Ahhhhh.....learned something new :) .  My DAW is strictly a work machine...ONLY for audio and video work.  I use Sony Vegas Pro 11 for my video work and switched over to Sonar X1 back in January for audio stuff.  So I could care less about what things look like as far as eye candy goes in the OS.

If Aero is something that Sonar "needs" that's one thing.  Otherwise...I'd rather not have it using any resources.

In Win 7 and Vista, Aero is important for allowing the OS graphics engine to offload to the GpU. If you turn it off then the CPU has to handle all graphics throughput adding a burden that's not necessary.

In SONAR X1 I think it was Seth who said that a 1 Gig graphics card was recommended even though it is only a 2D application. From my personal experience lve found that leaving Aero on, my DAW performs better than with it turned off.

I nearly forgot. I also found a clean install of X1 to d (expanded) resolved a lot of glitchy weird behavior including disappearing Control bar, Multidock tabs and the like.

Thanks mudgel.  I may just leave well enough alone until I install X2 and see how things go.  Aero is turned on (just did some reading up on it).  Although I may go ahead and install the latest video driver just released.  I have all the previous versions from the past year...4 I think....so if things mess up I can revert back to an earlier version.

mudgel


In Win 7 and Vista, Aero is important for allowing the OS graphics engine to offload to the GpU. If you turn it off then the CPU has to handle all graphics throughput adding a burden that's not necessary.

In SONAR X1 I think it was Seth who said that a 1 Gig graphics card was recommended even though it is only a 2D application. From my personal experience lve found that leaving Aero on, my DAW performs better than with it turned off.

If you don't use Aero then their are no advanced graphics that are "straining" the CPU.

If you leave Aero turned off Your GPU still acts like a GPU... and in fact it doesn't have to "strain" to provide all the silly Aero eye candy.

That's why Microsoft only describes Aero as a visual enhancement and that is why no one can ever produce any official Microsoft documentation that explains how Aero is required for, or enhances, performance.

I've been waiting for years, for someone who explains that Aero is a performance enhancement, to produce a link to a Microsoft document that substantiates the claim.

The system isn't *strained* by the graphic requirements until you turn on the multiple layers of transparency. That's why Microsoft partnered with Nvidia to find a way to provide the entertainment value of fancy graphics while making sure a GPU was tweaked for it.

There are lots of features on GPUs that 99% of the apps on a Microsoft system don't use.

It's a case of a justifying a justification... it's a zero sum system... it's a luke warm attempt to copy some features from the Mac OS gui.




You can safely leave Aero off and it will not hurt your system.


best regards,
mike

Mike, here you don't know what you are talking about. Read this.

To prove this simply compare. Have a graphic intensive project that is a lot of plugins open with various meters going and the like with Aero on and off.

You will have a performance hit with it off. 

I read all that stuff the last time you pretended that you did.

:-)

Good boy.

mike_mccue


I read all that stuff the last time you pretended that you did.

:-)

Good boy.

Making fun of others in order to hide your own ignorance is very unbecoming.

When one turns off Aero by necessity you turn off many of the advanced graphics attributes.  However, a plain Jane desktop will without Aero on pass through the CPU before its sent to the graphics card. You may think this is not a burden on the CPU but it is when it is also processing audio. With Aero on all screen updating goes directly to the graphics card bypassing the CPU entirely leaving more CPU for audio processing.

You may think you are smart in your ignorance but advising others to suffer from your bad advice is unseemly.

Really the only reason to turn Aero off is if you don't have a good enough graphics card o benefit from it.

 Define "good"?

 For example; On my win64 Laptop with 18.5 diagonal screen the graphics memory isn't any where near the GPU, and the highly efficient yet tiny GPU it does have runs cool and uses very little power.

 I call that "good".

 
 Thanks for not using one of your more often used direct insults or frequent suggestions that I seek out mental health counseling.

 That was nice for a change.

 best regards,
mike

For example; On my win64 Laptop with 18.5 diagonal screen the graphics memory isn't any where near the GPU, and the highly efficient yet tiny GPU it does have runs cool and uses very little power.

I wish I some notion what that means. Nor is that relevant to Aero on a desktop.