High Res Gaming. Do you have Aero Disabled? You should. Pics because it did happen.

Read through your thread over at the EVGA forums. Seems legit. Just wish games could auto switch off Aero the moment I enter the game. Something like NVIDIA Optimus technology with laptops but for Aero.
 
Heck I have it disabled and run only 1080p (120hz) it makes a big difference, especially when you have additional monitors that only run 60hz
 
deusofhearts said:
Read through your thread over at the EVGA forums. Seems legit. Just wish games could auto switch off Aero the moment I enter the game. Something like NVIDIA Optimus technology with laptops but for Aero.
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You can! Just go to the executable or shortcut properties under the compatability tab and disable visual themes
 
That is interesting. Thanks for the significant time you put into this analysis. :cool:

Might have to do some testing of my own. And it's nice that you can disable it on a per-application basis rather than overall, since I like it a lot when I'm not in-game.
 
This is pretty cool. Should help people out there with card with less vram. Might try to see how it affects FPS in BF3 since thats about the only game that gets anywhere close to my max vram, 3GB. Thanks for the write up.
 
deusofhearts said:
Read through your thread over at the EVGA forums. Seems legit. Just wish games could auto switch off Aero the moment I enter the game. Something like NVIDIA Optimus technology with laptops but for Aero.
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Tis legit indeed.


Nauseous said:
Does not really seem like its worth all that extra effort.
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Right click desktop/Personalize/Windows 7 Basic/Close Window

You're done.

MavericK96 said:
That is interesting. Thanks for the significant time you put into this analysis. :cool:

Might have to do some testing of my own. And it's nice that you can disable it on a per-application basis rather than overall, since I like it a lot when I'm not in-game.
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hammerforged said:
This is pretty cool. Should help people out there with card with less vram. Might try to see how it affects FPS in BF3 since thats about the only game that gets anywhere close to my max vram, 3GB. Thanks for the write up.
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and Thank you sirs.
 
Anyone know if this would help choppy performance in say....NFS Undercover? hahah

I thought Aero was supposed to automatically disable for games?!?!? Maybe it is broken?
 
Nice finding :)

the video ram usage is interesting, but with today's >2GB RAM vid cards a more significant issue would be the frame rate drop in some games
 
OP, excellent thorough tests and results, thanks for the work done and taking the time to share! I run GTX 680 SLI and 2560x1600, and while it's absurdly fast, extra performance is always a good thing, especially for something so simple to do :D. It also will help if I ever run into VRAM issues down the line.
 
RogueTrip said:
I thought Aero was supposed to automatically disable for games?!?!? Maybe it is broken?
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It is supposed to be disabled, but clearly the combination of Aero & desktop composition being disabled helps a lot when done manually.
 
I disable Aero and leave it disabled, but I hate that you can't change the fucking Windows 7 taskbar color without an Aero theme being used. Go on, try it. Set it to Windows 7 Basic (with no aero) and then try to change your main Win7 taskbar color. You can't. The color mix area disappears without Aero and to my and Google's knowledge there is no way to manually force it to change, it's stuck permanently on that blue-grey rubbish.

Leave it to Microsoft to break basic functionality on purpose to try to force users to utilize their "features". Pure hate.
 
I'm a little surprised the windows desktop isn't moved to dynamic memory once game requirements plus aero exceed 2048 mb.
 
requiem99 said:
I disable Aero and leave it disabled, but I hate that you can't change the fucking Windows 7 taskbar color without an Aero theme being used. Go on, try it. Set it to Windows 7 Basic (with no aero) and then try to change your main Win7 taskbar color. You can't. The color mix area disappears without Aero and to my and Google's knowledge there is no way to manually force it to change, it's stuck permanently on that blue-grey rubbish.

Leave it to Microsoft to break basic functionality on purpose to try to force users to utilize their "features". Pure hate.
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Pretty much this. I'm just so used to the way Aero looks, and I don't even care about the cool graphical effects it has. Windows basic is just plain ugly and gives me eye strain.
 
I disabled teletubbies windows xp - you bet I disable gay aero which is worse. w2k4lyf. i just blackviper my machine and get way better results

Good post and shots, thanks.
 
requiem99 said:
I disable Aero and leave it disabled, but I hate that you can't change the fucking Windows 7 taskbar color without an Aero theme being used. Go on, try it. Set it to Windows 7 Basic (with no aero) and then try to change your main Win7 taskbar color. You can't. The color mix area disappears without Aero and to my and Google's knowledge there is no way to manually force it to change, it's stuck permanently on that blue-grey rubbish.

Leave it to Microsoft to break basic functionality on purpose to try to force users to utilize their "features". Pure hate.
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Classic shell.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/classicshell/
 
I love Aero in general, so disabling it on a per-app basis is the way to go imo.
 
Quagmire LXIX said:
Crysis 2 (high res pack) seems to be the exception in my testbed of games, there was only a 4MB difference and they were both north of 1980MB. I haven't attempted any research for an explanation, but I'm thinking one of two reasons: a) Turning Aero off did free up some vram, but the game said “sweet, more vram, I'll use it!” or b) Crysis 2 game actually turns off Aero. I'm rooting for a) I suppose, because I'd rather think that someone made a game smart instead of the other 4 game coders being lazy and not turning off Aero for us when we go in 3D clocks since Crytek can (if they can). My 6010x1080 desktop idles with 232MB Aero On, and 121MB Aero Off.
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for Crysis 2 it will use more vram than it needs at least up to a certain point. at 1920x1080 or 1280x720, it will use all of my vram on my gtx570 within a few seconds.
 
This is why you buy higher VRAM cards in general.

I have an EVGA 560TI 2GB. I sit at 200+ MB of VRAM with 2 monitors at desktop (one 24" 1080p and another 17" 1024x768). With all High settings in BF3 and no MSAA (only FXAA), I max out at around 1800MB of VRAM on the larger maps and with Aero on.
 
run some benchmarks.

am I missing something?

static screenshots showing FRAPs numbers wouldn't be as repeatable and verifiable as several different benchmark tools.

Run some of the older tools that wouldn't even know anything about Aero - or to disable it.
 
VulcaN said:
Just installed this and got a cool start menu but didnt see any options for the taskbar itself (such as color)
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Oh I misread thought he wanted winxp taskbar

After switching to windows classic - right click on the desktop and select Personalise, click Windows Colour, scroll to 3D Objects change color to change the taskbar.color
 
ZoNe said:
Oh I misread thought he wanted winxp taskbar

After switching to windows classic - right click on the desktop and select Personalise, click Windows Colour, scroll to 3D Objects change color to change the taskbar.color
Click to expand...

Give me a little credit and perhaps read what I write next time. You simply copypasta a solution you found on Google that looks like it should work. It doesn't. Trust me.
 
Didn't realize this was news. have been doing this forever.

But, it causes problems for borderless windowmode sometimes (tearing in Skyrim)
 
I just tried this with GTA IV and Battlefield 3 and saw significant improvements in my framerate and memory usage. The difference in GTA IV was quite impressive, about 20% better FPS for the same scenes. I'll test some more games and report back.
 
dblinkhorn said:
I just tried this with GTA IV and Battlefield 3 and saw significant improvements in my framerate and memory usage. The difference in GTA IV was quite impressive, about 20% better FPS for the same scenes. I'll test some more games and report back.
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I honestly thought you were exaggerating so I fired up GTA 4 to test for my self. not only does it use way less memory with aero disabled it is indeed faster. I ran two different benchmarks in two different locations.


aero enabled
Min, Max, Avg
29, 96, 59.719

aero disabled
Min, Max, Avg
43, 109, 69.977

about 17% faster with aero off


aero enabled
Min, Max, Avg
28, 90, 48.372

aero disabled
Min, Max, Avg
40, 93, 62.825

about 30% faster with aero off


and it used 200-300mb less vram with aero disabled.

EDIT: I am testing other games and not seeing more than 1 fps difference. I think some of the difference in GTA 4 is that maybe I am close to running out of vram with aero enabled so without aero its faster. someone with a 2gb card needs to test GTA 4 out.

EDIT 2: I went back and played at 1280 with lowered settings and not going over 750mb of vram with aero and 550 or so without aero and got basically identical over all framerates like that with or without aero on.


so bottom line is it was vram related in GTA 4 even though I was not even using within 100mb of my available vram with aero on. so dont expect performance increase if you have plenty of vram. if you are anywhere close to borderline with vram though then turning off aero will help in a vram hungry game like GTA 4 though.
 
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I have a 3GB card and seeing the performance increase, so unless GTA IV has an artificial limit on the VRAM the game will utilize, then I shouldn't even be close to max.
 
dblinkhorn said:
I have a 3GB card and seeing the performance increase, so unless GTA IV has an artificial limit on the VRAM the game will utilize, then I shouldn't even be close to max.
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well I just spent over 2 hours testing it and in GTA 4 if I use settings that dont go ever over 800mb of vram then my performance is identical with or without aero enabled.

EDIT: at what resolution? and if you dont mind I would like to see some screens and benchmarks.
 
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CaptNumbNutz said:
This is why you buy higher VRAM cards in general.

I have an EVGA 560TI 2GB. I sit at 200+ MB of VRAM with 2 monitors at desktop (one 24" 1080p and another 17" 1024x768). With all High settings in BF3 and no MSAA (only FXAA), I max out at around 1800MB of VRAM on the larger maps and with Aero on.
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Buying more hardware instead of streamlining the efficiency of ones current hardware is one approach. Try turning Aero off, then see if you can apply 2xMSAA and be playable. If so, then this thread was worth it.
EDIT: nvm, you're not hitting the wall on vram, so you probably didn't use 2xMSAA due to it hitting your playable FPS too much, am I right. If not, try it with Aero off and see for us.

Blind Man said:
Didn't realize this was news. have been doing this forever.


But, it causes problems for borderless windowmode sometimes (tearing in Skyrim)
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We aren't all as knowledgable. I wanted the math since I never seen it, so I went after it.



Archaea said:
run some benchmarks.

am I missing something?

static screenshots showing FRAPs numbers wouldn't be as repeatable and verifiable as several different benchmark tools.

Run some of the older tools that wouldn't even know anything about Aero - or to disable it.
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wut

I don't play benchmarks, and if you're going to suggest to do so, how about you name which one(s) I should try as I can't read your mind either. And technically, I did "benchmark", using a game. I can repeat it anytime, in fact, it was repeated within the tests. You can run this test, repeat and verify all day on your own rig. "older tools", are we going backwards.



As for some other comments, I don't know why anyone is turning this into an FPS battle. It isn't about FPS gains at all. It is about vram management and what settings can be achieved when managing it better. I wasn't expecting (and rightfully so) any FPS increase when disabling Aero on BF3 (the pics show this), what I did find is that I could increase from FXAA+2xMSAA to FXAA+4xMSAA SP smooth, where it wasn't with Aero on because it exceeded my 2GB limit and BF3 didn't manage that well like Crysis 2 does. Since I have 2GB, I couldn't get Dirt 3 and Sniper V2 anywhere near the limit, but people with 1-1.5GB cards can test Aero a lot more than I can when it comes to a games ability to amnage memory well (Crysis 2) and those that don't manage the ceiling well (BF3).

I only did 5 games, but here people are finding it improves in more games, as one would expect. Take the test for what it shows and what you find on your own rigs, like many have.
 
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tmillszero1 said:
You can! Just go to the executable or shortcut properties under the compatability tab and disable visual themes
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Just thought I would add to this, you also want to check "Disable Desktop Composition" because that is part of Aero, too.

Seemed to work well for me. I disabled both of those for my ArmA 2 OA .exe, and when I started up Aero went away instantly, and came back instantly when I closed the game.

I didn't do any benchmarks but it did seem like the game loaded faster for whatever reason.

Quagmire LXIX said:
We aren't all as knowledgable. I wanted the math since I never seen it, so I went after it.
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And most of us in here appreciate it. Even if you have 1.5-2 GB of VRAM, an extra 200-300 MB could make a big difference.

I find it funny that when some people talk about the 570 with 1.25 GB they think that's insufficient, but suddenly the 580 with 1.5 GB is. Well, with this tweak you could be saving that difference just by a few mouse clicks.
 
Firewalker81 said:
Interesting, I am gonna try this on 570 when I get home.
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Please report your findings :)

Thanks to everyone contributing to this thread with their own testing and results :cool:

MavericK96 said:
And most of us in here appreciate it. Even if you have 1.5-2 GB of VRAM, an extra 200-300 MB could make a big difference.

I find it funny that when some people talk about the 570 with 1.25 GB they think that's insufficient, but suddenly the 580 with 1.5 GB is. Well, with this tweak you could be saving that difference just by a few mouse clicks.
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Thanks Mav. Yep, you're seeing the thread for what it is.


EDIT: Does anyone know how to do a strikethrough here at [H]? I want to strike the Crysis 2 stuff on top of the OP, but not remove it. This way people can focus on the Crysis 2 further testing, thanks.

Q

MavericK96 said:
[Strike=Option]Like this[/s] :cool:

[ Strike=Option ] TEXT [ /Strike ] (minus the spaces)
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Indeed, thank you much :)
 
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[Strike=Option]Like this[/s] :cool:

[ Strike=Option ] TEXT [ /Strike ] (minus the spaces)
 
Dang, this would have been very useful when I had 5870's... but with a 7970 I'm more inclined to be lazy and let the 3GB do its job.
 
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