[Win 7] Isn't Aero suppose to disable itself when 3D content comes on screen?

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Gawd
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Nov 6, 2004
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*I am using the RC, so I'm curious to hear your reports of whether this is different in the RTM or not:

I was just fooling around with TrackMania Nations, benching the video in full screen vs. in a window. It runs fine full screen, smooth and whatnot, got 32 fps. Then running at the same resolution in a window the benchmark was terribly choppy and only got 6 fps. I thought "well maybe it's aero" so I turned it off and re-ran the bench in the window and sure enough my frames came back to 32 fps.

Isn't Aero suppose to disable itself in this instance? Or is it because it's in a window it doesn't recognize it's a 3D application?
 
Not sure, but I had the same issue with the GA version. I ran a couple benchmarks because person after person kept insisting that aero made no difference. Windowed games seem to suffer if you don't switch to a 'classic' theme.
 
It disables itself when fullscreen content in use, not a window. You are basically reducing the amount of memory available to the program running it in a window, which is probably causing some of the slowness. If the amount of memory free gets low enough windows will actually disable Aero for you.

Here's a brief list of situations where Aero will automatically disable itself, other then in a fullscreen (DirectX Exclusive) mode.

The app is using overlay (I believe this is only on some Nvidia cards however.)
You set "Disable desktop composition" in compatibility options, or the app was preconfigured to do so.
You are not using 32-bit color.
The resolution is set so high that the video card no longer has enough bandwidth to run Aero.
You have enough windows open that DWM will use more than 25% of your systems memory. (but it warns you first and it will turn off transparency) 30% will kill Aero completely.
You have power saver profile enabled.
 
Dropping to 6FPS in windowed mode is really wierd. Aero should be hardly any overhead on that card unless TrackMania is overstressing your video already. I've never had an issue with Aero on and running a game in Windowed mode, even back when I had a 7800GT.
 
First, games running poorly Windowed but fine in fullscreen is not AERO's fault. That shit always happened to me back in XP. I think it had something to do with the applications in windowed mode for some reason not being reconized as the current application, thus not getting the most resources.

AERO uses around 50MB of ram. If you want ti disable it when gaming, you can just go to the compatibility tab of the game shortcut and check the box to disable desktop composition.
 
Thanks for the help everyone. I should add that this is on my laptop with an ATI x1400, so it's not a powerhouse by any means.

Ryokurin - thanks for that information. Changing the compatibility setting to disable desktop composition saved the day. Good to know that's there for future applications as well.
 
I would run Windows basic theme to disable AERO on a laptop since it uses the GPU and will drain your batter faster with it on.
 
I have been hearing that any game in windowed mode will run worse then in full screen. maybe something about not being designed that way...
 
It runs fines now in a window -- exactly the same as full screen -- when it's opened with the option selected to disable desktop composition so that Aero is disabled.
 
Actually, one more related question: any way to disable Aero only when on battery and have it re-enable when plugged in? I couldn't find that option anywhere in the power options but it seems like a sensible choice to have.
 
it should do it already, my sisters laptop disables Aero every time I unplug it
 
After doing some googling and playing around with it, it seems that only the Power Saver energy plan allows the enabling/disabling of Aero when plugged in/running on battery. Fortunately you can still customize all of the power options, although enable/disable aero is not an option anywhere, just a hidden function inside the Power Saver plan. I'm not sure why they wouldn't include it as an option for "Custom" power plans.
 
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