WindowBlinds 3.3: Twice as vast as msstyles
Wednesday, April 17, 2002 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
Anyone out there willing to do some benchmarking of WindowBlinds 3.3 vs. Windows XP's msstyles?
On the net, you'll still see people say "WindowBlinds is slow, I use msstyles instead..."
Well, our benchmarking is showing WindowBlinds 3.3 as literally twice as fast as visual styles. But what would be nice is for someone to do some independent benchmarking.
If we can consistently show WindowBlinds to be faster than msstyles, that will mean that users are actually better off using WindowBlinds to have the Windows XP look than using Windows alone from a performance/resource point of view which would be a major win.
The only non-Stardock benchmarking program I'm aware of is skinbench. Anyone have any other programs they think would be useful for benchmarking GUI performance?
On the net, you'll still see people say "WindowBlinds is slow, I use msstyles instead..."
Well, our benchmarking is showing WindowBlinds 3.3 as literally twice as fast as visual styles. But what would be nice is for someone to do some independent benchmarking.
If we can consistently show WindowBlinds to be faster than msstyles, that will mean that users are actually better off using WindowBlinds to have the Windows XP look than using Windows alone from a performance/resource point of view which would be a major win.
The only non-Stardock benchmarking program I'm aware of is skinbench. Anyone have any other programs they think would be useful for benchmarking GUI performance?
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GreenReaper
Reply #22 Saturday, April 20, 2002 9:48 PM
Reply #22 Saturday, April 20, 2002 9:48 PM
SkinBench does need a bit of work, as indicated in it's version number. And some of the tests are blatently incorrect. Part of this is due to me doing timing incorrectly, which will be fixed. I have had a few bugs reported which I unfortunately can't reproduce. Yes, the edit sizing thing is strange, and no, I have no idea why it happens. I tried adding menu stuff a while back but wasn't able to get them to open etc under program control (if anyone knows how to do this, I'd be glad to hear). I agree that the Activate test result is surprising in relation to the other tests.
The total score is meaningless, as it says (I took it out, but people asked me to put it back in). Who decides how much each thing matters? This feature will *not* be in the next version of SkinBench, and anyone who tries to total up the tests is not really using the results data correctly.
The tests I consider to be core are moving and resizing ones (particularly the Back ones, since they involve both resizing and repainting of revealed windows) because they are generally the actions that take the longest time, happen the most, and they're also the most reliably benchmarked. Any test that gives wildly different results like the progrees bar test is highly suspect. Incidentally, that's why you should calibrate to classic - that way if anything gets significantly more - like, 1000's of marks more - you can be fairly sure SkinBench has messed up somewhere.
I'd also point out that SkinBench can't measure everything. WB 3.2 introduced global bitmaps that cut the load time of windows to a third of what it was previously. Yet this would not have been indicated in any benchmarks (possibly the CreateWnd one, but I doubt it). That's just one example of factors that may have a huge effect on the user perception and "real" speed, but which may never be benchmarkable.
The total score is meaningless, as it says (I took it out, but people asked me to put it back in). Who decides how much each thing matters? This feature will *not* be in the next version of SkinBench, and anyone who tries to total up the tests is not really using the results data correctly.
The tests I consider to be core are moving and resizing ones (particularly the Back ones, since they involve both resizing and repainting of revealed windows) because they are generally the actions that take the longest time, happen the most, and they're also the most reliably benchmarked. Any test that gives wildly different results like the progrees bar test is highly suspect. Incidentally, that's why you should calibrate to classic - that way if anything gets significantly more - like, 1000's of marks more - you can be fairly sure SkinBench has messed up somewhere.
I'd also point out that SkinBench can't measure everything. WB 3.2 introduced global bitmaps that cut the load time of windows to a third of what it was previously. Yet this would not have been indicated in any benchmarks (possibly the CreateWnd one, but I doubt it). That's just one example of factors that may have a huge effect on the user perception and "real" speed, but which may never be benchmarkable.
paxx
Reply #23 Saturday, April 20, 2002 11:02 PM
Reply #23 Saturday, April 20, 2002 11:02 PM
Hum... I don't know about benchmarks and all, but I am have been working without Windowblinds at home for a week or two now, and I can feel the difference. Things seems smoother for some reason.
But this is my home PC mind you, it's old and crappy, so maybe WB is faster but on faster machines? My home PC is a 333 Celeron with 256 Megs of RAM, and an 8 Megs 3DFX Voodoo3.
I love Windowblinds, but for the moment I actually like the plain look of Windows XP without fancy running. Don't worry, I'll grow out of that phase too.
But this is my home PC mind you, it's old and crappy, so maybe WB is faster but on faster machines? My home PC is a 333 Celeron with 256 Megs of RAM, and an 8 Megs 3DFX Voodoo3.
I love Windowblinds, but for the moment I actually like the plain look of Windows XP without fancy running. Don't worry, I'll grow out of that phase too.
Frogboy
Reply #24 Sunday, April 21, 2002 12:21 AM
Reply #24 Sunday, April 21, 2002 12:21 AM
The main thing we're trying to do is dispel the whole "WindowBlinds is slow and bloated" stuff that you occasionally still see posted.
It's really quite discouraging seeing some guy say how much faster msstyles when he hasn't tried WindowBlinds in years and when he did it was on like Windows 95 or something.
I want to make sure that from 3.3 on out, that the difference comes down to skinning and features, not performance and memory.
It's really quite discouraging seeing some guy say how much faster msstyles when he hasn't tried WindowBlinds in years and when he did it was on like Windows 95 or something.
I want to make sure that from 3.3 on out, that the difference comes down to skinning and features, not performance and memory.
GreenReaper
Reply #25 Sunday, April 21, 2002 2:04 AM
Reply #25 Sunday, April 21, 2002 2:04 AM
Maybe you should just go with saying "faster" rather than "twice as fast", then. More reliably true. 
Frogboy
Reply #26 Sunday, April 21, 2002 2:29 AM
Reply #26 Sunday, April 21, 2002 2:29 AM
I dunno, I look at it as akin to when you read in a newspaper "Pentium 4 machines: $899!" That doesn't mean that every Pentium 4 machine in the world that they sell is $899.
Similarly, a typical WB skin that has a similar msstyle version is going to be twice as fast on a typical system. I'll have to bench more at 32bit color to see if that result remains the same at 32bit color.
Similarly, a typical WB skin that has a similar msstyle version is going to be twice as fast on a typical system. I'll have to bench more at 32bit color to see if that result remains the same at 32bit color.
JayG
Reply #27 Monday, April 22, 2002 11:19 PM
Reply #27 Monday, April 22, 2002 11:19 PM
the style xp trolls used to spread fud about wb being a slow buggy thing. hell the style xp page still implies that 'other' with 'other' being wb no doubt slows down your system with system hooks. what a load of crap. i don't have xp so i don't care but anyone that anal about performance should be using no skinning at all.
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Reply #21 Saturday, April 20, 2002 8:56 PM
UseHWAcc=0
Does this mean you are not using hardware acceleration? How does changing this value to 1 affect the benchmark?
I have tried both Mmstyles and Windowblinds and I prefer WB - adni18 is right, speed is not important (just as long as it is not slow...umm is that a contradiction??) the extra features in WB such as smart buttons, roll ups and custom colours all make me want to stay with WB.
Which is faster? Astin Martin Vanquish V12 or Ferrari 550 Maranello? Who cares
(Actually, I would always go for the Aston Martin)