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i would like to know . there should be a option to turn it on and off 
i would like to add i have a gtx 680 and it seems that it takes alot longer to load windows 8
Give us more to work with here, does it take longer for it to load up on start up.. or for the icons to load when you click the Start8 button?
If so, I'd think it would have to do with your CPU and or RAM if anything, I'm fairly sure that a couple of icons don't use your GPU enough for your GPU to matter much (as long as it's from 2006+).
I am not happy with the UI responsiveness either. It's a slow drawing program. 
Start8 is not drawing performance limited at any point.
Like the Windows Vista / 7 Start menu, it uses GDI for drawing.
It seems unlikely that Start8 would benefit from GPU acceleration, which is best-suited to such intensive tasks as 1080i/p video playback/decoding etc. You must have some other problem (with the UI responsiveness).
About Windows 8 being slow to start, I agree but that's probably not Start8's fault. Windows 8 fools you into thinking it starts fast, because indeed the Title screen and the Start/Metro UI & apps are available very rapidly (much faster that Win 7's desktop). However, the Desktop boot-up (and the relevant applications) take quite a while to load, equal or perhaps even longer than 7.
But GDI is no longer hardware accelerated under Windows 7/Vista. Direct2D is the recommended API for new apps that support Vista and up only. If an app runs only on Windows 8, it should definitely use Direct2D right from the beginning.
Desktop startup speed is something we have been actively working on and the next update should get you to the desktop even quicker.
Addtionally we have been working on overall performance to make it yet faster in operation (not that it is slow already).
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