Increase Preformance with WB 4.6?

[-Hiroshi-]

I've been using Windowblinds since yesterday and the biggest thing I've noticed was a decrease in system preformance with it enabled. I have a Radeon 9550 with 256MB VRam and 640MB DDR, is there anyway to increase preformance with Windowblinds at all?

[dinojr]

Enable hyperpaint, set threshold to highest and set xp themes service to disabled in services.msc

[-Hiroshi-]

Enable hyperpaint, set threshold to highest  and set xp themes service to disabled in services.msc

586389050[/snapback]

Thanks, I had hyperpaint disabled, Im a bit aprehensive on turning windows theming services off, since I still use visualstyles since most of the skins for WB are kinda.. amatuerish, exception to KoL's themes and all..

Yeah that helps, its already going a tad faster..thanks.

[shadowcaster]

what does hyperpaint do actually? are there any drawbacks when enabling or disabling this feature?

[Davebo]

Thanks, I had hyperpaint disabled, Im a bit aprehensive on turning windows theming services off, since I still use visualstyles since most of the skins for WB are kinda.. amatuerish, exception to KoL's themes and all..

Yeah that helps, its already going a tad faster..thanks.

586389059[/snapback]

Well, if you see an msstyle you like, then turn the themes service back on. No big deal...

[bangbang023 Veteran]

Well, if you see an msstyle you like, then turn the themes service back on. No big deal...

586389959[/snapback]

Or use skinstudio to convert it to WB format.

[Mannlich]

this is strange, but i actually get better performance out of windows blinds. Wbload.exe only uses like 640k of memory.

[phot0nic]

yeah, I get better performance too. Alot of people do.

[n30w1n]

Lol. I've used WindowBlinds 2x... 3x... 4x... on Windows 98... 2000... Me... XP... And no combination of any OS with any WindowBlinds has ever yielded better performance. Yea, they made use of some nice technologies built into WinXP in 4.x, which makes redrawing windows a bit faster... But it still drags the system down because of all the memory it uses! And everyone who thinks it uses under 1MB of RAM, enable your virtual memory column in taskman lol... Firefox may surprise you too that way! :ninja:

[#Michael]

Lol. I've used WindowBlinds 2x... 3x... 4x... on Windows 98... 2000... Me... XP... And no combination of any OS with any WindowBlinds has ever yielded better performance. Yea, they made use of some nice technologies built into WinXP in 4.x, which makes redrawing windows a bit faster... But it still drags the system down because of all the memory it uses! And everyone who thinks it uses under 1MB of RAM, enable your virtual memory column in taskman lol... Firefox may surprise you too that way! :ninja:

586393616[/snapback]

Great FUD spreading. I keep my Vram enabled on my task manger all the time and with the the WB theme extensis the mem useage never gets above 1 meg.

Try again next time bud.

Try backing up your claims with actual facts before you spread your FUD next time. You may actually look intelligent then instead of a complete idiot.

Also remember that Stardock partnered with MS to develop the default XP theme engine (i.e uxtheme.dll) which is basically a stripped down version of WB 3. If you ever wondered how much ram/vram it takes up just look at one of the svchost.exe mb useage goes down when you disable the theme service. On some systems anywhere from 5-15 MB.

[n30w1n]

Great FUD spreading.  I keep my Vram enabled on my task manger all the time and with the the WB theme extensis the mem useage never gets above 1 meg.

Try again next time bud.

Try backing up your claims with actual facts before you spread your FUD next time.  You may actually look intelligent then instead of a complete idiot.

586393724[/snapback]

L-O-L! Nice flaming, arse... But what you said is exactly what I think of your response. You're telling me WindowBlinds NEVER gets above 1MB om COMBINED memory? A minimized Notepad window takes up over 1MB. Are you sure you weren't looking at System Idle Process :shifty:

[bangbang023 Veteran]

Great FUD spreading.  I keep my Vram enabled on my task manger all the time and with the the WB theme extensis the mem useage never gets above 1 meg.

Try again next time bud.

Try backing up your claims with actual facts before you spread your FUD next time.  You may actually look intelligent then instead of a complete idiot.

586393724[/snapback]

To be fair to him, I also notice a slight slowdown in my system performance when using WB. I haven't given 4.6 a go, so I can't and won't judge it, but even with 4.5, I still had a slight slow down that drove me nuts enough to go back to msstyles for the time being and thats while using less RAM than any other app on my process list. It seems to work wonders for some and do nothing for others. People who want to use WB shouldn't just be put off by a potential slip though. They need to see if they need/want the extra features it adds. I find alpha blended start menus useless and not worth the little slow down. My song may change once WB 5 is released. The same goes for others.

Simply stated, just because it doesn't slow your system down, doesn't mean he is spreading "FUD".

[#Michael]

Lol. I've used WindowBlinds 2x... 3x... 4x... on Windows 98... 2000... Me... XP... And no combination of any OS with any WindowBlinds has ever yielded better performance. Yea, they made use of some nice technologies built into WinXP in 4.x, which makes redrawing windows a bit faster... But it still drags the system down because of all the memory it uses! And everyone who thinks it uses under 1MB of RAM, enable your virtual memory column in taskman lol... Firefox may surprise you too that way! :ninja:

586393616[/snapback]

I tell you what....I call your bet and raise you a screenshot. On my old laptop which is a p3 700, 256 mb ram, none existent gfx card so no hyperpaint, I am using the milestone release of WB 4.6, the extensis WB theme, and it is using a whopping 792 K of ram and a whopping 1.2 mb of vram. For a grand total of 1.9 mb of ram used. WOW what a ton. This is nothing compared to what the defualt XP skinning engine uses. If anyone disagrees with that just like at your svchost.exe drop mem useage wen you disable the theme service. Anywhere from a 5-15 mb drop.

WOW what a system hog. And this is on a system that is 4 years old and can bearly handle XP as is. Yet can do WB without a performance hit at all.

Edited August 18, 2005 by AthleticTrainer1981

[icecaveman]

AthleticTrainer1981 most MSSTyle supporters are suffering from the placebo effect, they automatically think because they are running 3. party software it will slow down the system, no benchmarking or hard proof could get them off their belief.

[bangbang023 Veteran]

AthleticTrainer1981 most MSSTyle supporters are suffering from the placebo effect, they automatically think because they are running 3. party software it will slow down the system, no benchmarking or hard proof could get them off their belief.

586393849[/snapback]

It doesn't always have to do with RAM useage. I know that running WB or msstyles results in the same number of processes running. However, Window drawing seemed to be a slight bit slower and, I'm gessing because of hyperpaint, I lost a few fps in CS:S. Running on a lowly 9600xt, a few frames are too many frames for me.

[n30w1n]

I tell you what....I call your bet and raise you a screenshot.  On my old laptop which is a p3 700, 256 mb ram, no exist gfx card so no hyperpaint, I am using the milestone release of WB 4.6, the extensis WB theme, and it is using a whopping 792 K of ram and a whopping 1.2 mb of vram.

WOW what a system hog.  And this is on a system that is 4 years old and can bearly handle XP as is.  Yet can do WB without a performance hit at all.

586393838[/snapback]

Sorry but WB is long removed here, and it's too much work to get it again and wait a few hours for a memory leak to screenshot :hmmm: If that means I fold, so be it :ermm: Point is though, it slew my system down. Every version. And it may not be everyone else's case, but I'm certainly not alone either..

If I were to screenshot it though, your screenshot isn't very fair to the claim it "never" goes above 1MB... That looks like a freshly booted system, taskman is like the only window open, and it's a very plain theme..

[#Michael]

It doesn't always have to do with RAM useage. I know that running WB or msstyles results in the same number of processes running. However, Window drawing seemed to be a slight bit slower and, I'm gessing because of hyperpaint, I lost a few fps in CS:S. Running on a lowly 9600xt, a few frames are too many frames for me.

586393859[/snapback]

On my primary machine, I run a 9600 pro with the latest drivers, not so much as a fps drop. Try the lastest build with hyperpaint enabled.

[bangbang023 Veteran]

On my primary machine, I run a 9600 pro with the latest drivers, not so much as a fps drop.  Try the lastest build with hyperpaint enabled.

586393873[/snapback]

I'll install 4.6 after work tomorrow and see how it goes. The problem may, in fact, lie in the job skinstudio does in converting msstyles. Perhaps it doesn't optimize them well enough.

[#Michael]

Sorry but WB is long removed here, and it's too much work to get it again and wait a few hours for a memory leak to screenshot :hmmm: If that means I fold, so be it :ermm: Point is though, it slew my system down. Every version. And it may not be everyone else's case, but I'm certainly not alone either..

If I were to screenshot it though, your screenshot isn't very fair to the claim it "never" goes above 1MB... That looks like a freshly booted system, taskman is like the only window open, and it's a very plain theme..

586393863[/snapback]

WB doesn't do mem leaks. Mem goes up and down depending on the theme you use. Same goes for the msstyle. The more gfx intense theme you use, the more mem it takes to draw the theme.

I can timestamp a screenshot for you now and another for you the next day with WB running the same theme. I promise you the mem doesn't go up.

And you are partially right about my screenshot. It does look like a fresh boot because I do an extremely good job at keeping the running processes to a minimium. This is an old laptop and I want it to run as fast as possible. But I will tell you this machine has been running for the last 24 hours.

I am also one who likes a professional looking theme that can be used for months at a time. That is why I use a low profile theme like extensis or KoL's OS X tiger theme.

Edited August 18, 2005 by AthleticTrainer1981

[-Hiroshi-]

I've actually been using wb4.6 for a good day or two and I havnt noticed much of an increase or decrease when comparing it to .msstyles, also, I think that its about the same in preformance, since wb enables classic mode, then paints the UI onto the desktop.. and hyperpaint basically runs WB in hardware mode.. using memory off of your video card to render the UI..

-edit-

Athletic, Have you tried using the 5203 theme by KoL? That ones actually pretty nice.

Anyways for sake of argument I disabled themes in Services.msc and i'll go and reset real quick to see what it does.. thanks for the tip.

Ok..noticed a tiny bit of a speed increase.. thanks for the tip.

Edited August 18, 2005 by xxhiroshi21xx

[DomFel]

If I were to screenshot it though, your screenshot isn't very fair to the claim it "never" goes above 1MB... That looks like a freshly booted system, taskman is like the only window open, and it's a very plain theme..

586393863[/snapback]

Memory hog on a fresh system eh? Look at this:

1.5Mb well worth it. I can't live without the KoL's glow effect! ;-) Thumbs up for 4.6!

[-Hiroshi-]

Memory hog on a fresh system eh? Look at this:

1.5Mb well worth it. I can't live without the KoL's glow effect! ;-) Thumbs up for 4.6!

586394327[/snapback]

Yeah good stuff isnt it? :laugh:

Hopefully this will start a trend of the previous MSStyles artists to make themes for Windowblinds since WB is nativly better looking then MSStyles.

I might go around and learn how to convert MSStyles to Windowblinds and go to every single VS artist on Neowin and start asking for port permissions. They're work is great and it wont take that much to make a WB port of it.

[ev0|]

79 processes ? OMG ! :pc:

y'z shadow is taking 15 Megs in that shot too.

The main issue with windowblinds for most people isn't so much performance (I don't think it really is faster or slower either way) but compatibility.

Fire up Dreamweaver MX in Windowblinds and you'll see what I mean. The inner windows are not rendered corretly in WB, and they are with any msstyle.

[Frogboy Administrators]

It doesn't always have to do with RAM useage. I know that running WB or msstyles results in the same number of processes running. However, Window drawing seemed to be a slight bit slower and, I'm gessing because of hyperpaint, I lost a few fps in CS:S. Running on a lowly 9600xt, a few frames are too many frames for me.

586393859[/snapback]

And yet every story on gaming and WindowBlinds where they conducted official benchmarks shows WindowBlinds is faster for gamers than msstyles. ExtremeTech, FileFront, and numberous others over the years have benched this.

I think, as others have mentioned, you have the placebo effect going.

UXTheme is basically equivlanet to a crippled version of WindowBlinds. They work nearly the same way except that WindowBlinds can make use of more 2D hardwrae acceleration since it has been updated since XP's release when drivers have gotten better.

WindowBlinds uses less memory than msstyles. That's very easy to verify. And on every machine I've used it on, and I feel confident in saying I have access to a lot more machines than you do and have spent a lot more time looking into this over the past couple years than you have, WindowBlinds is faster than msstyles too.

I understand the psychological need for some people to convince themselves that their free hack solution is superior to the non-free one. That's where idiotic (and it is idiotic) statements like "WindowBlinds skin SUCK" despite most good msstyles being available for WindowBlinds and the importing feature along with no shortage of good original WB skins of all shapes and sizes. And that's also where the whole "WindowBlinds is a resource hog" nonsense comes up.

PC Magazine itself has reviewed WindowBlinds numerous times and since XP came out, they have consistently said that WindowBlinds has no performance hit at all. And gaming magazines have concurred who have looked into it.

I'm not saying there isn't someone with some unique set of configuration options that is findng WB slower for them. But today, it's reasonable to say that for nearly all users, WindowBlinds is significantly faster than msstyles and uses fewer system resources to do it.

[Frogboy Administrators]

I've actually been using wb4.6 for a good day or two and I havnt noticed much of an increase or decrease when comparing it to .msstyles, also, I think that its about the same in preformance, since wb enables classic mode, then paints the UI onto the desktop.. and hyperpaint basically runs WB in hardware mode.. using memory off of your video card to render the UI..

586394150[/snapback]

WindowBlinds and uxtheme work the same. WindowBlinds doesn't paint on top of the classic UI. Neither does msstyles. It never has.

In the case of WindowBlinds, wblind.dll intercepts paint calls and where it has an alternative, it takes care of it. Otherwise the classic painting is allowed. In either case, only one pass is done.

In the case of msstyles, uxtheme.dll intercepts the paint calls and where it has an altenrative, it takes care of it. Otherwise, the classic painting is allowed. In either case, only one pass is done.