Image viewer zoom slow / temporary black border

Help & Support
1

Something is wrong with the image viewer. Zooming in and out freezes it sometimes, causes multiple images to ghost and remain on the screen and then when it unfreezes it returns to normal. It takes a while to do anything in that viewer.

When it works "well", zooming in and out shows black all around and multiple images until it settles.

I tried it on my wife's laptop, totally separate from mine and different brand, CPU, GPU, etc., and the same occurs there, especially with the black background and multiple images.

It's not our laptops nor our graphics cards (I have an RTX 4080). Every other app runs smoothly on my machine.

2

That isn't normal, unless the machine is very slow or the images extremely large.

What kind of image are we talking about?

How large is it, in dimensions (and frames if it's a gif)?

3

I see. So, it depends on the image size.

I tried with small images now, ~20kb, 500 px wide, and I still see the black background and such but it is faster. I then opened a photo I took, 3648px wide, 1.8MB, and that one zooming and out has issues following my speed. If I zoom in fast and out fast multiple times, it freezes and loads for a few seconds and then it displays.

It's easy to replicate.
With FastStone Image Viewer, it's instant and no such issues happen. Same with Photos on Windows (official MS app).

4

Can you show us a quick video? (MP4 videos can be attached here.)

I'd like to see what the black background you describe looks like and exactly when it appears.

5

Here it is. This shows a small image, now imagine it freezing (taking its time to load) with a larger image. I think it has to do with the fact that it resizes the whole window, not just the image.

The second viewer that you see towards the end, which loads fast, is FastStone Image Viewer. It works the same with large images, no lag at all.

6

I don't see the same thing on my machine, but if you think it's due to the window resizing you can turn that off (or make it only resize for the initial image/size) via Preferences / Viewer / Standalone Viewer / Size and Position / Auto-size viewer window.

7

Thanks! That solves the black background.
It doesn't solve the loading where the viewer is slow after zooming in and out on somewhat large images, but it's okay, since I'll keep using FastStone.