Fact or Fiction? - OD apps cause serious OS drag

Saturday, June 19, 2004 by Castle | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk

When I have Iconpackager, Windowblinds, WindowFX, ObjectBar and Object Dock running, my system experiences significant drag. Whan I unload all but one or two of these apps it is instantly responsive once again. I've read many threads about this and find that everyone has different views on this. Is it just a trade-off that I have to accept (looks for speed) or is there something I can do to lessen the drag on my resources? I find it hard to believe that I need to upgrade my hardware being that I already have a pretty robust system
Here are my stats:

Windows XP Pro SP-1
Athlon XP 2800+ Barton CPU 2.08GHz
1gig Corsair XMS LL ram
ABIT NF7-S 2.0 Motherboard
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card
Audigy 2 sound card

Any thoughts?
[Message Edited]
Jafo
Reply #1 Saturday, June 19, 2004 10:51 AM
Fiction is the closest single word answer.
Castle
Reply #2 Saturday, June 19, 2004 11:01 AM
Jafo - thanks but I've already established that unloading some of the mentioned apps makes a huge difference in responsiveness. If it were hardly noticeable I would subscribe to the single word answer of fiction as well. I'm just hoping there is something I can do or an explanation that will end my frustration. I read the fact/fiction thread on Windowblinds and found it very informative - thanks to frogboy. WB by itself causes me no noticeable drag.

sidenote - When running Object Dock, it takes 30 sec. to open Photoshop 7. After unloading Object Dock it takes about 8 secs.
[Message Edited]
Koasati
Reply #3 Saturday, June 19, 2004 11:08 AM

IconPackager doesn't run in the background. The only time it does anything is when you tell it to. Try unloading any "docklets" you have running in ObjectDock. These often are the cause of slow downs. You may want to try unloading WindowFX to see if that is the culprit. WindowBlinds is very unlikely to be causing you grief. I haven't used ObjectBar much, but I've never noticed it causing any problems when running.





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IPlural
Reply #4 Saturday, June 19, 2004 11:30 AM
I have a P4 desktop and a AMD +3200 laptop and run the following without any problems.

IP
OD
WFX
WB

with any skin I desire.


No slow down and no problem...

Then again I have never timed Photoshop to see a 22 second difference in load time

IPlural
Reply #5 Saturday, June 19, 2004 11:31 AM
I am curious as to why your running ObjectBar with Windowblinds though?
Castle
Reply #6 Saturday, June 19, 2004 11:33 AM
Thanks for the tips Koasati. I think I've narrowed it down to Objectbar and/or Objectdock. I've got WB, and FX running with no slowdown. I had a Mac OSX Objectbar theme that seemed laggy. ObjectDock only had the weather docklet but I think this app is the main offender in my case.

Does the CPU have anything to do with how well Obj Desktop apps are handled? AMD vs Intel?
[Message Edited]
Castle
Reply #7 Saturday, June 19, 2004 11:43 AM
IPlural
I had a mac theme going and found a perfect OB theme so I grabbed it. I have since tired of the whole Mac OSX look so I guess I really dont need to run OB now.

I just loaded ObjectDock again and yup.....it is back to laaaaaaag Darn it - and I really like ObjDock too.
AMD 3200+ laptop - I'm green with envy
IPlural
Reply #8 Saturday, June 19, 2004 11:47 AM
mmmmm.... have you tried changing the rendering engine?

there are two, one for ATI compliant and one for everything else...
Koasati
Reply #9 Saturday, June 19, 2004 11:48 AM
I'd bet real money that the weather docklet is the main problem. It slows my system to a crawl also.



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IPlural
Reply #10 Saturday, June 19, 2004 2:10 PM
owww, yeah...

Weather Docklet, that one was a problem on my t-22 also. Thing is, it would work ok for a bit and then just suck up resources...

Koasati is hammering that one me thinks
yrag
Reply #11 Saturday, June 19, 2004 2:15 PM
Watch out Randy...John will be offering you cake next....
Leo the Lion
Reply #12 Saturday, June 19, 2004 4:08 PM
Someone mention cake?........Hmmmmmmm nice. I'll have a slice if ones going round
Tiggz
Reply #13 Saturday, June 19, 2004 5:16 PM
sidenote - When running Object Dock, it takes 30 sec. to open Photoshop 7. After unloading Object Dock it takes about 8 secs

I found the same thing - on my system at least there is a serious conflict between objectdock and photoshop7. Whilst objectdock is very pretty I find it impacts heavily on my systems performance in general. My solution: I don't run objectdock any more.

#5 by IPlural - 6/19/2004 11:31:10 AM I am curious as to why your running ObjectBar with Windowblinds though?

Maybe because objectbar is the single best launching utility there is it's not just about replacing the taskbar and start menu...

I run objectbar, windowblinds, desktopX and sysmetrix full time and experience no noticeable loss of performance. My system stats are all below that of the original poster.
IPlural
Reply #14 Saturday, June 19, 2004 5:28 PM


WIthout a doubt, but I was wondering why OB and OD at the same time with WB. Worded the previous question wrong

hehe
Tiggz
Reply #15 Saturday, June 19, 2004 5:34 PM

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