iGuidance 3.0 UMPC and RoadRunner n00b issues

2k1Toaster · 03-18-2007, 04:03 AM

Alright... I am trying to test out iguidance umpc to see how well it works. I installed it last night and today went driving around. I gotta say when it works, it works. I do enjoy not having to click "Start GPS tracking" as I have to in Streets and Trips.

I am having some configuration issues I believe, and n00b syndrome to iGuidance. I installed 2.1 before for a total of about 2 days before I gave up and said "screw this" because I totally hated it. So I am not familiar with iGuidance's configuration options.

I'll start with the annoyances first:

I thought iGuidance was supposed to speak street names? I know my dad's Garmin unit will say "turn right in xx miles onto yyy street" no matter what. It seems iGuidance picks and chooses what roads it will speak the names on. When I drove around tonight for a test spin, it only actually said 1 street name. And it was wrong. There is a highway that further south of the intersection is called "Highway 115" and north of the intersection is "Nevada Rd all through downtown a.k.a. I-25 Business Loop (The main interstate's off road). The voice told me to turn left onto highway 115, which was wrong. But the main point is that that was the only road that was spoken. All the others roads I went on (mostly residential) were not spoken. Kind of annoying.
Also when iGuidance switches between the regular 3d view and the closeup view that shows the rectangle on the right that more accurately depicts how far until the next turn, a white flash occurs. It happens each time. Going in and out of the closeup screen. So every turn, I get 2 flashes of blinding all white screen (minus the RR skin on the top portion). Really annoying, and not very OEM at all.

Also when it recalculates the route I get the white flash but this time with red text saying "recalculating route". The recalculation flash, I can stand, but would like to make go away as well. The twice every turn flash needs to go or the software will. I did find one thread on the internet within a few minutes of searching where someone mentions the same thing, and the following post claims it is "a way of getting your attention" and it is intentional! Make it go away!!! Is this true? Here is the thread I am referencing. Page 12, near the top: http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/t...6&whichpage=12
I haven't had too much time to play around with it, but I can't really see how to add a favourite location. I see the favourite section, and I have added my "home" location. I am probably missing the big button somewhere. Like I said, never used this software before...
The girl voice sounds possessed when saying "three". it is like she deeply breathes into the mic right before the demons are released...
When iGuidance "lowers" the music volume, on my machine now, it actually raises the volume of the music and then has an even louder voice for the girl. So if music is a t 5%, and the girl speaks, the music sounds like 10% and the voice around 20%, and then back to 5%. I am using the method described in the RR/IG3 thread that somebody made with all the useful config in one place. It was really helpful by the way.

Problems:

Coming out of standby. When I go into standby I get horrid results. If I do not have iGuidance running, and I go into standby, it does so quickly. When I resume it takes about 1-2 seconds, and then the welcome screen shows, and within another second or so, the music continues playing (even when on the welcome screen). Perfect as it has been for the past year.

Now, if I have iGuidance running through RR, but I am on another screen (anything but the external_gps.skin) and I go to standby, it takes a bit longer, but it goes into standby just fine. Then for resuming first it shows roadrunner frozen, and no music for a second. Then the music starts and about a second later the welcome screen shows. If you click to login, it takes about 2 seconds, and then back to roadrunner fine. Just seems like it is low on resources or something, but once there, it works smoothly and cpu useage is low. It is a via board, so I wouldn't rule out underpowered cpu, but I don't feel it should make such a large difference for having just 1 program extra open.

Ok, and here is the problem part. If I have iguidance open and roadrunner on the gps screen, and I go into standby, it takes a little longer as above to go into standby. But then when resuming, I just get this white screen with a small blue strip across the top. No music, does not respond to touch, nada. Really weird. I cannot ctrl+alt+del it. Seems completely frozen. No amount of time of leaving it alone brings it out of its frozen state. If I push the power button again to send it into standby, the weird thing is that the blue windows screen shows up and says saving settings and then goes into standby. So it is frozen, but not quite. The only fix I have found, is to hold the button to hard-off the computer and do a full restart. Obviously this is unacceptable. During a typical night delivering, my computer goes to standby and back out about 70-100 times. So 70-100 cold boots is out of the question. Also when this happens, the next time I start iGuidance, it says that the gps port is not able to be found. So I have to start iGuidance out of RR, and autoscan the gps ports again. Once it is found it works again just like nothing had ever happened.

I hope I am just missing something here. If it matters, the computer is the one in the dropdown menu below my username. pharos-360 usb gps unit from microsoft. Are there some secret config menu somewhere where I can set extra info?

Thanks in advance for helping out a n00b.

Sonicxtacy02 · 03-18-2007, 08:10 AM

i can tell u most of your standby issues are because you use the pharos 360.

2k1Toaster · 03-18-2007, 03:24 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Sonicxtacy02

i can tell u most of your standby issues are because you use the pharos 360.

Does the 360 not put out NEMA or is it incompatable with iGuidance in some strange way?

It was the microsoft version of the pharos-360 bundled with Streets and Trips, and it has been awesome to me while using Streets & Trips 2006. lane change accuracy and instant locks. Is there something too proprietary?

Sonicxtacy02 · 03-18-2007, 07:36 PM

i'm not quite sure why it has the issue.. probably a shoddy driver... but i used to have the same gps and hibernation/standby just wasnt an option. Xport3 MIGHT help some but i never got 100% resume. I've since upgraded to the bu-353 and i have no issues anymore

2k1Toaster · 03-18-2007, 11:23 PM

So when you had the 360, did you get that weird white screen with blue bar accross the top?

And do you get the white flash when switching between the closeup and regular views?

Anybody else have ideas on the others?

Sonicxtacy02 · 03-19-2007, 08:02 AM

nah none of that stuff is hardware related i dont believe. The white flash is built into the program as u said to get your attention. Not sure what that other issue is.

MatrixPC · 03-19-2007, 12:42 PM

iG only speak major street name (Hiway and Fway). Most of the time, it will say "in xxx yard/feet/miles, turn left/right/keep straigh"

nkotch · 03-19-2007, 02:39 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by MatrixPC

iG only speak major street name (Hiway and Fway). Most of the time, it will say "in xxx yard/feet/miles, turn left/right/keep straigh"

What he said.... iGuidance is different from some of the other programs in that it uses actual "pre-recorded" .wav sound files instead of using a text-to-speech engine. So the effect is better sounding speech (not computer like), but it will only speak the names of some numbered highways since it already has numbers
"pre-recorded". Some other programs use a text-to-speech conversion engine and are therefore able to "say" whatever word or streetname is sent to it from the navigation program.

Doesn't bother me that much because most of the time I just have the voice prompts muted.

2k1Toaster · 03-19-2007, 03:01 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Sonicxtacy02

nah none of that stuff is hardware related i dont believe. The white flash is built into the program as u said to get your attention. Not sure what that other issue is.

Well is there a way to turn it off!

It is really bothersome at night time...

Quote: Originally Posted by MatrixPC

iG only speak major street name (Hiway and Fway). Most of the time, it will say "in xxx yard/feet/miles, turn left/right/keep straigh"

That sucks. Apparently the only major streets around me are the interstate and the other highway out of town.

Quote: Originally Posted by nkotch

What he said.... iGuidance is different from some of the other programs in that it uses actual "pre-recorded" .wav sound files instead of using a text-to-speech engine. So the effect is better sounding speech (not computer like), but it will only speak the names of some numbered highways since it already has numbers
"pre-recorded". Some other programs use a text-to-speech conversion engine and are therefore able to.

Wow does that seem inefficient... Is there a way maybe to pass the street names out of iGuidance for text to speech processing and send it out the wave line while muting the iGuidance pre-recorded stuff?

The talking the street names is one of the reasons I wanted to try out IG! bah humbug!

Streets and trips might just have to go back on...

nkotch · 03-19-2007, 03:26 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by 2k1Toaster

Wow does that seem inefficient... Is there a way maybe to pass the street names out of iGuidance for text to speech processing and send it out the wave line while muting the iGuidance pre-recorded stuff?

The talking the street names is one of the reasons I wanted to try out IG! bah humbug!

Streets and trips might just have to go back on...

Not that I know of....though I'm not a programmer so maybe someone else can comment on what sort of info they're able to get out of IG. I was a little disappointed also when I first tried it out but to me it's one of those "icing" features that I could take or leave. If I do leave the voice prompts on then just hearing that there's a turn 500ft ahead and then the *ding* signaling it's the next turn is enough for me. I do like the higher quality voice recordings though.

scottgs · 07-28-2007, 03:18 PM

Any update on the white flashing issue? I just started using IG3 and I just cannot stand this. It's like a strobe light in my face at night. Truly a safety hazard while driving. If this is truly built into the program and someone has an accident because of it, I can definitely see a law-suit in iNav's future.

2k1Toaster · 07-28-2007, 04:47 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by scottgs

Any update on the white flashing issue? I just started using IG3 and I just cannot stand this. It's like a strobe light in my face at night. Truly a safety hazard while driving. If this is truly built into the program and someone has an accident because of it, I can definitely see a law-suit in iNav's future.

I think I know of why.

The way that iG redraws is not double buffered. That is the only explanation I can think of.

Meaning most programs display 1 image, and then do all the calculations for and draw image #2 "behind" it but really just in a buffer. The it "flips" the screen so that the entire new drawn image #2 replaces image #1 all at once. And then the new image #3 is drawn behind again and it flips and so and so forth. This is being double buffered.

iG seems to not do this. Instead it draws image #1, then clears the screen, draws image #2 directly to the screen, clears the screen, draws image #3 directly to the screen and like that. The clear function will automatically wipe the screen to a set colour (white in this case), and then it draws over it.

So on slower machines, it seems as if the cleared screen shows too long when making a drastic change in the screen. I tried on my home PC, and the white screen was non-existant. Ran it virtually and kept slowing down the processor and the white screen became longer and longer.

So I think that the only solution is a faster system unfortuneatly since we cannot change the redraw feature of iG...

kostyanj · 07-28-2007, 09:03 PM

No update on speaking st names? I really want to use IGuidance since I have a copy of it already, but I might have to find a new solution if it can't do text-to-speech.

2k1Toaster · 07-28-2007, 09:07 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by kostyanj

No update on speaking st names? I really want to use IGuidance since I have a copy of it already, but I might have to find a new solution if it can't do text-to-speech.

iGuidance 4 does TTS. Also there was a program someone was working on that took the little bar with a streetname as an image and tried to render it to text and then to speech but I think it was canceled because version 4 it is native.

kostyanj · 07-28-2007, 10:49 PM

When did version 4 come out?