy? Instant histogram? Does it double its speed on dual-code CPUs, and double *again* on quad-cores? Can you instantly open a folder tree with 200'000 images with any of the apps you mentionned? FastPictureViewer can, no problems at all, it was *designed* precisely for that.
   
   FastPictureViewer does not really compare to anything you've mentionned, it's just a completely different app, designed in 2008 for 2008 hardware, not in 1990, and yes, it is *way* faster than everything else you have tried, as a matter of fact c't Magazine described it as "the Porsche of image viewers" (issue 19/2008, page 162) in a roundup that included XnView, FastStone, IrfanView and Pictomio among others.
5. 
   Blaxima

   Reviewing 1.0.48.0 (Sep 22, 2008)

   EDIT: @axelr - the viewers I mentioned do exactly what I say they will and seeing that everyone who is not you seems to rate your program the same as me well.........
   anyways, I'm sure your thoughtful (critical) comments towards people who actulally tried your software will have people lining up to hand you over some money *rolls eyes to the back of my head*
   
   Uses too much memory for something that doesn't edit and Its not really freeware more like crippleware.
   
   I've used all the viewers that claim to be many things and for me acdsee photo manager is the best blend of a photoshop type editor and and a good viewer. Xnview, irfanview, faststone, etc. really can't compare
   
   If you really only want to view images quickly with a tiny little freeware program then I find this little guy to be the best http://www.xworks.ca/artsee/

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