Test Results: Effect on game framerate when allowing Windows taskbar t

Is your video game running slow?

Well, it turns out that if you like that little Windows taskbar showing at the bottom of your screen, it might not be a hardware problem.

I though some of you might be interested in seeing some of my test results. The data represents averages performance differences taken from 6 test at each configuration, 192 test total.

Note: My rig is tweaked for ultra-quiet operation so it’s not a high performance gaming rig. However, this testing was not to establish specific FPS, it was to evaluate comparative effect of the operating system. As such I think the data is more appropriately viewed as percentage change.

Base System:
Operating Systems Dual booting XP pro SP2 32 Bit, and Vista Ultimate 32 Bit
Motherboard: MSI P6N SLI Platinum motherboard with Core 2 Duo E4500 (2.2GHz)
Video Card(s):Gigabyte: GV-NX85T512HP GeForce 8500GT 512MB
RAM: 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)



I'm sure different games will have somewhat different results, but from what I see at this point any gains from DirectX10 are more than lost by what appears to be a fundamentally poor redesign in the Vista taskbar integration. SLI will not help you much (and might even hurt)

** UPDATE 1**
A member (jamesgoddard) suggested the Vista slowdown could be eliminated if Vista Aero was turned off.

However, I checked my system and found that Aero was already was already turned off. But it sparked an idea and I ran a few tests to see what happened to the FPs when it was turned on. (I was wondering if adding a Windows feature might slow the system up even more.) Since the Vista/SLI/Low Detail had the largest impact (-40.5% GPU and -49.9% CPU in the graph) I checked that setting.

Results: On Vista, turning Aero ON significantly decreased the detrimental impact of allowing the taskbar to show. the negative impact on frame rate dropped to -14.8% (GPU) and -17.7% (CPU). While these impacts are still problematic, they are nowhere near as bad as they were.

So, It you use VISTA and like to have the taskbar show during gameplay, it looks like turning the Aero feature on is a good idea. (Appearance Options in Control Panel).

WoW multiboxing is all i can think of.

You could always just turn off the Aero interface

Hi jamesgoddard,

I checked and Aero is off. (Just the Vista basic appearance). From what I've heard, Aero does not slow the system up, however I'll run a quick test later with Aero on and see if the average FPS changes on a specific setting. Thanks for the idea.

Multiboxing in brief - Running more than one version of a game with the intention of playing multiple characters in the game simultaeneously. e.g you want a 5 person RPG party to be controlled solely by yourself - you multibox.

Best current example is World of Warcraft, and i believe multiboxers use windowed view as its quicker to tab between the different instances of the game client.