Wallpaper - Resource hog?

[DefBringer2]

I've always assumed that having a bitmap displayed as my desktop wallpaper was a resource hog. Yet it seems everybody else has some huge picture of a Ferrari or a girl on their desktop.

Do these wallpapers (1280x1024 resolution) really take up that much resources? I'd like to have something on in the background rather than just a black screen.

Does it interfere with my Q3? My web browsing? Both?

 

[Entity23]

probably so little, you wouldnt notice it. I have a pic of a pimped prelude, I dont aim so high I really doubt it messes with q3.

 

[kami]

who gives a sh*t...I have 512MB RAM...damn wallpaper can take up 20megs for all I care, she's hot

 

[Rifter]

i noticed with some pictures on your background that if you closed a window that was taking up the whole screen the background would be blank the the pic would appear in sections over 1-2 seconds(while the HD whirls like mad). My comp did this to me for some pics, not for others, dunno why. Right now i got a 110k jpeg pic and it doesnt seem to slow it down any.

 

[Rand]

It definitely takes up resources, but it is not enough to really affect much. The resource usage is minimal enough that I think most anyone would agree that you might as well put a wallpaper on unless for whatever reason you prefer a blank screen.

It certainly would not take up nearly enough resources to have any effect upon either Quake 3 or Web Browsing performance in even the most exacting of benchmarks.... let alone a visible performance drop.

 

[Davegod75]

i think bmps take up a lil bit of memory but not much

 

[Elledan]

On a slower system with not much RAM (<64) you'll notice the difference between a wallpaper image or not, but if you've a quite recent system (400+ MHz) with a lot of RAM (128+ MB) you won't notice much difference with or without wallpaper.

 

[DefBringer2]

Cool! Thanks guys.....now I can get rid of this boring background and put up a Porsche Turbo.

 

[dowxp]

slow systems u notice.

 

[Biggs]

If you're using Win NT4/5, just look it up at the processes tab and depending on the size and quality of your wallpaper, there will be the equivalent memory(MB) that it consumes.

 

[giambi77]

Alright, so where do I get the sexy girl wallpaper? Anyone got some good ones, or maybe a good site or teo?

 

[MulLa]

I've noticed the same problem as Rifter. Anyone has a similar problem?? Probably because I ONLY have 128mb of ram

 

[flood]

If youre really stingy on resources, you can use no wallpaper and a black background (black = 0,0,0 for each pixel rather than three 3-digit numbers)

I use a bitmap with active desktop disabled. If you use a jpg, it has to be decompressed when you load it, and it uses the same amount of memory when uncompressed as a bmp. Also, when you use a jpg, you have to enable active desktop (bad idea in my opinion)

 

[ravedave]

yes, but depends on the system.

HAHAHA great story.
this comp comes in.
takes like 15 mins to boot, its a 486 something. So my fellow techie shawn and I have an argument about what it is, but hes more senior and gets the comp... works on it and works on it... totally confused. I walk up and say take off the wallpaper. Sure nuff the guy set a HUGE bmp as the background...were talkign liek 16MB when he onyl has 24MB Ram.

was funny as hell.

 

[MiniMe69]

it seems to really hog the resources...when active desktop is on...

 

[CQuinn]

Active Desktop different than the Wallpaper.
It runs services in the background that allow Internet explorer to display
as if your background was a browser. If your system seems sluggish, try
turning off Active Desktop / View as Web page, but keep the Wallpaper.

Since Bitmaps are uncompressed, the space it takes on the drive should be
the same amount it takes up in RAM. One way to check thier usage is to
check the sizes of the .BMP files in the Windows directory.

 

[A2KLAU]

I have an enlarged pic of a Lexus is200 My dream first car Anyway... It does not really take up alot of resources cause its only a pic... And so after the initial loading of Windows of that pic there is not alot more the comp needs to do to the pic

Albert.

 

[johnny1111]

MulLa, I too have had the same problem that Rifter mentioned. It is happening on my current rig (notebook), my desktop at work, and my friend's PC that I just built for him. All are running Windows 2000 pro. -john

 

[Rifter]

oh yeah, only noticed the problem in my first post in win2k, note i did find a fix, seems if i make a small webpage with the pic on it and set it as wallpaper from IE i dont have the problem, however if i use ACDSEE to set it it will lag the system, liek i said it only does this on some pics, doesnt matter on size just seem to be random. Oh and i have 512MB of ram so i dont think tis a lack of memory problem

 

[Redwingsguy]

its accually faster with a bmp, because active desktop refreshes everything when you return to desktop, so you geta 1-2 second wait wit jpg's adn such, but no wait with bmp!

 

[gibear2000]

I thought if you have Active Desktop disabled. and you load a jpg up in your browser right click set as wallpaper your goof to go. JPG on desktop without resource hogging active desktop

 

[kuk]

Tips for ideal performance:

[*]The wallpaper should be the size of the desktop resolution, so there's no streching involved;
[*]Do not use jpgs or gifs as backgrounds, since this enables Active Desktop
[*]Always use bmps!
[*]Be sure that Active Desktop is off (sometime it's on and you don't even notice)
[*]If you have a collection of jpgs that you want as wallpapers, use PicaView to set it as wallpaper, since it automatically transforms them into bmps, and there's no need to open Photoshop (or any app) to convert them to bitmap.

 

[mpancha]

Webshots is another good program. Just turn off any sort of webupdate thing they have. It'll take any picture you throw at it, convert it to a bmp and voila.