I keep seeing these endless debates over ram usage. 7 megs, 5megs, 750 kb - it goes on and on. Does it really matter on a modern system with 256 megs and up? Aren't these numbers much smaller than lots of other applications in common use - Word? IE? Firefox? etc. It seems to me that ram use is a ridiculous non issue by now.

We've all seen how little ram wbload is using now and I think most people agree that the native XP skinning engine uses a bit more - but does it really mean anything? What I would like to see is some one who knows and understand these things to give us some information about IF and HOW skinning programs make a hit on your CPU or GPU and how that might affect overall system performance.

So is there anyone out there who can speak knowledgably on skinning and CPU performance? Do any of us really understand how a skinning engine like Windowblinds really works? Is there an extra CPU load whenever you open a new window for example and how big is it? Is it even significant? Do people even care?

...Looking forward to additions to the corpus of human knowledge. Flamers are NOT welcome.

only the trolls care ...don't worry about it, just use what you want to use. i personally use the themes service because i like the many great visual styles there are for it (mostly made by artists here on neowin )

only the skin can make me switch engine

I personally do not see a performance difference between using WBskins and msstyles- I use and like both.
I want to try skinning wb because it has nice features like toolbar icon support and skinning of the msgina- log off/turn off computer screen and many other skinning capabilities that I tend to find limited in skinning msstyles.
If I do any further skins- my next venture will be a wb skin

I've just tried Windowblinds on a virtual machine and by jesus there were bells and whistles, and things whizzing past my head

It seemed like a more comprehensive way to skin than msstyles. I haven't explored the RAM usage or anything like that.

But the only thing that keeps me from switching to WB is that most skins seem in your face and bold. Recently I'm more into classic/minimal type desktops, is there any real reason why there aren't any skins in the style of classix, dotted, hmmxp for WB? Of course, if you can recommend a good minimal skin for WB please tell.

Nice thread ( If it stays civil )

Nice to get some responses but I'm still keen for people who understand how these programs work to describe how they affect your general system performance and what impact they have on window drawing etc.

Windowblinds and MSStyles are great fun to play with this is not a thread about choosing between the two - there's been far too much of that already. I want to understand how these things work.

Logic: I've found that Essorant does the best skins, restrained but visually impressive - otherwise you have make your own!

You know what.... I don't give a f*ck!!

If WB uses 30 meg and is twice as fast as msstyles using 3 meg, the choice is easy for me, it will be WB (though depending on the availability of good skins ofcourse). The use of RAM is overrated anyways, we (almost) all have plenty.....

i don't like the fact that i need a 3rd party app to run themes.

IMO some of the best ones are the ports by Snidely Whiplash

I wonder how much the skin itself has to do with it? If the skin is written poorly, does it matter which one you use?

Sure does, if your using WB you can really tell the difference when using a minimal theme and one with all the animations and what not but it's still not bad at all. I really have to agree with the fact that the whole RAM issues needs to be but to rest especially since most systems now a days has 512 MB to a 1 Gig of RAM.