I can't find a lean, good looking, stable, WB theme. Please read.

By docbrooks
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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Neowinian

docbrooks

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I love some of the windows visual style themes that are out and about. Specifically, the MS Media Center "Royale", Luna Element, and some dark variations of the MCE Royale theme. They slip in just perfectly with every app I own, look good, are stable, etc...

However, before I discovered some of these VS's, I plunked down some cash for WindowBlinds. I did my research and read how the engine is actually superior to MS's in certain ways and actually CAN have a smaller foot print than the uxtheme.dll thingy. I've read in some places that WB5 actually uses your graphics card to render the GUI as opposed to the CPU. If this is true, I like that. So, does WB5 really use the GPU to render all of its skins or just the ones that use transparency?

Anyway, I'm on the eve of a clean install of XP. Although I image my OS disk all the time, I've simply accumulated so much bloat from trying various things and have changed a good amount of hardware since my original image that I made after XP activation. Before I go through the annoying process of reinstalling clean and all I want to settle on whether I will be installing WB5 or using VS instead.

I've searched pretty hard on my own but I've found the recommendations of NeoWin users to always be better than what I find. Basically I'm looking for a WB5 theme that's similar to the VS styles I've mentioned above. In other words, I'm not looking for something that radically changes the way everything looks but would love a good looking, USABLE, stable, and low memory usage skin that actually can perform more responsively than the regular MS skins (I'm guessing this would be due to hardware accel). Transparency is acceptable as long as it is tasteful, doesn't interfere with usability, and doesn't bloat the thing too much. No transparency is perfectly fine with me too.

Are my desires unrealistic. I'm not looking for a "minimalist" or "thin" skin. I happen to like the size of the "minimize, maximize, close buttons", the taskbar, and I even prefer the normal sized start menu button over some of the tiny little buggers i see in some skins. My monitor is a 22" widescreen so I'm not pressed for screen real-estate and I have my mouse acceleration turned up to get from place to place which makes those tiny little buttons you see in "aqua" skins and various "thin" skins harder to hit. Can someone point me in the right direction of such a theme? Will WB5 really increase the GUI responsiveness for me or is all I've read really just about the "potential" of WB5 vs MS VS, that doesn't really translate into real world performance?

My comp is a P4 2.4GHZ, 1GB RAM, with a GeForce 6200 256MB GPU. I have no intention of ever putting Vista on it (I'm going to wait until I get a new one), but I fully expect this machine to be able to handle XP with a little flashyness without missing a beat. Just in case someone suggests it, I can't upgrade it any further. I originally ordered this for my youngest sister when she went to college but she went abroad and I needed a computer so I took it over. Since I was ordering it for her, knowing how its a pain to lug around a lot of computer stuff, I got her a small footprint desktop so I'm out of RAM slots and the 6200 is the fastest low-profile GPU I could find. I'm not going to sink any more money into this thing.

Thanks in advance fellas. I haven't really posted here much but I read around a lot and have learned so much here.

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Metropolis2112

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I have come to like Noire (http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?skinid=5328&libid=1)

Novum OS 1.2 Final (http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?skinid=5788&libid=1)

VisionZero Black Carbon (http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?skinid=6026&libid=1) because I'm a ###### for dark skins. All of which are (at least in my everyday use) stable, solid (finished), detailed, slick-looking skins (IMHO). Hope this helps!

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Grand Master

Island Dog

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There are so many skins that could fit your request, but I'm going to recommend skins that I use on a day-to-day basis and find them very usable.

I have to agree with the other poster, that Eminence is one of my all-time favorites. Very usable, but is a good use of transparency and style.

Others I like are:

Acrylic - http://www.guichamps.com/skins2006.asp?skinid=709

Vista Plus 2 - http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...814&libid=1

Azenis 2 - http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...969&libid=1

ClearXP - http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...057&libid=1

Chocolate - http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...974&libid=1

I could really go on and on but those are ones that are very popular, and ones that I personally use often. There are so many skins available and everyones "taste" is different, so I would also recommend heading over the to Windowblinds gallery on WinCustomize and browsing through there.

http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?libid=1

Your computer should handle WB fine, and I'm sure you will be happy with the results.

:)

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phot0nic

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I'd also like to add that you can use your existing visual styles with WB too, and take advantage of WB's performance benefits. Just use SkinStudio to convert.

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Grand Master

Frogboy Administrators

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One thing I'd point out is that if you like Royale (the Media Center skin I believe) you could just run it under WindowBlinds.

The advantage is that WindowBlinds running the same visual style gets hardware acceleration and it'll skin non-theme aware applications.

For me, I also use it because if I right-click on the title bar, it'll minimize it (I have it set to do that).

I'd also like to add that you can use your existing visual styles with WB too, and take advantage of WB's performance benefits. Just use SkinStudio to convert.

What he said. ;)

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Apprentice

ShadowVlican

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has anyone done tests to show that the "hardward acceleration" isn't just marketing?

i know and feel the difference between WinXP and Vista's Aero Glass..... but WB5.. eh.....

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Grand Master

Frogboy Administrators

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The difference in speed should be pretty noticeable.

For one thing, you get caching. Try this: Run your desktop as the highest resolution you can. Now open say Notepad and move it around while running Windows XP's default style. You'll see repainting. Now, load WindowBlinds 5, any skin should do, now do the same thing. No repainting at all. It's all cached.

Your video card has how many megabytes of memory? In XP, uxtheme's using what? a megabyte? WindowBlinds will cache as much as you have video memory to improve performance.

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