Aero mini previews missing after a while...

[Frostmourne]

DWM now uses the GPU instead of the GPU+CPU with WDDM 1.1 - are you running these drivers? Is every box checked in advanced system settings?

 

[zzz2496]

logicearth,

Compiz back in the day was a very experimental project, it was tacked on to ANY Desktop Environment, and are designed to be able to do so. I have a personal experience that I have to disable Gnome's window manager (I forgot it's name) and use compiz's. Back then, there were limited effects. Back then the project was the brain child of a Novel's developer (I forgot his name too), until it was forked. At that time, it was GREAT, I can move a window from one virtual desktop to another. Then came the hard crash of compiz, bringing along it's "window manager" part with it... I still have my window(s) open, it just doesn't have title bars, and I can't exit them, or move them around. That's what window managers are for, they manages windows that are appear in your screen. At that time, I opened terminal, and executes gnome's window manager forcibly, and BOOM, I got title bars, I got my virtual desktop back...

If a DWM doesn't do what a window manager do (it doesn Flip3D, which shows your open windows in your desktop) despite it's name, then... what exactly does it do? Or does the window manager doing a half job done?

See, my point is that the behavior is bugged, it's imperfect, it's flawed, that's all... if you say that it does that by design, then the design is flawed... it's not consistent, illogical...

Sorry if I rant like that, I was heading to bed, but my tooth start to hurt again, and now I'm in bad mood...
Once again, sorry if I offended you... sorry...

zzz2496

 

[zzz2496]

Frostmourne,

Aero is running fine in my system, it's all shiny and glittery. Window edges are transparent, I can peek the desktop. I check every box I can find in Advanced System Settings, I use "Adjust to best appearence". I use Nvidia's latest WHQL Driver, you can check the driver at Nvidia's website. The little tiny issue I'm currently raising is, the mini previews when you hover a taskbar icon, which should show your a miniature visual representation of a window in it's latest state, is (after some idle time) gone missing, read my post at page 2, I have a mini screenshot of what the issue is. The window will redraw if I click the generic thumbnail, thus forcing DWM to redraw... I think this is a bug, if DWM is a window manager, it should redraw windows in the background, not when we request it.

zzz2496

 

[logicearth]

*sigh....* 10-7 I don't have patients for ranting and self-made "how it works" assumptions.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa969540%28VS.85%29.aspx

Desktop Window Manager
The desktop composition feature, introduced in Windows Vista, fundamentally changes the way applications display pixels on the screen. When desktop composition is enabled, individual windows no longer draw directly to the screen or primary display device as they did in previous versions of Microsoft Windows. Instead, their drawing is redirected to off-screen surfaces in video memory, which are then rendered into a desktop image and presented on the display.

Desktop composition is performed by the Desktop Window Manager (DWM). Through desktop composition, DWM enables visual effects on the desktop as well as various features such as glass window frames, 3-D window transition animations, Windows Flip and Windows Flip3D , and high resolution support. For more information about the user experience features enabled by the DWM visit the Windows Vista: Features user experience page.

 

[zzz2496]

logicearth, once again, sorry... it's just I can't accept the fact that it does what it does in one case, not doing what it does on other case... this is truly mind boggling to me. Ok, I might be over exaggerated about knowing things... but that's what other platforms do, that's the logical thing to do. If I have a a postcard sized picture of a girl, and creates a mini version of it to put in my wallet, then the girl gave me a new updated picture of her, it is my obligation to "update" the mini picture in my wallet, she doesn't know I have a mini picture of her in my wallet... Do you think she have to tell me to "go update all of my mini pictures you have in your stash"??? That would be crazy, either she's stalking me, or she's just plain mad...

And by the way, I tested your "Play a video in windows media player" case (not media player classic), it does the same thing... the mini video I should see isn't there after I left it not playing for almost 20 minutes (in the mini preview, I can press play, pause, next track, prev track), nothing is showing...

If Microsoft is to implement a feature that does the job half done, I call it bugged, it's imperfect...

Or maybe I'm talking gibberish...?

Oh well...

zzz2496

 

[Frostmourne]

Which card do you have running - you've listed two?

 

[zzz2496]

Frostmourne, my computer is running 3 monitors, each display adapter have 2 display output. So to have 3 monitors, I have to use both at the same time. And yes, both uses the same driver.

zzz2496

 

[logicearth]

logicearth, once again, sorry... it's just I can't accept the fact that it does what it does in one case, not doing what it does on other case... this is truly mind boggling to me. Ok, I might be over exaggerated about knowing things... but that's what other platforms do, that's the logical thing to do. If I have a a postcard sized picture of a girl, and creates a mini version of it to put in my wallet, then the girl gave me a new updated picture of her, it is my obligation to "update" the mini picture in my wallet, she doesn't know I have a mini picture of her in my wallet... Do you think she have to tell me to "go update all of my mini pictures you have in your stash"??? That would be crazy, either she's stalking me, or she's just plain mad...

*slames head against the desk* WHAT? Listen....DWM does not create the contents of a window, the application must send that to DWM to do the composition. If the application does not send an update to DWM, the window does not get updated, it becomes a static image. Your picture in the wallet example does not even relate, okay.

The problem you are experiencing is lack of resources. DWM cannot possible hold onto everything in memory. The higher the resolution and the number of monitors creates a smaller and smaller buffer.

 

[zzz2496]

*Reads logicearth's link...*

 

[zzz2496]

logicearth,

Ok, I've read the link you gave me, and it shows me a bug, it is DEFINITELY A BUG.

DWM Thumbnail Relationships

To display thumbnails in your application, you must first establish a relationship between a source HWND and a destination HWND. This is done using the DwmRegisterThumbnail function.
DwmRegisterThumbnail does not render a thumbnail on the destination window but merely creates the relationship and provides the thumbnail handle. The thumbnail is rendered once the DWM_THUMBNAIL_PROPERTIES have been set and DwmUpdateThumbnailProperties has been called. Subsequent calls to DwmUpdateThumbnailProperties will update the thumbnail with a new set of properties. The DWM also provides the helper function DwmQueryThumbnailSourceSize to determine the source window size from a thumbnail to help decide on proper thumbnail properties.
To end a thumbnail relationship, call DwmUnregisterThumbnail.

1. [...merely creates the relationship and provides the thumbnail handle...] = connecting the app to it's "window" in DWM.

2. [... The thumbnail is rendered once the DWM_THUMBNAIL_PROPERTIES have been set and DwmUpdateThumbnailProperties has been called...] = obviously DWM_THUMBNAIL_PROPERTIES will_be/is set, so that when you hover over the taskbar icon/button, it will show a thumbnail.

3. [...Subsequent calls to DwmUpdateThumbnailProperties will update the thumbnail with a new set of properties...] = obviously this method is called by the app at least once, we can see the thumbnail, so the method is already called.

First case:
Assuming you need to call that function over and over to update your thumbnails, that function is called by the "hover over taskbar button" event. Here's the bug at, when Aero is on and running, and the method is called at least once, the window thumbnail will be updated in real time. But if for some reason Aero is to be turned off, or the window is inactive for some time, either the destroy method is called, OR the method is not recalled when the mouse hovers the taskbar icon/button when it was updating in previous event.

Second case:
Assuming you only need to call that function once and hide/show the thumbnail view, which is called when "hover over taskbar button" event. Here's the bug at, when Aero is on and running, and the method is called at least once, the window thumbnail will be updated in real time. But if for some reason Aero is to be turned off, or the window is inactive for some time, the destroy method is called, or the thumbnail object is not recreated in the event of Aero shutdown...

This is definitely a BUG...

zzz2496

 

[gregrocker]

Then what is the source of your ISO or DVD?

This is not yet a reported bug I can find. If it replicates on a clean install on completely different hardware, then it would have to be in the ISO or DVD.

 

[zzz2496]

It's a DVD, a retail version of Windows 7 Ultimate (Box, containing both 32bit and 64bit software), South East Asia Version, made in Singapore.

 

[logicearth]

*sigh* screw it.

 

[zzz2496]

Sigh...

 

[logicearth]

You need more video memory or less monitors (or smaller resolutions).

 

[zzz2496]

Considering I have 1024MB (GTX285), and 512MB (8800GT), it has plenty of room to play with...

Math:

I run my desktop at 32bits, so each pixel is represented by 4 bytes of memory.
I have 2 1920x1200 desktops = 3840x1200.
The memory needed to just show my desktop is 18,432,000 bytes (roughly 18.5MB).

Assuming I have 20 of open windows at full screen at both screens, it still uses 368,640,000 bytes of memory + the desktop instance, which is 387,072,000 bytes (~400MB), that's still 600MB free... Let's assume the Video driver used some... say 100MB (which is generous), that still leaves me with 500MB of space...

Note: I don't open too many windows on the small screen (maximum of 6 very small windows @ 1024x768 resolution), so the memory usage (assuming it's using the GTX285's memory) is negligible.

All of this assuming Windows saves the "texture" data as uncompressed, that'll take that much... If it's compressed by any algorithm...

So, memory is not a problem.

zzz2496

 

[logicearth]

Now calculate in 60 frames per second, with DirectX/GDI instruction information (also animations), icons/mouse, textures for the contents of the window, textures of the window contents with borders, textures of the desktop planes themselves, then with all the icons, then of course with the taskbar and active windows. Also take into consideration DWM is doubled buffered

There is a lot more then just texture data.

 

[zzz2496]

I don't see how any of that are related to video memory... The video memory is just a "surface" for DWM... It called "Frame Buffer", so whatever you want to show on the final image is being composed by DWM, as in the easy way is to stack this image according it's Z coordinate (what window always on top, mouse cursor always on top, etc) to that image and that image at this coordinate and so on... Let's just say it has one last "surface" to render for the final image that gets pushed to our monitor, that would just take a measly 18.5MB additional memory per 24" monitor...

Let's simplify this... I have 1GB of memory, it's a video memory. I have "assets", mouse pointers (with animation), desktop background, icons, open apps, etc... Let's say we save it all to the video memory labeling it as variable "A" to "Z". So if I want to compose the final image, say it's double buffered, I assign 40MB of memory on the frame buffer as "canvas", compose my final image on the "canvas", then flush that image through the DVI interface 60 frames each second. Each finished frame after being sent to the DVI, is then destroyed/freed to compose the next image... This is memory, not a video file... So video memory doesn't store each frame that's done in the past... once it's done, it's being deleted/freed

I don't see the complication of just stacks of images compared to shader operation for a game. Games use the same logic, you have plenty of "assets", you have "programs/shaders" to operate on the "assets" to compose the final image...

GDI operation is even simpler. GDI+ will use video memory as big as your desktop space, as one image. No fancy processing, no assets, no shader, no nothing. That's why when an app crashed it doesn't redraw it's window content on the GDI canvas, causing the infamous thousand windows effect. If I use GDI, I should be able to have a display that is 55 times larger than 1920x1200. Again, video memory is a non issue.

zzz2496