Poor Windowed Direct3D Performance w/ WindowBlinds 6.1

from Stardock Forums

I am having a compatibility problem with windowed Direct3D applications and WindowBlinds 6 (on Windows XP 32-bit).  Whenever WindowBlinds is active, any windowed Direct3D application runs at a fixed 5 frames per second.  Full screen D3D applications do not suffer from any noticable performance hit. 

Things I've tried so far to no avail:

  • Installing WindowsBlinds 6.0
  • Installing WindowsBlinds 6.1
  • Changing themes
  • Disabling pixel shading on window borders
  • Disabling transparency
  • Changing video cards: ATI 1900XT and ATI 3870HDx2
  • Changing display resolution
  • Changing drivers (Catalyst 7.x, 8.x, currently 8.5)
  • Installing XP Service Pack 3

In all cases, switching to a Classic XP theme and/or disabling WindowBlinds corrects the problems; these windowed D3D apps run at a solid 60FPS.  Is there a particular switch or setting that is the "kiss of death" for XP and/or Direct3D?

Thanks,

J

windowblinds
1,468 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
jase439 have you tried going into WB configuration and excluding the appliacation from being skinned?  ;) 
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes. I tried disabling skinning on an app-by-app basis, but the performance hit remained unchanged. Just having WindowBlinds running at all seems to bury D3D apps. OpenGL apps seem unaffected (in fact, skinning appears to be implicitly turned off for OpenGL apps). Any other ideas?
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Have you tried un-installing, rebooting then reinstalling VIA Impulse?
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

It sounds like you are hitting a bug in ATIs drivers.

Their drivers drop speed badly if antialiasing is enabled (check you have not forced it via CCC) and there is any per pixel on screen under XP (be it WB, any gadgets etc)

We have spoken to them about this in the past and they have no plans to fix it as it would require major changes to how their drivers work.

This is not a problem under Vista though.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Their drivers drop speed badly if antialiasing is enabled (check you have not forced it via CCC) and there is any per pixel on screen under XP (be it WB, any gadgets etc)
End of quote

Thanks, Neil. You hit the nail on the head. I did have AA enabled through the driver. Disabling AA, solved the problem immediately. Curiously, if I enable AA from within the application (for those apps which feature such an option at least), I don't experience a problem. As a fallback, I can always create a custom 3D profile with ATI Tray Tools which disables AA on a per-application basis.

Thanks for the help. This was really starting to drive me nuts.

J
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
We have spoken to them about this in the past and they have no plans to fix it as it would require major changes to how their drivers work.
End of quote


Also major changes on how their videocards are built I believe.