Fact or Fiction? - OD apps cause serious OS drag

Published on June 19, 2004 By Castle In WinCustomize Talk

When I have Iconpackager, Windowblinds, WindowFX, ObjectBar and Object Dock running, my system experiences significant drag. Whan I unload all but one or two of these apps it is instantly responsive once again. I've read many threads about this and find that everyone has different views on this. Is it just a trade-off that I have to accept (looks for speed) or is there something I can do to lessen the drag on my resources? I find it hard to believe that I need to upgrade my hardware being that I already have a pretty robust system
Here are my stats:

Windows XP Pro SP-1
Athlon XP 2800+ Barton CPU 2.08GHz
1gig Corsair XMS LL ram
ABIT NF7-S 2.0 Motherboard
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card
Audigy 2 sound card

Any thoughts?
[Message Edited]

Comments

Jafo

on Jun 19, 2004

Fiction is the closest single word answer.

Castle

on Jun 19, 2004

Jafo - thanks but I've already established that unloading some of the mentioned apps makes a huge difference in responsiveness. If it were hardly noticeable I would subscribe to the single word answer of fiction as well. I'm just hoping there is something I can do or an explanation that will end my frustration. I read the fact/fiction thread on Windowblinds and found it very informative - thanks to frogboy. WB by itself causes me no noticeable drag.

sidenote - When running Object Dock, it takes 30 sec. to open Photoshop 7. After unloading Object Dock it takes about 8 secs.
[Message Edited]

Koasati

on Jun 19, 2004

IconPackager doesn't run in the background. The only time it does anything is when you tell it to. Try unloading any "docklets" you have running in ObjectDock. These often are the cause of slow downs. You may want to try unloading WindowFX to see if that is the culprit. WindowBlinds is very unlikely to be causing you grief. I haven't used ObjectBar much, but I've never noticed it causing any problems when running.

IPlural

on Jun 19, 2004

I have a P4 desktop and a AMD +3200 laptop and run the following without any problems.

IP
OD
WFX
WB

with any skin I desire.

No slow down and no problem...

Then again I have never timed Photoshop to see a 22 second difference in load time

IPlural

on Jun 19, 2004

I am curious as to why your running ObjectBar with Windowblinds though?

Castle

on Jun 19, 2004

Thanks for the tips Koasati. I think I've narrowed it down to Objectbar and/or Objectdock. I've got WB, and FX running with no slowdown. I had a Mac OSX Objectbar theme that seemed laggy. ObjectDock only had the weather docklet but I think this app is the main offender in my case.

Does the CPU have anything to do with how well Obj Desktop apps are handled? AMD vs Intel?
[Message Edited]

Castle

on Jun 19, 2004

IPlural
I had a mac theme going and found a perfect OB theme so I grabbed it. I have since tired of the whole Mac OSX look so I guess I really dont need to run OB now.

I just loaded ObjectDock again and yup.....it is back to laaaaaaag

Darn it - and I really like ObjDock too.
AMD 3200+ laptop - I'm green with envy

IPlural

on Jun 19, 2004

mmmmm.... have you tried changing the rendering engine?

there are two, one for ATI compliant and one for everything else...

Koasati

on Jun 19, 2004

I'd bet real money that the weather docklet is the main problem. It slows my system to a crawl also.

IPlural

on Jun 19, 2004

owww, yeah...

Weather Docklet, that one was a problem on my t-22 also. Thing is, it would work ok for a bit and then just suck up resources...

Koasati is hammering that one me thinks

yrag

on Jun 19, 2004

Watch out Randy...John will be offering you cake next....

Leo the Lion

on Jun 19, 2004

Someone mention cake?........Hmmmmmmm nice. I'll have a slice if ones going round

Tiggz

on Jun 19, 2004

sidenote - When running Object Dock, it takes 30 sec. to open Photoshop 7. After unloading Object Dock it takes about 8 secs

I found the same thing - on my system at least there is a serious conflict between objectdock and photoshop7. Whilst objectdock is very pretty I find it impacts heavily on my systems performance in general. My solution: I don't run objectdock any more.

#5 by IPlural - 6/19/2004 11:31:10 AM I am curious as to why your running ObjectBar with Windowblinds though?

Maybe because objectbar is the single best launching utility there is

it's not just about replacing the taskbar and start menu...

I run objectbar, windowblinds, desktopX and sysmetrix full time and experience no noticeable loss of performance. My system stats are all below that of the original poster.

IPlural

on Jun 19, 2004

WIthout a doubt, but I was wondering why OB and OD at the same time with WB. Worded the previous question wrong

hehe

Tiggz

on Jun 19, 2004

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