Anti-aliasing is a feature supported by all new graphic cards which is used to smooth out the edges of an image. Unfortunately, this feature is turned off by default by some graphic cards or it lets the software to do all the hardwork. This causes the jagged effect to appear on the image edges.

If you've an ATI card or similar, you can manually let the card to take care this function by doing the following:

1. Right click on an empty area on your desktop. Select Properties from the pop up menu to launch the “Display Properties” window.
2. On the Settings tab, click the “Advance” button
3. On the “Direct3D” tab, under Custom Settings, uncheck the 'Application Preference' for the Anti-Aliasing option.
4. Set the Samples slider to 2X or higher to increase image quality..
5. Click “OK” to close the window and apply the new setting.

If you have a different graphic card, just look for the 'Anti-Aliasing' setting and disable the Application Preference option.

Now run Virtual Cover Creator as usually. The jagged edges effect should be gone or at least reduced. If you have a built-in graphic chip controller instead of a stand alone graphic card, it's possible your graphic chip controller doesn't support this feature.

We highly recommend you to download the latest driver for your graphic card. Please refer to your graphic card manufacture's website for information on how to do this.

Please also refer to the Tips & Tricks section in the help file that comes with the software on how to improve your cover image quality.

We get this question mainly from laptop users or some desktop users with older graphic card/graphic chip. To check which graphic card/chip controller is used by your system, please refer to Question 12.

First, you need to make sure you have DirectX 8.1 or higher installed on your computer. You don't have to worry about this if you are running Windows XP because you are likely to have version 8.1 or higher installed on your system already, unless you are using a laptop.

Go to Windows Start menu, select Run... and type

dxdiag

and press 'OK'. This launches that DirectX Diagnostic Tool window.

On the System tab, under System Information, you should be able to see your DirectX version which is the last item on the list. If your versionis lower than 8.1, you'll need to download the latest version from Microsoft.

> http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/downloads/default.asp

If you are running VCC on a laptop or desktop with a built-in graphic chip controller, it's likely that that the graphic controller chip does not support some of the advance 3D features utilized by VCC.

We highly recommend you to update your graphic card driver. In some cases, the grey/black screen can be fixed simply by installing the latest driver. Please refer to your graphic card manufacture's website for information on how to update your graphic card driver.

We are committed to improve the performance of Virtual Cover Creator in each new release. If you've older computer, i.e. 1 GHz and below, and do not have a standalone 3D capable graphic card, you are more likely to notice the performance problem with the current version of VCC.

To improve performance, quit other running programs to allocate more resources to Virtual Cover Creator. Make sure you have sufficient hard disk space to allow Windows to create the optimal swap file size.

If your screen resolution is set to 800x600 or lower, you won't be able to see all the control buttons on the Face Editor or 3D View. You can scroll up or down the page by pressing and holding your left mouse button and drag the page up or down.

This problem occurs when you install version 2.1 on top of the previous version. This problem can also occurs when the template file location is not properly set in the Preferences.

Go to Image > Preferences to launch the 3D Covers Preferences dialog box. On the Templates tab, under Default folder, set the location of the Templates.tpl file.

By default, this file is located at

Program Files\Virtual Cover Creator\Templates

If your file is missing or corrupted, you may download the file via this link:

http://www.digitalborneo.com/downloads/Templates.tpl

Save it to Virtual Cover Creator\Templates folder and set its location in the 3D Covers Preferences dialog box as described previously..

You need Visual Basic run-time files in order to run Virtual Cover Creator. The file, VBRun60sp6.exe is a self-extracting executable file that installs the latest versions of the Microsoft Visual Basic run-time files that are required by all applications that are created with Visual Basic 6.0. This includes Virtual Cover Creator.

If the DLL files are missing, corrupt or wrong version, you'll get this error.

To fix this, just download and install the package.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7b9ba261-7a9c-43e7-9117-f673077ffb3c&displaylang=en

Your computer probably does not have the required MSSTDFMT.DLL file. You can download the file from our website via this link:

http://www.digitalborneo.com/downloads/MSSTDFMT.DLL

Once downloaded, copy the file to the SYSTEM32 folder (or SYSTEM folder if you are using Windows 98). If an old version currently exists, temporarily rename it or move it to another folder for safe keeping. Now you'll need to register the control. Click on Start > Run and type:

regsvr32 MSSTDFMT.DLL

into the box, then click OK. The text entered must be exact. It may help to copy from this page to the clipboard and paste it into the run box so there are no mistakes. Click OK. Windows will tell you it's registered correctly.

Virtual Cover Creator is optimized to run at 16 bit or 32 bit color depth. It won't run at other color depth. To change your monitor color depth, right-click anywhere on your desktop. Select Properties on the pop up menu. On the Settings tab, under Color quality, select 16 or 32 bit from the drop down menu.

Also, make sure you have DirectX 8.1 or higher installed on your system. DirectX 8.1 is not compatible with Windows 95 and Windows NT so you won't be able to run Virtual Cover Creator on those operating systems.

To install the latest DirectX version, please refer to question 13.

Your computer does not have the required mscomct2.ocx file. You can download the file from our website via this link

http://www.digitalborneo.com/downloads/mscomct2.ocx

Once downloaded, copy the file to the SYSTEM32 folder or SYSTEM folder if you are using Windows 98. If an old version currently exists, temporarily rename it or move it to another folder for safe keeping. Now you'll need to register the control. Click on Start > Run and type:

regsvr32 mscomct2.ocx

into the box, then click OK. The text entered must be exact. It may help to copy from this page to the clipboard and paste it into the run box so there are no mistakes. Click OK. Windows will tell you it's registered correctly.

Go to Windows Start > Run...

type:

dxdiag

and press 'OK'. This launches the 'DirectX Diagnostic Tool' window. On the System tab, under System Information, you DirectX version is listed as the last item in that section.