DreamScene - Not what i hoped to be.

DreamScene - Not what i hoped to be.

from WinCustomize Forums
When dreamscene was first announced i thought it was some sort of wallpaper that uses your 3d graphicscard to render the content.

I'm dissapointed that's it's not Dreamscene is just a videoplaying on the background. Not really special i think. I had this working on Windows 98 a while back.

Vista uses a new way to render the desktop and i'm puzzled that this isn't used.

What where the reasons not to go for 3D animation and instead simply use video's ? Or is it both supported and are there not any real animation dreams present ?

9,823 views 24 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I agree: why not use the power of DirectX Direct3d and render items? It's sharper, better, and utilizes the power of the computer! (Or using your video card, mine is GeForce 7800 GS OC and would LOVE to do something!)
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Have you read this news item?

The future's so bright I have to wear shades.    
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Version 1 of Dreamscene is simply video, the future updates will add more functionality.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top

First off, Windows DreamScene does use the DWM to play video (meaning DirectX).  That's why it uses so little CPU.

If you think you could play high definition video as your desktop wallpaper in Windows 98 then I have a bridge to sell you.

Secondly, Stardock DeskScapes adds the ability to have dynamic, 3D animated wallpapers that also uses the DWM (which uses DirectX). It will be including some with 1.01 which is already available for Object Desktop users.

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm with Draginol... I remember setting up the bliss.avi that was part of the Bliss screensaver that came out for Windows 2000 back in, well - 2000 as an 'Active Desktop' item set to cover the entire desktop, and while it worked - I couldn't run ANYTHING else at the time. And that wasn't even 640x480 res video.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Dreamscene is BETA right now, the released version will render using the graphics card plus it's been mentioned several times that the video card companies need to do a better job with their drivers.

Specifically Nvidia even though I feel ATI needs work as well.
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top

First off, Windows DreamScene does use the DWM to play video (meaning DirectX).  That's why it uses so little CPU.


If you think you could play high definition video as your desktop wallpaper in Windows 98 then I have a bridge to sell you.


Secondly, Stardock DeskScapes adds the ability to have dynamic, 3D animated wallpapers that also uses the DWM (which uses DirectX). It will be including some with 1.01 which is already available for Object Desktop users.




Well i must dissagree with the "That's why it uses so little CPU" statement. 40% cpu usage on both cores for playing a movie isn't a little cpu usage on a dual core 2.66 GHz (Intel C2D)

I have the same cpu usage while playing a movie with for example VLC or Windows Mediaplayer.


If you think you could play high definition video as your desktop wallpaper in Windows 98 then I have a bridge to sell you.

Ofcourse it could not have been HD video's at that time since there where none. However i could run this just as easily on a Windows XP machine with desktop icons ofcourse.


Stardock DeskScapes adds the ability to have dynamic, 3D animated wallpapers that also uses the DWM (which uses DirectX). It will be including some with 1.01 which is already available for Object Desktop users.



Ok so i just have to be more patient ? In that case: nothing is said. I'll wait
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top


First off, Windows DreamScene does use the DWM to play video (meaning DirectX).  That's why it uses so little CPU.



If you think you could play high definition video as your desktop wallpaper in Windows 98 then I have a bridge to sell you.



Secondly, Stardock DeskScapes adds the ability to have dynamic, 3D animated wallpapers that also uses the DWM (which uses DirectX). It will be including some with 1.01 which is already available for Object Desktop users.




Well i must dissagree with the "That's why it uses so little CPU" statement. 40% cpu usage on both cores for playing a movie isn't a little cpu usage on a dual core 2.66 GHz (Intel C2D)

I have the same cpu usage while playing a movie with for example VLC or Windows Mediaplayer.



Then you have some serious problems or you are lying. I have TWO monitors, one running 1920x1200 and the other 1600x1200, both running the DreamScenes video...simultaneously.. and my average cpu utilization is 2%, on a C2D as well, and mines only a 2.4. 40%? Why is it people insist on extremes when trying to win arguments?

DreamScenes is amazing in that it works well, uses little cpu and looks great.
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Keith, got your message.  Go to your My Account page, then choose the Stardock Account tab.  There is an option there to display your nickname or your full name.  Make sure the 'Show full name' option is NOT selected.  Let me know if there are further problems.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Well i asked the high cpu usage problem in another topic and every one said it was normal.

CPU Usage topic



So if you are right i do have a problem with CPU Usages.

i'm also running a dual monitorsetup 1280x1024 x2

Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
noticed you have hide inactive icons enabled in your notification area
may be something in thier raising your CPU usage.

I am running same stuff as you same gadgets (cept the all white one?)
same dream on dual monitors 1280x1024 x2 with IE and this page im typing on
and my peak is 22% thats with Diskeeper running in the background as well
so something is hoging your CPU cycles

to compair your usage to
hers my sys
Intel 6800 2@ 2.93Ghz in 32 bit vista
Evga 680i nForce mobo
only 2 gigs of ram 5.5.5.15
BFG nvidia 8800 GTXoc
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have noticed that i also get low cpu usage when i use mpegs and wmv's,however, when i use the .dream extension my cpu usage increases so there is obviously some kind of an overhead/incompatibility either globally or with my machine and a few others that is causing this.

For e.g if i run the underwater dream in the pic up there ^ i get around 12 - 15% cpu usage on my dual core 1mb cache opty @ 2.8 but if i run an MS dream in wmv or mpeg i get more like 2 - 6% usage

So something is going on..
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I am running same stuff as you same gadgets (cept the all white one?)

The white gadget and white bar is added by me because it contains information directly linked to me. I don't want those info on the net


noticed you have hide inactive icons enabled in your notification area
may be something in thier raising your CPU usage.

Sorry no. Because if i stop the dream, the cpu usage returns to normal 0 to 1%. I have asked in another topic why explorer.exe is using so much cpu when dreamscene is active.

Only DWM and Explorer.exe are using the CPU when i activate the dream.


For e.g if i run the underwater dream in the pic up there ^ i get around 12 - 15% cpu usage on my dual core 1mb cache opty @ 2.8 but if i run an MS dream in wmv or mpeg i get more like 2 - 6% usage

There is really no big difference between .WMV, .MPEG or .dream. In fact, i find it weird that an HD 1920x1080 movie uses almost the same amount of cpu as a movie of only 705x400

EDIT: Ok just tested this dream:
shark attack
and it's arround 40% on 1 core but the other isn't used.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I have to say 2% cpu usage for dreamscenes sounds way too low to be accurate.  Are you sure you are actually using high def videos and not standard def ones?

High def video is very expensive to decode.

My tests show that a single core 1.8Ghz AMD chip would use about 30-40% cpu, so a dual core AMD would be about 15-20% and I would expect a core 2 duo to be in the 10% range.  Thats for 720p.  1080p would be quite a lot higher.  WMV tends to be higher than MPG.

One thing that would increase CPU usage is if you have more than one graphics card as much more work has to be done.  So if you have 3 screens it will be using more cpu, or if you have 2 but one is onboard & the other is on a graphics card.

Regarding Windows 98 & high def video, do not forget that when you used Windows 98 you had a much much slower processor...  Of course 9x does not support dual core so it would instantly have half the processor power of a modern system.

Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Perhaps we need to reinterate (as some folks tried to do above). The Dreamscene version that everyone is using right now does NOT have the GPU optimization feature that the final version from Microsoft will have. People are going to experience some high CPU usages in the time being (depending on the Dream/vid). Be patient please.
#2...the Dreamscape version that Stardock recently released to Object Desktop users has two dynamic dreams with it....the first noticable thing about them is that they use very, very little CPU....about 3 to 5% at most. A step in the right direction. If anyone is experiencing higher CPU usage that that, especially with those two Dreams, then they need to look elsewhere on the system for the culprit.
I too remember using Active desktop/animated wallpaper programs, etc. with XP....I could almost hear my CPU screaming in pain. Dreamscenes, even in beta, is a huge improvement.
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have to agree. I clocked mine at only 2.3. Very little cpu usage. Computer still works at the same speed as before.
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I need to correct something that I have seen repeated in a number of places.

My understanding is the current Dreamscene has basically the same performance features that the final version has.  The point of the prerelease is to get feedback about incompatibility problems with video drivers & video codecs.

If you are having slow performance because of a video driver or video codec issue then it is possible that the final version will be quicker, but to expect a massive improvement for everyone in the final version is wishful thinking. 

Nobody would run a beta and then at the last minute turn on features that are the ones most likely to have problems.

It is unlikely it will ever use less cpu than opening the file up in Windows Media Player.  Because if it did then the WMP team would clearly not be doing their job.

Obviously video driver updates may improve performance for all apps that play video.

Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My understanding is the current Dreamscene has basically the same performance features that the final version has.  The point of the prerelease is to get feedback about incompatibility problems with video drivers & video codecs.


Seems to be working real fine with the latest ATI Catalyst drivers.

Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Neil, I'm taking the following sentence directly from the Windows Ultimate Team's website. It's taken from the blog of Aaron Hare, a technical staff member of the team. The particular blog he wrote this in was an FAQ answering common questions the team had been getting through the website.

What will be different in the final version of DreamScene?

Lots of performance enhancements and improved stability in a lot of scenarios; and support for more languages, of course.


Now am I just mistaken and taking this sentence completely wrong?
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top

That is different to this "The Dreamscene version that everyone is using right now does NOT have the GPU optimization feature that the final version from Microsoft will have"

I would guess that the FAQ entry refers to fixing bugs particularly in how it picks the mpeg2 decoder.  This would help if your system was picking up a mpeg decoder which did not use the mpeg2 decoding that your graphics card can do.  This will still not make mpeg2 decoding free though as there is only so much a graphics card can do.

I am sure they have done some careful profiling of the code to see if there are areas to be improved, but as I said before, turning on a new feature in the final release is asking for trouble.

Another area which may have been improved is the performance of the selection rectangle drawing on the desktop.  This is very slow in current builds.  This will not help general performance though.

I would be surprised if the cpu usage of rendering the videos dropped by more than 15% if your machine already picked up the right decoders.  If you had the wrong decoder then yes I could see a bigger drop, say halving the cpu usage.

I may be wrong and the final version will use <10% cpu on my pc.  In which case that will be wonderful, but based on tests with playing the same videos in WMP on XP (where decoders have HW acc working), I have my doubts.

The following page shows some nice charts of the cpu usage of decoding various formats on a AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 CPU (2x2.60GHz, 2x1MB L2) using the latest graphics cards.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/video-playback_6.html

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/video-playback_7.html

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/video-playback_8.html

Taking those results and working out the same scores for a low end cpu shows me that they are within 10% with dreamscene on my PC.  The exception being WMV HD, but thats because my graphics card has no proper WMV HD decoding ability and the cards in the review do.

Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It appears I misunderstood your earlier statement, then. Thank you for clearing that up

You make very good points Niel, and I'm having a hard time finding some way to argue against them. I suppose only time will tell - but as unlikely as it sounds, here's to hoping the final version does *something* to my horrible cpu usage.
Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have a bridge to sell you.


how much ye want fer' eet?   

As has been said before, it's in Beta, hold your horses, great things to come.  
Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ugh the lowest I've ever seen it for any dream (and I've ran just about all of them) is about 30% (normally the Stardock dreams fall in this range). Average is about 40%. Some dreams run me up as high as 50% or more (I think one poorly encoded dream had me chugging 70%, but I've only seen it that high for 2 or 3 dreams).

Using an FX-55 with a 7800GTX (and yes I have the latest Nvidia drivers).