Windowed Mode Games Choppy

from Stardock Forums
With WindowBlinds 5 running, using the iFlex skin, any games I try to run in windowed mode run at about a frame a second. Needless to say, this makes them completely unplayable. I've tried adding a Per-Application setting for them, and disabling skinning entirely, and it makes not a speck of difference. The only way I can play games in Windowed mode is to Unload WB. As soon as I do that, the games run fine.

My video card is a 256MB ATI Radeon X800 XL, w/ Catalyst v6.3 drivers.

Let me know whatever other information you need, and I'll be happy to oblige.

Thanks,
WizardZedd
2,053 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Indeed. The issue isn't WindowBlinds per se but rather layered windows.  Only one thing can have access to DirectX at the same time without performance issues (something Vista is supposed to address).

What I do is when I play games, I switch to a non-alpha blended skin. That will take care of the issue.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Turn off antialiasing in the games.

ATI cards have a problem when antialiasing is turned on and the game is running in a window.  If even 1 pixel of semi transparency is on screen the ATI drivers crawl.