I never knew aero was such a vram and performance hog on games

[aaksheytalwar]

yeah I went back and played at 1280 with lowered settings and not going over 750mb of vram with aero and 550 without aero and got basically identical overall framerates with or without aero on.

so bottom line is it was vram related even though I was not even not even using within 100mb of my max vram.

Told ya

 

[toyota]

Told ya

well a guy on another forum is saying that he is still seeing a 20% difference in GTA 4 even with 3gb. he never said his resolution though and until he posts some screenshots and benchmarks I am skeptical.

 

[KompuKare]

Since my 1GB 5770 should be a limiting factor in Skyrim with the HQ texture pack, I though I'd give it a try:

No difference though. Well, I do have the GPU memory usage plotted too and while it varies a bit more than FPS I don't think it's significant either. Mind you, while my max mem usage is close to 1GB, the avearge is more 850MB-900MB even with HQ textures.
Maybe Skyrim turns off Aero.

[Yes, to get better figures I really should have averaged a few runs for both Aero and non-Aero but since the first runs didn't show anything interesting I didn't bother.]

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Gta iv is a badly optimzed port and has crazy hog probs

 

[guskline]

I am admittedly old school when it comes to Aero. I always set my computers to windows basic them, turn off all the eye candy stuff except smoothing fonts and set a solid background. What purpose is Aero?

 

[frozentundra123456]

This isn't true.

Well, this explains why when I pull up the desktop with Dungeon Siege 3 running, the desktop is Vista basic. Thought it was a bug, but maybe the game was designed to do this. However, this is the only game in which I have seen this happen.

I did not know aero used so much vram. I have an older system with only 500mb vram, so it could be a problem. That said, most games still run fine at med to high settings at 1440x900 with a 9800GT and E4500 stock.

 

[mikeymikec]

I am admittedly old school when it comes to Aero. I always set my computers to windows basic them, turn off all the eye candy stuff except smoothing fonts and set a solid background. What purpose is Aero?

Minor points all, but I think it's easier to focus on what you are interested in when Aero is enabled because of the translucent interface, whereas having a light-coloured UI (title bars, taskbar, etc) draws attention away from what you're working on. I'm generally quite old-school too, and I've toyed with the idea and tried the Windows Classic setup a few times, even adopting the 'desert' colour scheme I used to use on Win2k/XP. The other thing I like is that videos don't stop momentarily when minimising and restoring other windows. Apart from that, I think Win7 looks better with Aero, it's obvious that's where the UI 'development polish' time has been used.

 

[mikeymikec]

Well, this explains why when I pull up the desktop with Dungeon Siege 3 running, the desktop is Vista basic. Thought it was a bug, but maybe the game was designed to do this. However, this is the only game in which I have seen this happen.

I've seen it happen too, so I know it happens, but I think it is just with some games. Perhaps older ones that have been flagged as running better with Aero disabled? I think the last time I saw it was with something like Doom 3, but I'm not sure.

 

[imaheadcase]

This isn't true.

Yes it is. This has be shown over and over. Aero disables when running full screen programs. Always has.


Every couple months you see threads like this pop up and i just roll my eyes.

 

[Yuriman]

I am admittedly old school when it comes to Aero. I always set my computers to windows basic them, turn off all the eye candy stuff except smoothing fonts and set a solid background. What purpose is Aero?

Aero = GPU rendering = smoother desktop experience

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Aero = GPU rendering = smoother desktop experience

+1

 

[Jaydip]

Yes it is. This has be shown over and over. Aero disables when running full screen programs. Always has.


Every couple months you see threads like this pop up and i just roll my eyes.

Show me once more please,because it is wrong.It happens in Vista not in Windows 7

 

[tweakboy]

I didn't know this. 200 to 300MB on a 1GB card is not cool! so the card really has 700MB ready in VRAM !

 

[reallyscrued]

EDIT 2: so bottom line is it was all vram related in GTA 4 even though I was not even using within 100mb of my available vram with aero on. so dont expect performance increase if you have plenty of vram. if you are anywhere close to borderline with vram though then turning off aero will help in a vram hungry game like GTA 4 though

Bottom line is - GTA4's RAM meter is an estimator.

I'm curious as to how this would help BF3 on my card with only 1 GB of VRAM.

Does anyone know of a good BF3 benchmarking tool?

 

[mikeymikec]

I didn't know this. 200 to 300MB on a 1GB card is not cool! so the card really has 700MB ready in VRAM !

I wouldn't read too much into that figure until someone cites evidence that people can generally regard as proof (say from msdn / the MS site) that Aero does or doesn't get disabled when say a full-screen game is run (probably when full-screen DirectX is invoked).

 

[Jaydip]

I wouldn't read too much into that figure until someone cites evidence that people can generally regard as proof (say from msdn / the MS site) that Aero does or doesn't get disabled when say a full-screen game is run (probably when full-screen DirectX is invoked).

Aero is disabled if u run Vista but not windows 7.

 

[tweakboy]

I wouldn't read too much into that figure until someone cites evidence that people can generally regard as proof (say from msdn / the MS site) that Aero does or doesn't get disabled when say a full-screen game is run (probably when full-screen DirectX is invoked).

Actually its the game that is going to determine if u go to classic mode then back to aero .......

This is not true, When you launch games Aero should stay enabled. and you get the same FPS.

The reason I know this is because there is only 1 game I have played that actually prompts you and says go to classic mode.. and that is FEAR. I would see my desktop all classic mode when I tasked in or out. FEAR the first one 2005.. I remember it would it would show the nasty screen if I alt tabbed or when I launch it for first couple seconds.

Other then FEAR 2005, Games dont switch to classic behind your back while your gaming. NO!!! only way is if you disable it yourself.

 

[BD231]

Any game will trigger the prompt to switch aero off if windows detects low performance.

 

[toyota]

Any game will trigger the prompt to switch aero off if windows detects low performance.

um clearly it does not.

 

[aka1nas]

um clearly it does not.

Read his comment again. Windows 7 will still prompt to change to basic mode when it detects low performance. Now, the detection may not be all that accurate, so there is no guarantee that you won't have "low-performance" events that it does not detect.

 

[shimsham]

lol sthu

 

[tential]

Anyway to optimize Windows 8 for gaming?

I never knew Windows 8 ate up VRAM like that, no wonder gaming under Windows 8 is different for than under Windows 7.
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1779809&mpage=1&print=true
"Like I said Windows 8 uses more vram for the new interface when you are not gaming. "

Never knew that was true.

Learn something new everyday.

 

[bystander36]

For a quick easy way to toggle Aero on and off (turning it off in themes takes way longer than it should), put this script into a .bat file and run it before you enter a game you need every bit of resources. I also put it into an extended toolbar on the taskbar with a few other scripts.

@echo off
sc interrogate uxsms | find "1062"
if %errorlevel%==0 goto :sc_start
sc stop uxsms
exit

:sc_start
sc start uxsms
exit

 

[tential]

For a quick easy way to toggle Aero on and off (turning it off in themes takes way longer than it should), put this script into a .bat file and run it before you enter a game you need every bit of resources. I also put it into an extended toolbar on the taskbar with a few other scripts.

@echo off
sc interrogate uxsms | find "1062"
if %errorlevel%==0 goto :sc_start
sc stop uxsms
exit

:sc_start
sc start uxsms
exit

Does this work on windows 8?

 

[bystander36]

Does this work on windows 8?

I don't know. It works in Vista and Win7. I don't have Win8 to test. I'm not even sure Win8 uses Aero.