Aero vs Windows 7 Classic

Tews said:

If you mean the transparency, that is dependent upon the amount of video ram that you have, not the CPU..

Yea, the transparency, and other effects have to be processed, and I thoght that integrated graphics has no processor of its own, and therefore has to use CPU.

Mikaka said:

Yea, the transparency, and other effects have to be processed, and I thoght that integrated graphics has no processor of its own, and therefore has to use CPU.

Integrated graphics does have its own processor, while it is not as powerful as a dedicated card. Granted it doesn't take a hugely powerful GPU for Aero. But know this, integrated graphics usually use the system RAM and don't have dedicated memory.

Thanks everyone, my question has been anwsered.

I'm sorry if i revive such an old thread, but the subject of discussion is interesting to carry on. I too have a laptop running windows 7, tho i have a dedicated graphics card (toshiba a200 1s5 with HD2600). I am no fan of eyecandy, so i'd personally switch from Aero to Classic theme, but there's an impediment so of speak.
Aero theme uses the GPU for rendering, while Classic theme uses the CPU. If you have a poor graphics card but a decent CPU, you may want to switch to Classic theme, but otherwise Aero runs much faster. It's easy to see this in action while dragging a window border across the screen in Aero. The border itself and it's content will refresh very fast performing a smooth move. Doing this little experiment while in Classic theme, the border of the window and it's content will crop, miming the missing of VSync. It's like Classic theme is not completely 3d accelerated. It's the exact same symptom as running a Linux GUI without graphics driver and therefore without 3d acceleration. You may excuse my comparison with a Linux based OS.

So, any more details on the Classic theme? Is there a way to run it smootly like Aero does? I'm not talking just about transparency, disabling it it's not enough.