Lag caused by tooltip/ballon popups with AA/AF

[Mafiaz]

Hoping one of you video gurus might understand this problem, I can't tell if it's a problem with the game (World of Warcraft, I think this happens on other games but can't remember which ones) or with my card/drivers. I have the most recent ATI drivers and DirectX updates.

I try to play games in window mode. I thought this problem was caused by an obsolete 9700 pro, so I bought a x800xt pe which has the same problems.

When I turn on AA/AF I will get massive lag whenever there are tooltips anywhere on my desktop, those yellow boxes with 'helpful' text or ballon boxes. Anything like MSN, AIM notifications, any status updates from system tray apps or when I hold the cursor over a minimized program in the task bar. The lag immediately disappears when the tooltip/ballon, is removed.

Here's another post from someone with similar issues

When I run games in windowed mode on an X800XL with high levels of AA/AF I see catatrophic slow-downs when Windows decides it wants to display a tooltip(*). The window updates almost as if the frame-buffer data are being copied around in software. Strangely enough it doesn't do this with AA/AF turned off, and when there aren't any tooltips showing the performance is the same as full-screen. Bizarre. I wonder if this is a similar problem to the unaccelerated secondary display?

Here's a possible explanation which doesn't explain how to solve it.

Not just "almost as if", that's exactly what's happening. It's only related to AA in combination with transparent windows on top of it. That includes tooltips with "fade in" effect and windows with shadows (and some tooltips happen to have shadows as well ). Everything is fine until Windows tries to blend a GDI surface with a multisampled framebuffer. That seems to kill any parallelism between CPU-based GDI and 3D on the GPU because of incompatible surface formats.

Hope someone can shed some light on what's causing it and how to fix it, thanks!

 

[450R]

What if you disable (uncheck) "Use transition effects for menus and tooltips" in Display Properties -> Effects?

 

[Mafiaz]

That's a good idea, I'm not at my desktop right now but I'll see if I have that unchecked. It probably won't effect MSN/AIM and stuff but it's better than nothing, thanks!

 

[Wreckage]

At work I play WoW on a computer with an older video card. If I leave firefox open (WoW in fullscreen mode) and the weather alert pops up I get lag. I think it has to do more with an interupt by the OS than it does with your video card.

 

[Mafiaz]

Hmm that might be true. Does that also apply to when there is a constant solid tooltip (like for minimized programs in the taskbar). Also, is your company hiring

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: Mafiaz
Hmm that might be true. Does that also apply to when there is a constant solid tooltip (like for minimized programs in the taskbar). Also, is your company hiring

Any popup in the background seems to cause an interupt.

I'm self employed.

 

[Mafiaz]

Just to check, has anyone heard of someone with a nVidia card have this problem or is it only confined to ATI?

 

[ElFenix]

it'll happen anytime you're playing a game in a window, and seems to be an ati only phenomenon. has something to do with the way AA works, i guess. the transparency of the tooltip, or the start menu, or the quicklaunch menu, seems to f with the AA algorithm and kill performance. i've noticed it through 3 generations of ATi hardware (9800pro, x800, and x1900xt).

 

[Mafiaz]

Thanks, I guess buying a better ATI card won't help then. Would you happen to know if it effects nVidia cards also?

 

[aka1nas]

You could always turn off balloon help via registry key.

 

[Gstanfor]

I've never seen the issue myself using various windowed 3d apps on nvidia cards.

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: Mafiaz
Just to check, has anyone heard of someone with a nVidia card have this problem or is it only confined to ATI?

Yes, happens with my 7800GT as well.

 

[Griswold]

nvm

 

[Mafiaz]

Checked my gf's comp with its ti4200 and it doesn't lag for window with popups. But it's definitely not because she has a nVidia card?

(Checked the lag caused by popups is only caused when I have multisampling (AA) enabled on my card, have yet to check on hers)