Nexus- Posted July 21, 2005 Share Posted July 21, 2005 I'm sorry, but there is a difference between transparent titlebars and a fully 3D accelerated GUI with Pixel Shader effects. I really think people are going overboard with this. 586247879[/snapback] your correct they are. the effect in longhorn will be so far ahead of this. and its built into the system at no cost (well a little) to the cpu and ram you dont need to install something extra. not only that but windowblinds cant get the full glass we all saw in windows and IE7 in the 5203 screenshots. if you look back you will notice windowblinds is only able to do the boarder and the titlebar. not the entire thing. but a good try on stardocks part for people unable to upgrade. Why? It will work in XP. 586247912[/snapback] see the above post i quoted and my responce. there is still plenty of reason to upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Suraci Posted July 21, 2005 Share Posted July 21, 2005 The good thing about this is that users aren't limited to Longhorn glass toolbars - this can also be used for alphablending, ie round corners and dropshadows. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a^j Posted July 21, 2005 Author Share Posted July 21, 2005 (edited) Well, svchost.exe on my comp (which holds the theme engine) was over 44mb when i used WindowBlinds (4.5.1) 586248092[/snapback] My svhost.exe only took 11MB here with WindowBlinds running (and with the Themes service turned off). You might want to check your svc. Try this, open a dos box and type tasklist /svc. You will see info about svchost.exe. My two instances of it are used for Dnscache and webclient :) And for those who concern about performance and resource... The performance on this is (on my laptop here) as good as your typical skin. Just requires that your video card support alpha transparency which anyone not running a prehistoric system should have no problem with. I don't think any of us here still using 900Mhz processor and a build-in graphic card :p, do you? J/K Edited July 21, 2005 by a^j Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malbojia Posted July 21, 2005 Share Posted July 21, 2005 wow Something must be up I'm just on standard classic look with all effects turned off and it's taking 18 megs of mem lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a^j Posted July 21, 2005 Author Share Posted July 21, 2005 very pretty, no doubt. How much extra CPU/Memory does such stuff take (I have never tried WB)? 586247965[/snapback] It depends on the skin you're using. If you use simple/static skins, memory usage will be very low maybe below 1MB (mine 504KB). If you use complex or an animated skins, the memory usage will be higher. And as stated by Co_Co, CPU usage is 0% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xtreme $niper Posted July 21, 2005 Share Posted July 21, 2005 Unfortunately it doesn't appear to blur what's underneath like LH does. 586246703[/snapback] Yeah thats the first thing I noticed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenreaper Posted July 21, 2005 Share Posted July 21, 2005 Oh the plus side, it doesn't appear to require a pixel shader, either. Good for people who want their desktop to look good but who only have (say) integrated graphics (think work machines). And very good for those people who have a 256Mb machine that they don't want to/can't upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xab Posted July 22, 2005 Share Posted July 22, 2005 Title should be changed to something like "New Windowblinds offers Aero-like effects" As it is I thought MS was announcing Aero for XP also like the WinFS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.will Posted July 22, 2005 Share Posted July 22, 2005 * Sorry if this news is already been posted before.Developers of WindowBlinds reported that they have succesfully add Aero-Glass style titlebars support for Windows XP. This feature will available soon in WindowBlinds 5. Source Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2 586246480[/snapback] Unfortunately it doesn't appear to blur what's underneath like LH does. 586246703[/snapback] It sure looks cool in a screenshot, but isn't this a significant drain on processing power? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConfusedFusion Posted July 22, 2005 Share Posted July 22, 2005 I will wait for the lawsuit MS files against WB. Looks gr8 though?. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denis W. Veteran Posted July 22, 2005 Veteran Share Posted July 22, 2005 I will wait for the lawsuit MS files against WB. Looks gr8 though…. 586250695[/snapback] WHAT? If that was the case MS would've filed a lawsuit against Stardock back in 2001 for making WB able to use their own VSes in XP. Did it happen? No. In fact the opposite occured - they worked together. I can see the same happening for Longhorn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BajiRav Posted July 22, 2005 Share Posted July 22, 2005 I will wait for the lawsuit MS files against WB. Looks gr8 though?. 586250695[/snapback] IIRC Microsoft approached Stardock for designing XP's theming system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangbang023 Veteran Posted July 22, 2005 Veteran Share Posted July 22, 2005 posted already thread closed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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