Please settle a 2-morons-debate

Me and my friend are fighting over this question:

Does applying a wallpaper effects the performance of the laptop ?

He sais, that even though it is not a big deal, it does takes some (even if a little) out of the performance.

Is that true ???
and if so, to what extent ?

 

I believe that it DOES slow performance down.. but it would depend.. if say you are quitting a game then the computer has to work a bit harder to put that picture again, which is usually fairly high res to put it on there. But if you are just web browsing/music listening ..etc.. it shouldnt affect it too much.

So what im tryin to say is that if you comp has to do some reloading of it... then yeah course it drops perf a bit.. but not so much that it should start a debate like yours lol.

Just my 2cents

 

Will a truck slow down (even a little) when it hits a pigeon?

 

Loading the wallpaper from the hard drive will use some resources, and it's most likely never loaded again until you log in again. Even so, doing that will only waste a few milliseconds of time. Actually drawing the wallpaper to the screen wouldn't take any longer than drawing a solid color, and the process is so fast it is ridiculous to even wonder about it causing a performance hit. The only significant difference I can think of is that using a wallpaper will use more memory than a solid color would, and even then it's nothing to worry about considering how much RAM computers have today.

 

Yes, yes it will

 

A related question: does your car slow down with you turn the headlights on?

 

The truck will have to slow down cause all the pigeon poop will be allover the windshield.

 

If you want to speed up your computer's boot time and performance then don't use a wallpaper. I use black color background, not a jpeg, just desktop color (using the color black extends battery life more than any other background, and darker color > brighter color for battery life). Also disable window sounds to increase performance.

 

I believe setting the desktop background to "none" is the only instance where it would improve performance.

 

Does a photon have mass?

 

Seriously, though...

From a windows point of view, a solid color background is more efficient, because no tiling operations are needed to find out what portion of an image needs to be draw in a particular area.

And also, the image itself does occupy memory - so if you have a high-res image as your background, that image is going to be stored in memory as a GDI resource, and some processor power if going to have to move that around.

But it really shouldnt matter much, if you have a modern GPU, and dont use 50Mb background images.

 

"None" is the same as a solid-color.

 

Well here is a related question sort of. But when you choose a pic and right click to "save as desktop wallpaper" where is the jpeg file stored? Seems every time I choose a new wallpaper the old one is gone from wherever the temp file was, I'd like a more permanent way to save them.

 

In Windows, you will still have to choose a background color.

 

Good tip. Does it improve it significantly though? I suppose anything would help, my T60 seems to eat battery life fairly quickly, even on XP. Maybe it's the atheros wireless card.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j2G1r-CqsQ

 

Yes. And it also depends how big it is (kb).



---

 

That is too funny.

 

A black background will extend battery life because it requires the least amount of power from the LCD and GPU to display. The benefit would be dependent upon how often you are displaying your desktop. If you are in MS Word 90% of the time with the standard white background then the benefit of a black desktop would be minimal.

The ThinkPad's power settings are most helpful. It will reduce the CPU performance by 1/2 & reduce display brightness to help optimize battery life for you, but every little thing helps. Also try to only recharge when your battery is almost completely depleted, then recharge fully without overcharging. Your battery only has so many life cycles and this technique will insure the most cycles.

Down the road you should consider upgrading your HDD to SSD which consumes 50% less power providing you with less heat & longer battery life. If you are still using XP then you can opt for a 16GB SSD. Of course the battery life isn't the only compelling reason to replace a mechanical drive, other incentives (Mtron SSD specific):

1. Extraordinary speed (boot Windows instantly), no more seek times, no more drive fragmentation
2. No moving parts: no vibration & no noise (totally silent)
3. Lighter weight, translates to lighter laptop.
4. 1000 - 1500g operating shock.
5. Reliability & Endurance that a mechanical HDD can't provide (50% of computer failure is due to HDD failure!):
   -Write Endurance: >140 years @ 50GB write/erase per day
   -Read Endurance: Unlimited
   -Data Retention: 10 years

The only known deterrent to upgrading your HDD to SSD would be cost.

 

To give yourself a lame desktop just to save battery life is quite obsessive and compulsive.

 

yeah, having a background might take what..5min max off your batt life?

I'd rather have some sweet background and sacrifice that time.

 

I'd say 5 minutes is an overestimation.

 

It would slow down the car Photons have energy and momentum.

E=mc²
So yes, kinda =P

 

It does slow down a little bit if you have the pop-up headlights popular in the 1980s. Those pop-up headlights create a small amount of drag that reduces the aerodynamics of the car. Whether that difference is significant or not depends on how a person drives the car.