Layers slowing XP down...WB7
Thursday, April 8, 2010 by I.R. Brainiac | Discussion: WindowBlinds
I've used Neil's cool layer feature to add some vineshadows to Frame,Taskbar and Start menu on ecoLogical.wba.
Admittedly they are some large tga's...about 750x350.
They slow XP to a crawl when opening the systray,start menu or resizing the taskbar.This dosnt happen on Vista or Win7.
I sent it to vStyler and it affected his system too on XP...and he has an I7 processor.
I hate to disappoint XP users by removing the layers because this substyle was the major change to XP...other than some color presets.
Wouldnt seem fair to give Vista and 7 users something cool that XP users couldnt use.
Has anybody else experienced slowdowns on XP when adding layers to a skin?
Reply #2 Thursday, April 8, 2010 7:40 PM
using overlay blend to color with automask...also should have mentioned there are 2 layers for each section. 
Reply #3 Thursday, April 8, 2010 7:52 PM
Is this happening just in the process of creating the skin or in use as well? I don't think I've ever experienced any slowdowns while using a skin.
Reply #4 Thursday, April 8, 2010 8:23 PM
Also are all layers TGA files?
Using BMP files would slow things down a little.
Reply #5 Thursday, April 8, 2010 8:29 PM
On my system, XP, 2.4 gig celeron, 1 gig 333 ram(only runs at 266 due to celeron), ati 9200se vid card, I have had Explorer use over 80% cpu with a skin that had 4 taskbar layers, if 1 or 2 layers on taskbar Explorer cpu spikes at 40 to 50% and never settles below 20%. Hide taskbar cpu usage for Explorer drops to 3% for any skin with taskbar layers. With the skins I liked I have edited taskbar so the layers are now just part of the taskbar image, cpu usage for Explorer at 3% for any I have edited.
Reply #6 Thursday, April 8, 2010 8:56 PM
all tga...seeing a steady 5% cpu from explorer while doing nothing. 100% while doing anything...unhiding systray,opening start menu,OS animation of the taskbar buttons.
oddly,I can load the vista or 7 versions and they work better on XP ,tho still badly.
Reply #7 Friday, April 9, 2010 7:44 AM
Could you send me the skin so I can test it here?
Reply #9 Friday, April 9, 2010 2:01 PM
Hey Neil, if you want a couple others to test, 2 Stardock skins that where real bad on my system, Encounter and Sublime. Both slowed my system down almost to the point of it seeming to be frozen. Explorer cpu usage in the 80 - 90% range when just open start menu. Both have multiple taskbar layers, after editing layers to taskbar image cpu at 3% for Explorer.
Reply #10 Friday, April 9, 2010 2:20 PM
Just tried the Sublime skin and the only thing that happened with that skin for me was the icons in the systray disappeared and the startmenu was broken. Go figure.
Reply #11 Thursday, April 22, 2010 3:37 PM
Hey Neil; the new WB7 beta update today has fixed the issues I was having with skins using taskbar layers, well done 
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Reply #1 Thursday, April 8, 2010 7:17 PM
Which blend modes are you using?