Microsoft Claims Vista's Aero Interface Doesn't Slow PCs

[Red nosed reindeer]

Disclaimer: I do not endorse the following information. I am just posting
news that is relative to this newsgroup.


http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=36751

Running Windows Vista's new Aero graphical interface doesn't impact PC
performance, a study sponsored by Microsoft claims.

According to speed measurements of more than 60 common business chores,
which were conducted by North Carolina-based Principled Technologies for
Microsoft, using the Aero interface "had little or no negative effect on
Windows Vista's performance."

Matt Ayers, a program manager with the Windows Client Performance team,
touted the results on the group's blog. "We put quite a bit of effort into
making sure that the new visuals were as efficient as possible, and it
really paid off," he wrote. "You can run Aero without guilt!"

Principled Technologies measured performance with Aero on and off using a
Dell XPS M170 notebook equipped with 1 Gbyte of RAM, a 2.0-GHz Intel Pentium
M 750 single-core processor, and a graphics card with 256 Mbytes of memory.
The laptop's configuration met or exceeded Microsoft's own minimum system
requirements for what it calls a "Vista Premium Ready PC," which is a system
with sufficient horsepower to run Aero. Those requirements, for example,
specify a graphics card with at least 128 Mbytes of memory.

Aero, which can be disabled by the user, is automatically ditched for a
simpler, Windows XP-style interface, when Vista is run on lower-powered PCs.

The Vista performance report can be downloaded as a PDF file from here

 

[Troy McClure]

dude... please listen for a minute.

no body really wants to keep seeing all of the negative things you post.
yes, i know, youre just trying to help and just trying to put information
out there... but its all negative, and its quite annoying. everyone will
find out the good and the bad on their own. we dont need you spending your
entire day searching the internet and posting links to bad reviews, flaws,
etc. did you do this when xp shipped? or 98 for that matter? stop being so
afraid of change anf if youre really this bored and have this much time on
your hands, id like to hear some of the good things youve found in vista.
and if you think you have a genuine concern, and not just another ms bashing
conspiracy theory, send it to ms... we're all really tired of hearing from
you.

dont bother responding to this and trying to be clever or witty... because
youre not. just take it with a grain of salt, get a life, and have a happy
new year

 

[Dale]

Who cares if Aero affects performance or not. Transparent borders are still
just eye candy and, in fact, blur the distinction between what you want to
see and what you want not to see. In the end, they are a frustration and,
as with many UI problems in computers, users don't even realize the source
of their frustration.

Dale

 

[Red nosed reindeer]

You are wrong. The post is not negative. It is saying that vista
works fine with glass on, and that there is no negative impact on speed.
Please read the post.

 

[Bob]

Very well said.

dude... please listen for a minute.

no body really wants to keep seeing all of the negative things you post.
yes, i know, youre just trying to help and just trying to put information
out there... but its all negative, and its quite annoying. everyone will
find out the good and the bad on their own. we dont need you spending your
entire day searching the internet and posting links to bad reviews, flaws,
etc. did you do this when xp shipped? or 98 for that matter? stop being so
afraid of change anf if youre really this bored and have this much time on
your hands, id like to hear some of the good things youve found in vista.
and if you think you have a genuine concern, and not just another ms
bashing conspiracy theory, send it to ms... we're all really tired of
hearing from you.

dont bother responding to this and trying to be clever or witty... because
youre not. just take it with a grain of salt, get a life, and have a happy
new year

 

[Red nosed reindeer]

Thank you for your kind words.

the post was not negative...

In vista Aero is handled by the GPU the processor on the video card,
thats why it has no negative impact on the overall performance of the OS.
The post if you took the time to read it, has some measurments that show
this.


This is a very nice feature actually.

Happy 2007

 

[Tom Porterfield]

dude... please listen for a minute.

no body really wants to keep seeing all of the negative things you post.

You might want to read what you are replying to before making a post such as
this. There is nothing negative in the post you replied to. Only
information that with Aero enabled on hardware of good caliber that all the
visual effects of the glass interface do not hurt you in the performance
category. Basically meaning it is working the way MS designed it to work.
What is negative about that?

 

[Peter Foldes]

Hello

Everybody is entitled to their opinion and say on good and bad . That is what makes newsgroups. Since their inception and each time a new OS or Suite had a newsgroup associated with it has been so and that is what makes everyone knowledgeable about the subject(s) concerning the OS or whatever the group is about. If you say that it is bothering you then please do not read the posts or newsgroups. Not all of you or should I say most of you remember back to the newsgroups when Windows3.1 was the OS. When Windows 95 was in Beta and the newsgroup that was in place it was mayhem compared to today. You would have said everyone posting was a Troll or a complete idiot. Time has evolved and so has the newsgroups but the basic concept is still the same. Without different views (and imagine if everybody had the same) there would be no newsgroups today nor would be so many differsified people to make the Vista or any other subject be understood. This is how we learn and better ourselves. .

 

[Kerry Brown]

I've actually found that if the hardware is capable of Aero and you turn off
Aero it slows the computer down. This is very noticeable if you have a
mediocre CPU and a decent graphics card. It's nice to see a study that
confirms my results.

 

[Red nosed reindeer]

Hello... do you know if the price of the display adaptor has any difference
on performance of aero?

I am thinking about getting a new card that is not so expensive for my test
machine.
I would think that for only aero the cheap one would be ok.. since I dont
play games and stuff....

 

[R. McCarty]

I would agree that on "Compliant" hardware ( Premium Level )
that the Aero Glass or Windows Vista Theme shows no loss of
performance. If you do switch to Windows Classic, the machine
seems to be less responsive.
I have one application ( Adobe Audition ) that forces Vista to
turn off Aero Glass and use Basic. But the switching affect is only
a second or less and no real problem.
However, lots of issues are probably driver related and I'd think
that will improve as vendors like nVidia (AMD) and ATI get the
performance issues worked out of their drivers.
Usually, I prefer "Classic" on XP - but on my Sony notebook
that is using Vista I've left all the visual enhancements active. I may
eventually turn off the "Fade" effects as I don't really care for them.
On the performance issue, I've tested the notebook on PCPitstop
both in it's MCE state and now using Vista. It achieves a higher
score running Windows Vista.

 

[Dale]

I spent about $100 for my aero compatible graphic card: a Nvidia 7600GS. It
works fine. I can't say for sure if there are performance issues with Aero
on or off because I always leave it on. Even though I am not excited about
glass, I am leaving everything default that I can in Vista until I know it
as it ships. Then I'll start customizing.

Dale

 

[Brian W]

dude... please listen for a minute.

no body really wants to keep seeing all of the negative things you post.
yes, i know, youre just trying to help and just trying to put information
out there...

Really, I thought he was just trolling

 

[MICHAEL]

I have seen the same, Kerry.


-Michael

I've actually found that if the hardware is capable of Aero and you turn off Aero it slows
the computer down. This is very noticeable if you have a mediocre CPU and a decent graphics
card. It's nice to see a study that confirms my results.

 

[Red nosed reindeer]

It seems that both of you were wrong

first of all this post is not negative at all, troy didnt even take the time
to read it
before he was negative and aggressive

and I am not a troll.... you are wrongly accusing me.
Perhaps you thought I was a troll, but I am not one.

So who is posting negative stuff? Hmmm?

 

[Uncle Chutney]

Transparent borders? Is that all you see in the Vista GUI layer? Dude, the
whole thing is driven by 3D vector graphics, and 3D support is right at the
OS Hardware abstraction level. You've got to look beyond the obvious to see
what Microsoft has really done with this OS. Those transparent borders are
just eye candy, but they indicate something much more significant.

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
Neither a follower nor a lender be

 

[Dale]

You're absolutely right. That's what I said. transparent borders are eye
candy. They remind me of the old falling snow java applets of the mid 90's
that were so common in web pages. They had no purpose, and should have
never been used.

Dale

 

[Robert Firth]

Just disable the glass, but it is important to distinguish between Aero and
the Aero glass. Disabling the glass in "Windows color and appearance" keeps
Aero enabled, but the glass off. You still get the benefits of Aero.

Yes, the glass is eye candy. At least it is good eye candy. Yummy...

--
/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Robert Firth *
* Windows Vista x86 RTM *
* http://www.WinVistaInfo.org *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */

 

[Kerry Brown]

I went with a pretty cheap one, ATI 9550 with 256 MB, for my test machine
during the Vista beta testing. It worked great. that was the one I was using
when I noticed the difference in speed with Aero on or off.

 

[Kevin Spencer]

Dale, you're not thinking fourth-dimensionally!

It's not the glass that matters, it's what can be done *with* the glass. In
fact, you have complete control over if and how transparent you want your
windows to be, even without disabling the glass. But you've got to use your
imagination to conceive of what can be done with this new tool, and even
more importantly, the underlying technology. It's not that every window
needs to have transparency, but as a developer who has often agonized over
how to make *anything* in a Windows application transparent, I see this as
an enormously useful part of the compleat toolbox. Prior versions of Windows
haven't supported any transparency, or only full transparency. This version
supports not only transparency, but variable transparency, and more than
that, scalable 3D vector graphics. While this might not seem all that
important to you, you must understand that UI design is all about
intuitiveness. The more a UI looks and feels like a real-world object, the
more intuitive it is to the user. 2D raster graphic UI's were a first and
important step in that direction. But we see in 3 dimensions, and we relate
to the world in 3 dimensions. If you can't see how this can be used to make
computers more user friendly, you will at some point.

So, it's the possibilities I see, not the glass. I have to admit the glass
is rather nice, though, as far as eye candy goes.

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
Bit Player
http://unclechutney.blogspot.com

Where there's a Will, there's a William.