AERO minimum requirements.

[Retired]

What are the minimum hardware requirements for Aero? My system has 512 MB of
RAM, is running at 950 MHZ, and has 65 MB of onboard memory on my graphics
card. Thank you.

 

[Iuvenalis]

What are the minimum hardware requirements for Aero? My system has 512 MB
of RAM, is running at 950 MHZ, and has 65 MB of onboard memory on my
graphics card. Thank you.

I enabled it on an old laptop with 512mb ram & it ran dog slow.
That was with 128mb of video memory.

 

[Mike Brannigan]

What are the minimum hardware requirements for Aero? My system has 512 MB
of RAM, is running at 950 MHZ, and has 65 MB of onboard memory on my
graphics card. Thank you.

Windows Vista Premium Ready PCs
Some Windows Vista Capable PCs have been designated Premium Ready. These PCs
will provide an even better Windows Vista experience, including the Windows
Aero user experience.

see Premium spec at
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/capable.mspx
You do not meet it.

 

[Top Poster]

Windows Vista Premium Ready PCs
Some Windows Vista Capable PCs have been designated Premium Ready. These
PCs will provide an even better Windows Vista experience, including the
Windows Aero user experience.

see Premium spec at
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/capable.mspx
You do not meet it.

He asked for the minimum spec?

A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:


a.. A modern processor (at least 800MHz¹).

b.. 512 MB of system memory.

c.. A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.

 

[Robert Firth]

You need 64mb dedicated graphics memory or more (128+ mb recommended),
DirectX9
Pixel Shader 2.0 support

I think that is about it for the graphics card.

Robert Firth
http://www.winvistainfo.org

 

[Retired]

Thanks Everyone. The reason I asked is because all of the features of Vista
(I installed Vista Home Premium) work except for AERO.

 

[Lang Murphy]

What are the minimum hardware requirements for Aero? My system has 512 MB
of RAM, is running at 950 MHZ, and has 65 MB of onboard memory on my
graphics card. Thank you.

I see others have posted links to Aero minimum reqs.. so...

Assuming you have a WDDM video driver...

I had one of the Vista betas installed on a laptop with 512MB RAM and 64MB
Video RAM (I think it was 32MB dedicated and 32MB shared system RAM) and I
got Aero working with a combo of reg hacks and cmd line commands...

(I'd make note of the current settings before changing them in case
something blows up. You could export the DWM reg key as a backup. And maybe
create a system restore point before trying this... just in case...)

1) Ensure that you have the following registry values set to:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM]
"Composition"=dword:00000001
"CompositionPolicy"=dword:00000002
"ColorizationOpaqueBlend"=dword:00000001

2) Restart DWM by opening a command prompt with administrative privileges:
Type 'net stop uxsms'
Then 'net start uxsms'

To be honest, though... that's a borderline config for Vista. Especially the
512MB's RAM. And is the "onboard" video memory "dedicated" or "system
shared?" If the latter, that's taking away from your 512MB of system RAM.

Good luck!

Lang

 

[Retired]

What are the minimum hardware requirements for Aero? My system has 512 MB
of RAM, is running at 950 MHZ, and has 65 MB of onboard memory on my
graphics card. Thank you.

I see others have posted links to Aero minimum reqs.. so...

Assuming you have a WDDM video driver...

I had one of the Vista betas installed on a laptop with 512MB RAM and 64MB
Video RAM (I think it was 32MB dedicated and 32MB shared system RAM) and I
got Aero working with a combo of reg hacks and cmd line commands...

(I'd make note of the current settings before changing them in case
something blows up. You could export the DWM reg key as a backup. And
maybe create a system restore point before trying this... just in case...)

1) Ensure that you have the following registry values set to:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM]
"Composition"=dword:00000001
"CompositionPolicy"=dword:00000002
"ColorizationOpaqueBlend"=dword:00000001

2) Restart DWM by opening a command prompt with administrative privileges:
Type 'net stop uxsms'
Then 'net start uxsms'

To be honest, though... that's a borderline config for Vista. Especially
the 512MB's RAM. And is the "onboard" video memory "dedicated" or "system
shared?" If the latter, that's taking away from your 512MB of system RAM.

Good luck!

Lang

Thanks for the tips.

By the way, as I said in my original post, my graphics card has onboard
memory. This means that it is memory that is dedicated to graphics tasks and
is not system shared memory. If the graphics card had no onboard memory,
then the graphics tasks would need to borrow memory from the regular RAM
chips, i.e., be system shared.

 

[keepout]

There is a page at M$ That tells you all you need to know, assuming you worked
for M$ in the design of Aero.


Something that might help. I show aero in my personalized settings.
right click the desktop -> personalize -> window color & appearance -> see if
you have windows aero in the theme selector. select it. reboot.

If you still don't have it, maybe you're using a TV on your machine ? Aero
won't run with my TV on. But turn the TV off, it works.
but it toggles back and forth between aero and basic if you select aero.

 

[Bob Eyster]

Think the min for the Graphic card is 128MB and should have 1GB of RAM on
the PC/Laptop. Not required but recommended

--

Bob Eyster
MS Windows Vista Home Premium

What are the minimum hardware requirements for Aero? My system has 512
MB of RAM, is running at 950 MHZ, and has 65 MB of onboard memory on my
graphics card. Thank you.

I see others have posted links to Aero minimum reqs.. so...

Assuming you have a WDDM video driver...

I had one of the Vista betas installed on a laptop with 512MB RAM and
64MB Video RAM (I think it was 32MB dedicated and 32MB shared system RAM)
and I got Aero working with a combo of reg hacks and cmd line commands...

(I'd make note of the current settings before changing them in case
something blows up. You could export the DWM reg key as a backup. And
maybe create a system restore point before trying this... just in
case...)

1) Ensure that you have the following registry values set to:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM]
"Composition"=dword:00000001
"CompositionPolicy"=dword:00000002
"ColorizationOpaqueBlend"=dword:00000001

2) Restart DWM by opening a command prompt with administrative
privileges:
Type 'net stop uxsms'
Then 'net start uxsms'

To be honest, though... that's a borderline config for Vista. Especially
the 512MB's RAM. And is the "onboard" video memory "dedicated" or "system
shared?" If the latter, that's taking away from your 512MB of system RAM.

Good luck!

Lang

Thanks for the tips.

By the way, as I said in my original post, my graphics card has onboard
memory. This means that it is memory that is dedicated to graphics tasks
and is not system shared memory. If the graphics card had no onboard
memory, then the graphics tasks would need to borrow memory from the
regular RAM chips, i.e., be system shared.

 

[Lang Murphy]

What are the minimum hardware requirements for Aero? My system has 512
MB of RAM, is running at 950 MHZ, and has 65 MB of onboard memory on my
graphics card. Thank you.

I see others have posted links to Aero minimum reqs.. so...

Assuming you have a WDDM video driver...

I had one of the Vista betas installed on a laptop with 512MB RAM and
64MB Video RAM (I think it was 32MB dedicated and 32MB shared system RAM)
and I got Aero working with a combo of reg hacks and cmd line commands...

(I'd make note of the current settings before changing them in case
something blows up. You could export the DWM reg key as a backup. And
maybe create a system restore point before trying this... just in
case...)

1) Ensure that you have the following registry values set to:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM]
"Composition"=dword:00000001
"CompositionPolicy"=dword:00000002
"ColorizationOpaqueBlend"=dword:00000001

2) Restart DWM by opening a command prompt with administrative
privileges:
Type 'net stop uxsms'
Then 'net start uxsms'

To be honest, though... that's a borderline config for Vista. Especially
the 512MB's RAM. And is the "onboard" video memory "dedicated" or "system
shared?" If the latter, that's taking away from your 512MB of system RAM.

Good luck!

Lang

Thanks for the tips.

By the way, as I said in my original post, my graphics card has onboard
memory. This means that it is memory that is dedicated to graphics tasks
and is not system shared memory. If the graphics card had no onboard
memory, then the graphics tasks would need to borrow memory from the
regular RAM chips, i.e., be system shared.

Well... yeah, wasn't sure what you had and wanted to be clear... if you look
at the video RAM numbers in Vista there's no "onboard" video RAM qualifier.
(Just Dedicated Video Memory, System Video Memory, and Shared System
Memory.) So... I was just making sure. No biggie.

Lang