Aero interface in Windows 7 slows down over time

[gophertron]

I've been having an issue lately where the Aero interface in Win7 slows down after several hours of use. As best I can tell, this has only been a problem more recently, so I'm thinking it may be driver related.

The best way to describe it is similar to the choppy effect in a game with low FPS - everything just happens slower, like when you hover over items in the taskbar, the Window fades in slowly, or even simply typing in applications the movement is choppy. The underlying task is happening just as fast though, it's just the visual display that occurs slowly.

Stopping and restarting the aero interface (net stop uxsms, net start uxsms) sometimes fixes the problem, but not always.

Couple things:
-CPU usage does not seem to matter, it is normal (very low) and this still happens
-Windows 7 up-to-date
-Running a Radeon 5850 with newest 12.6 drivers
-Core 2 Duo E8400, 4GB RAM

Anyone have something similar happen?

 

[nickbits]

Sounds like it is starving for memory. If you are running stuff that uses up all your memory (games) and Windows swaps to disk, it will act like that until a reboot, or so I've noticed.

 

[Nothinman]

Pretty much has to be a driver problem. Have you tried running without Aero enabled for a bit and seeing if it still happens? Does perfmon show any disk I/O or anything whenever it's happening?

 

[BrightCandle]

I had the same problem with 12.6 on my 7970s. Turning transparency off seems to delay the problem for a while. I am certain its a bug in amds drivers. One incidentally that was reported in January.

 

[corkyg]

The Aero Interface slows down Windows 7 anytime. It is the nature of the beast!

 

[Nothinman]

The Aero Interface slows down Windows 7 anytime. It is the nature of the beast!

No it doesn't, I haven't had any performance issues related to Aero. Periodically the VMware video driver crashes with dual-monitors enabled but just disabling/re-enabling the second monitor fixes it for awhile, but with a single monitor it'll run for weeks or months without issue.

 

[BrightCandle]

No it doesn't, I haven't had any performance issues related to Aero. Periodically the VMware video driver crashes with dual-monitors enabled but just disabling/re-enabling the second monitor fixes it for awhile, but with a single monitor it'll run for weeks or months without issue.

Second that, I have not had this problem on Windows with a pair of 680's, its not Windows its AMD.

 

[corkyg]

I stand by my statement based on Windows 7 Performance Options. There are four settings: 1. Let Windows Choose 2. Best Appearance 3. Best Performance, and 4. Custom. Settings 1 and 2 use Aero. My laptop graphics score is 4.9. When set to option 3, Best Performance, Aero is turned off and the index is 5.0.

Granted, that is a small change, but according to Windows 7, Best Performance is with Aero off. 5.0 beats 4.9.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

I stand by my statement based on Windows 7 Performance Options. There are four settings: 1. Let Windows Choose 2. Best Appearance 3. Best Performance, and 4. Custom. Settings 1 and 2 use Aero. My laptop graphics score is 4.9. When set to option 3, Best Performance, Aero is turned off and the index is 5.0.

Granted, that is a small change, but according to Windows 7, Best Performance is with Aero off. 5.0 beats 4.9.

I like reading your posts, but WEI? Really?

With Aero on or off, it makes no difference in my laptop or 3 other computers that I own.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I always turn that stuff off. At first it was cool and all but the novelty wears off when this acid trip graphics impede on actual work by making the interface more complex than it has to be - too many colors and transparency crap. I even bring it a step further and put it to Windows classic. Simple, elegant, usable.

 

[BrightCandle]

You can get huge performance boosts in Aero by turning off the transparency. The sliding effects etc are easy for most cards but the transparency seems to hit the CPU and has a strange latency associated with it. Turning that off on AMD cards (I had this on the 5970, and 2x 7970) makes a big difference to the frame rate Windows produces. The rest makes almost no difference at all.

 

[corkyg]

You can get huge performance boosts in Aero by turning off the transparency. The sliding effects etc are easy for most cards but the transparency seems to hit the CPU and has a strange latency associated with it. Turning that off on AMD cards (I had this on the 5970, and 2x 7970) makes a big difference to the frame rate Windows produces. The rest makes almost no difference at all.

As I said - in practical terms it makes no perceptible difference. But, Microsoft says it does in terms of absolute max performance. We really don't disagree.

 

[Nothinman]

I always turn that stuff off. At first it was cool and all but the novelty wears off when this acid trip graphics impede on actual work by making the interface more complex than it has to be - too many colors and transparency crap. I even bring it a step further and put it to Windows classic. Simple, elegant, usable.

I've never had Aero get in the way of anything and the classic interface in Win7 is ugly as shit.

 

[ninaholic37]

I always turn that stuff off. At first it was cool and all but the novelty wears off when this acid trip graphics impede on actual work by making the interface more complex than it has to be - too many colors and transparency crap. I even bring it a step further and put it to Windows classic. Simple, elegant, usable.

Same. I've had mine on high contrast mode (and no Aero Theme) for about a year and don't really see any reason to go back. If anyone needs the Aero 'glossy/fancyness' I'd recommend a Barbie Wallpaper to match.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've never had Aero get in the way of anything and the classic interface in Win7 is ugly as shit.

When you have multiple windows open the transparency really gets hard on the eyes and trying to figure out where the edges of each window is. That's the issue I had when I had it turned on.

It's true the classic mode in 7 aint the nicest compared to previous ones though but it's still better than that acid trip stuff. I wish they would just bring back the windows 2000 classic mode. That was the best interface ever. Everything was so simple.

 

[nemesismk2]

The Aero Interface slows down Windows 7 anytime. It is the nature of the beast!

I agree which is why i didn't use Aero with Windows 7.

 

[Nothinman]

When you have multiple windows open the transparency really gets hard on the eyes and trying to figure out where the edges of each window is. That's the issue I had when I had it turned on.

It's true the classic mode in 7 aint the nicest compared to previous ones though but it's still better than that acid trip stuff. I wish they would just bring back the windows 2000 classic mode. That was the best interface ever. Everything was so simple.

I can't say I've ever found Aero to be intrusive or distracting. The only part I really hate is the taskbar thumbails so I have my theme set to Win7 basic in order to disable that.