Aero is a bit of a greedy pig

falcc · **8th October 2006, 10:41 AM**

I've been playing around with RC1 (haven't gotten around to installing RC2 yet) and couldn't work out why MP11 was such a cpu hog. Then I turned off Visualisation and it was heaps better.

I also noticed that if I had MC open in windowed mode that the cpu would be at 30-40% even just sitting on the MC home screen with no livetv or anything else running.

So I tried turning off Aero and hey presto, cpu usage dropped by 20-30% !!

My GPU is a Nvidia 6200(not a TC) with 256MB of dedicated memory. It only scores a 2.1 so I guess that is why. Still, I am surprised that the Aero interface is so heavy on it when there isn't all that much happening.

Now if I could just work out why Vista is giving 256MB of ram to the GPU as well (so it has 512MB total!) I'd be happy. Hopefully a future forceware driver will give me control over that.

Are others seeing such a perfomance hit with Aero?

mad_bison · **8th October 2006, 11:17 AM**

yeh i noticed that my laptop does the same thing.

it's a 256mb radeon9800 and it's taking 64mb of ram aswell...but it gets a 5.5 for gaming, and a 5 for aero.

so i'm not complaining :P

Astrotoy7 · **9th October 2006, 10:09 PM**

There is a line in Hamlet about Aero:

"A visual style, designed by an idiot
Full of shine and lustre,
signifiying nothing....."

cheers
Astro

intrepid · **12th October 2006, 12:36 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Astrotoy7

There is a line in Hamlet about Aero:

"A visual style, designed by an idiot
Full of shine and lustre,
signifiying nothing....."

cheers
Astro

I dare say it was designed for idiots, to appease their love for pretty things. Yesterday a Mac fan said to me how stupid all the effects in Vista are... I replied "your OS has twirly windows". He stopped talking...