DirectX Perf Degrades - at least for Everquest2

from Stardock Forums
It took me a while to figure out why my perf in eq2 would degrade with time after a reboot.

Finally, I realized it was directly correlated to the time WindowBlinds has been running.

Is WB using DirectX surfaces? If so, can I tell it to stop (I didn't see an option).

The behaviour of EQ2 over time is as if it was getting smaller and smaller numbers of video-card texture requests. So I'm totally guessing, but is there a chance WB slowly eats up space in video ram?

I've been up to date with WB5 up to 2 weeks ago. Since then I've stopped running it and verified my perf problems are gone. I marked eq2 an app not to skin - didn't think it would help, and it did not.

Joe
windowblinds
6,015 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hello Alloca,

I will have technical support look into this problem for you, and they will get back with you as soon as they can.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Alloca: Could you please copy/paste the information from the System Information section located within the WindowBlinds Configuration window?
Please also let us know the version of your video drivers.

Thank you,

-Mike
[Stardock Support]

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I seem to be having the same slow down problem with Titan Quest, and with Need for Speed Most Wanted it crashes. Once I remove Windowsblinds slow down goes away and the crashes stop. The same problems occur if I use shadows in WindowFX. I never had these problems on my old video card (nVidia) so it must be something with the ATI cards.

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Rustin, what card and driver are you using?
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
ATI Built Radeon 1900XTX Driver version 6.8. I installed Windowblinds 4, no problems. So it must be something with version 5. I noticed that if you use a per-pixel shaded blind the shadows won't enable in WindowFX. So I am guessing this problem has alot to do with the way they are implementing the per-pixal shading feature. The fact that if I enable shadows (also uses per-pixal) in WindowFX without Windowblinds installed and the problem still occurs just points to that in my opinion.

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Rustin, post your system info from the wb config here . . that might help
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm using the latest available and I also tried the non-Beta, they both behaive the same. For now, using version 4 and no shadows in WindowFX appears to be the work-around. WindowBlinds 5.0 System Information Report:

STATUS : WB+ SRV+ HLP+ UI+ TRAY+

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

You have one monitor in total.

(Plug and Play Monitor) 1 is attached to Radeon X1900 Series

Wblind.dll 2006/08/23 17:13:20
Wbsrv.dll 2006/08/23 17:18:30
Wbconfig.exe 2006/08/19 14:24:16
Wbload.exe 2006/03/13 17:54:12
Wbhelp.dll 2004/09/18 16:37:00
Wbui.dll 2005/12/06 21:29:06
Tray.dll 2006/04/13 17:29:04


Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top

If you have an ati card then you cannot use antialiasing in a windowed d3d app or performance will be poor when WBs per pixel, Wfx shadows, desktopX widgets, ObjectDock, CursorXP, Winamp or various other apps are running.

This has been reported to ati, but the problem is complex for them to fix which is why they have no plans to do so (It will not be an issue on Vista though)

WB does use video ram for its bitmaps, but I am not aware of any leaks (which with WB would show up rather quickly)

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Yeah I found the checkbox in version 5 that allows you to turn off the per-pixel stuff, so I just turned it off and everything works great now. Thanks