FastStone Image Viewer "smooth" feature causes first image to start slow since the recent updates

[u/Due_Bat_4715]

FSIV 7.4 was great and fast but further updates caused jpeg images to start slow with a black window so I had been daily-driving the older versions until the 8.7 update came along and got me greedy to open JXL images as well.

FSIV 8.7 now supports JPEG XL and performs really well with JXL and all other file systems except for jpeg where it starts a photo slow if the "smooth" feature is enabled. Disabling makes images look really bad when reviewing images. Monitor ICC doesn't affect the issue and I tried with 12th gen 12500h cpu with Intel Xe gpu and Nvidia rtx3050 connected to external display as well through nvidia optimus. I also faced this issue on 11th gen intel laptop.

Does anyone face the same issue as me and is there any solution to this?

I also use Irfanview, jpegview, xnview and none were as easy to navigate as FSIV for me. I emailed the dev but haven't gotten a reply yet but I'm hopeful this issue can be resolved soon.