Aero Performance Penalty Enormous

[GTS]

Just musing here, but I turned off aero after using it for months and am
staggered at just how big the performance difference it really makes. I
feel like I've upgraded to a whole new computer.
This PC is not the latest and greatest, but neither is it an an old
clunker -
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
RAM: 2GB dual channel
Radeon X1300 Series with 256MB memory

If you're using aero and are dissatisfied with Vista performance, it's worth
checking for yourself. I like aero, but it doesn't seem worth the trade
off.

 

[David]

Just musing here, but I turned off aero after using it for months and
am staggered at just how big the performance difference it really
makes. I feel like I've upgraded to a whole new computer.
This PC is not the latest and greatest, but neither is it an an old
clunker -
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
RAM: 2GB dual channel
Radeon X1300 Series with 256MB memory

If you're using aero and are dissatisfied with Vista performance, it's
worth checking for yourself. I like aero, but it doesn't seem worth
the trade off.

I don't see any difference on my Toshiba with a T5500, 2GB of
memory...so i leave Aero on, as i like it. I ran vista with aero off to
see if i could detect any speed improvement--didn't see any speedup.

Dave

 

[Bill Leary]

Just musing here, but I turned off aero after using it for months and am
staggered at just how big the performance difference it really makes. I
feel like I've upgraded to a whole new computer.
This PC is not the latest and greatest, but neither is it an an old
clunker -
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
RAM: 2GB dual channel
Radeon X1300 Series with 256MB memory

OK...

AMD Athlon 64 3800+, 2.4GHz
2G DDR2 SDRAM
Radeon X1650 w/512M RAM
Running Vista Ultimate 32

I didn't notice much (or maybe any) difference in performance with Aero on
or off.

But I can't say I really did anything heavy to it while I had it off.
Checked mail, browsed some web sites, move a couple of files, ran my
scanner. That sort of thing.

- Bill

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

I have to say that I noticed little or no difference, so I continue to run
Aero..

 

[Nick Simpson]

I believe it has something to do with your video card. If you have a newer
card, you're going to notice less of a difference than if you have a little
bit older card. But of course, I always retain my right to be corrected.

Nick

 

[GTS]

Thank you all for your comments. It's interest that some of you aren't
seeing the substantial different I have here. I'm going to study the issue
further and experiment with some varying video driver versions see if I can
zero in on the bottleneck.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

I have an MSI NX6600 TDE 256mb, for the record..

 

[Chris Cowles]

I believe it has something to do with your video card. If you have a
newer card, you're going to notice less of a difference than if you
have a little bit older card. But of course, I always retain my
right to be corrected.

Aero isn't even an option on many older cards. Aero requires certain
functionality and, if the display adapter doesn't include that, you
can't even choose it. I purchased the minimum card I could get that
provides the necessary capabilities (NVidia GeForce 6200 A-LE, AGP). I
see almost no difference between Aero on or off. Other factors: Dell
4600C, 2.66GHz P4, 2.5GB RAM.

 

[Nick Simpson]

I know that Aero requires certain things in the graphics card, mainly
DirectX 9 and a WDM driver with a minimum of 128MB of Video RAM. The
difference though, is that the requirement allows for shared memory. So in
essence, you could have an older card with only 64MB of integrated memory
and the rest being shared memory from RAM. If that's the case and you shut
off Aero, its going to free that memory to be used for another things,
making a computer seem more responsive. Some people, while having an older
card, still have that 128MB of integrated VRAM, so they don't see the
performance boost.

I have a set of laptops that have this such instance and I have the users
shut Aero off to 1. Safe power and 2. make their computers more responsive.
My users were willing to compromise the translucency for the speed and
power.

I am by no means an expert and stand ready to be corrected.

NS