Windows Aero in Vista

on my laptop - a vaio fj3s/w - i have a 128mb shared graphics card, but i can't run windows aero - resolution is 1280x800 - On device manager, it says 128mb available graphics memory, but on all the rest it says N/A. Any ideas would be great! Thanks

 

You have the Intel GMA900 right? That cannot run Aero...only the GMA950 and up can run Aero.

 

only barely

 

theorically, there is nothing that would hold the gma900 back from running aero since it supports directx9 - it is just a matter of a driver update that intel SHOULD furnish to end.users

fact was that during the beta testing of vista, intel did have a beta version making aero run with their gma900 chip, then suddenly it disappeared with the build before rtm

so - mail intel, nag on them

cheers ...

 

http://www.petitiononline.com/intel915/petition.html

cheers ...

 

thanks very helpful

 

Untrue mate.

I've got 950 running now with Aero (1280x800) and got my external 17" SONY VGA connected 1280x1024, runs perfectly fine.

 

The GMA 950 can run Aero perfectly, not barely.

And the GMA 900 I hear can also run it but Intel refuses to give the drivers, and many are complaining about it if you look on Google.

 

stupid question. how do you know you can run aero or not? or you are or not running aero?

thanks.

 

Aero consists of the transparency feature. The Windows are "transparent" and can see stuff underneath. You get live preview thumbnails with your taskbar things when you hover over them. The same goes for the Alt+Tab (even live video previews).

And the new Vista - 3D Flip feature. See image - better then words. Runs absolutely smooth with GMA950.

 

I though we need DX10 to fully use Aero?

 

Nope - works fine here without DX10.

 

thanks.

on my vgn s580b, all that works until I play a video of some sort, then it doesnt.

i guess that it what happens with only 32 mb video card.

 

btw, the switching to vista basic happened when I played a video using VLC. switching to another output method solves that and U get the video playing when you alt tab use switch windows.

so i guess 32mb video card can run aero.

 

Why use Windows Vista?
There are so much incompatibility problems, there are too many restrictions...
Let stay using your old XP or 2000 with full transparency on a really old machine, like mine : (DELL Latitude CPI650) PIII 650Mhz, with 192 MB of RAM and 8 MB of Video RAM, furthermore , you can make this slower machines like :
PII-233 with MMX technology or equivalent AMD processor (like K6-333) and 64 MB of RAM.
As you see on the following picture there are several applications on my desktop at the same time and all of those are transparent on each other while the system performance still quiet smooth and fast. You should use the Total Commander plugin: TransCom and TaskManager to make every window (and subwindow) transparent easily... and of course you can slide the amount of transparency on each window...
ok there are not smoothing effect but who cares ?
it's ok if you're really snob, to make that smoothing effect you'll pay too much for it... you have to give up your old system, the customized applications and you'll meet a great deal of problems with hard software and your soft hardware