DreamScene gets mixed reception

CPU use, a tale of two video cards..

from WinCustomize Forums

Windows DreamScene is Microsoft's animated wallpaper program that's currently in "preview" (beta) for users of Windows Vista Ultimate.  So far, reactions have been mixed.

While users seem to love the concept, the amount of CPU used to do it seems to vary wildly.  From 12% or so on my ThinkPad T60 to nearly 50% on systems that are much faster.

The difference? So far, it basically can be thrown to the feet of nVidia. Their drivers, which not only seem to crash PC games do double-duty in being very inefficient with DreamScene.

Below are the results on my laptop. Note the very low (as in not great) performance rating and yet its relatively low CPU use while running a DreamScene. It has an ATI card.

 

Lest someone thinks I have it out for nVidia, my primray machine has two nVidia 7950s in it. I just wish nVidia would take its drivers more seriously. They were crummy on Windows XP. Some may recall how you'd see reports about how WindowBlinds or WindowFX "slowed my machine to a crawl" and called our software bloated not realizing that no, our stuff runs great if the drivers are decent (like the ATI ones or the occasional nVidia one).

Now, Microsoft is getting a taste of what we've gone through. Maybe this time, nVidia will be motivated to worry about desktop drivers rather than trying to show they can get an extra frame per sec in a first person shooter.

Still, if you have a good machine, nVidia or ATI, the CPU use isn't a big deal in actual use, especially if the .DREAM file's content is in MPEG and not WMV (WMV is more CPU intensive).  And hopefully soon nVidia's drivers will get better. Because I want to get an Geforce 8800 but am not going to get one until they fix this stuff.

 

19,212 views 33 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Got an 8800 GTS, Brad, and so far performance is incredible.  Definitely under 8% of CPU usage for DreamScenes/DeskScapes, thats for sure.  Thats running it on dual 20 inch screens as well.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Wouldn't the problem be more down to it using bloated old WMP as the engine?

It seems pretty clear to me that unless you find a more streamlined player to do the work, you're always going to have this problem. Having a pop at nVidia's drivers is all well and good, but some people turn their computers on to use, not to look at.
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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Its a funny wierd PC world Brad.I cant run Vista yet so I cant say how my pc would handle Dream content.
As a part time pc repairman,my experience with video cards and drivers has been terrible with all ATI all in wonders ...yet I've had no problems with nVidia.(I dont game much,so I dont really push them that hard)
I'm dealing with older cards tho so I cant say much about the newer stuff.My nVidia 6100(onboard) runs WB,OD,5 widgets,WinFX quite zippily.  
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
"Now, Microsoft is getting a taste of what we've gone through. Maybe this time, nVidia will be motivated to worry about desktop drivers rather than trying to show they can get an extra frame per sec in a first person shooter."

With the popularity and widespread use of nVidia drivers, I am confused as to why this is a realization of an issue now. Certainly, MS and Stardock tested these programs prior to the release even of the beta version and I can not image tests that would not include nVidia drivers.

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
my nVidia 7800GT is running two 22" ers at 1680x1050 each. They are both flawless. Anyways, both releases people have aren't release versions so who cares, report your issue with MS and then shut the f**k up. It makes a cleaner world out there
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
report your issue with MS and then shut the f**k up.


Is this really necessary?
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It'll be nice when the MS Ultimate Team gets the full function version of Dreamscenes out....the version that supposedly kills that CPU cycle usage and puts it all back on the graphic card's GPU (promises, promises...). I think people are getting confused between the current preview version (a CPU hog) and the future full version.
I know this will embarass Nvidia owners, but I am still using an X800XL ATI card and the Dreamscenes play flawlessly. Not knocking Nvidia...my plan is that on my next setup I'll have two 8800's in SLI (if Nvidia will get the Vista/SLI issues worked out). I think Nvidia is in some kind of time displacement....
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Yea JourneyMan, I thought it was kind of fun! And bistro, at the least, agrees with me on basic level (maybe more)  
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Actually what you said was completely backwards. They ARENT focusing on FPS in games, and benchmarks prove it. There is still a heavy hit ingame.

Anyway, back on topic here. I don't see how people are having problems. I run a 7900GTO with 100.64 and my average CPU usage is around 18% with the exact same wallpaper seen above.

Heres a pic: http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/2410/deskoc0.jpg

I suggest you all try 100.64, they are by far the best so far. Desktoping on these drivers is perfected. Its gaming that needs the work, and yes I have ran numerious benchmarks. Even though HL2 gets 156FPS with no anit-aliasing and 8x ansio in XP i get atleast 20FPS more. And yes, that is quite the hit.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My main system has a 2.93ghz Core 2 Duo Extreme, 4gigs DDR2 800, 2 Raptor's and a GeForce 8800GTS, it averages about 20 to 30% on most Dream Scenes. The one that shipped with the Dreamscene download runs the lowest CPU. For this system I don't care, you simply can't tell unless running something that monitors CPU usage.

I have 3 laptops, one HP nc8430 Core Duo 2ghz with 2gigs of memory and an ATI x1600 with 256megs and 1 HP dv9000t with a Core 2 Duo 2.0ghz, 2gigs of memory and a GeForce 7600 with 512 megs of memory, the last one is a Dell XPS monster maxed out on everything. Strangly enough it runs better on the dv9000t with the GeForce 7600 card, the system with the x1600 runs much higher CPU using Dreamscene than either my dv9000t or my XPS.

So, on these it would be nice if CPU usage could be brought down so the battery doesn't run down quicker. Right now I pause Dreamscene when I unplug so it's not too much of a big deal, hopefully Nvidia and ATI listens and works on the drivers.
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top

bistro: Who told you dreamscene will use almost no CPU?

Video decoding costs cpu cycles and high def video costs even more.

Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
The reply isn't the program itself, the program is solid. What Vista users are looking for is probably something more that's been released at this time.

All the work is solid, but nothing has been released that's overwhelming just yet.

All the work is brilliant, but nothing that's blown anyone way has been released yet. Everyone that spent the hard earned money is ready to get jacked up just yet.

No disrespect is intended to the authors, great work by all.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
To all the people say "look, it's only ~20% on my uber PC card", that is baaaaad. It should be much lower (as you can see from Brad's screenshot, that rig only has a score of 3.0).

i.e. it is nVidia / the drivers.
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Right, it has nothing to do with dreamscene or the fact that the majority of them are probably wmv?
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm also disappointed with my nVidia drivers. But you have a bigger voice, so maybe they'll do something about it.
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have an old 2.53 pentium with 266 bus speed, and an Nvidia 6800 GT. had computer since 2003.

Using the deskscapes I have the Nvidia Purevideo codecs installed which allow hardware acceleration. Unfortunately, my graphics card doesn't support WMV with purevideo but it does with MPEG2.

Without Purevideo. I'm getting up to 80% cpu usage on WMV files, When I switch to an MPEG2 Dreamscene the Purevideo Hardware acceleration kicks in and my CPU drops to about 15% average. So for now, I only use MPEG2 vids for dreamscene.

You have to pay for purevideo codecs, about $20 or so but it is worth it if you play alot of video or watch dvd's on your computer.
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Then you don't get Dreamscene, its an Ultimate Extra.
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My just over a month old HP laptop with a nVidia Go 6150 is running around 14% with Dreamscene, which is better than I expected given the current state of the nVidia drivers. You can get the latest drivers to work on laptops with the files from laptopvideo2go.com which do help a bit. I would have been happy with an initial performance with Vista of 75% or so, right now I'm just hoping that I will be able to play Supreme Commander when it comes out this week. One of the VP's from nVidia said that they had devoted 350 Man Years to the Vista Drivers, and if you look at their Forums, you'd never know it by reading the posts from the 8800 owners with their "Made for Vista" cards. My 6150 gets a whopping 2.4 on the Vista scale no matter which driver I'm running, which I can only hope will get marginally better with time... I'm not counting on it.
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I gotta go with Brad on Nvidia , I have 3 AMD systems /2 Nforce/Geforce /1 Ati X300
The Ati system has been flawless with vista whereas i still need to force my laptop (6150) to use the 6200 driver or my VGA out will not work. It is a 6150/430 MCP chipset and alot of AMD systems out there use it. Nvidia should have gold drivers with full Nview monitor support one month after Vistas release! It's seriously making me think AMD/Ati products are going to have a BIG stability advantage in the future.
Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I haven't install Vista yet since im having some nfroce4 ide controller issues but is the cpu usage for DreameScene the same on Vista 32bit and X64?

Since Vista came out not long ago I am sure all the driver bugs will be worked out in the near future.
Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top
If you using Nvidia, DEFINITELY upgrade to the 100.64 drivers (or the 100.65 WHQLs here).

MPEG over WMV is critical. Don't even try WMV until we all see some serious hardware acceleration for it.
Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Yup, 100.65 definitly helped out. WMV is still about 24-30% usage but walls like Dark Avatar are around 15% now.