http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/ Engadget Comments for http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHO8l-Bd1O4]]>May 4th 2007 8:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 4th 2007 5:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 4th 2007 5:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 6th 2007 9:32AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
???

Wait, since when is Vista faster than XP?]]>May 4th 2007 5:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
Aero requires a decent GPU to work.
GPUs are now more power-efficient than CPUs.
Logically, using the GPU instead of the CPU reduces power use.

Clearly, something has gone wrong somewhere!]]>May 4th 2007 6:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
No Aero = Little to no GPU use on battery

Aero = Much GPU use on battery

Using Aero is in addition to whatever you were using before. Aww.... fuck-it I am wasting my time.]]>May 4th 2007 7:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/]]>May 5th 2007 2:24AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/Good Post
vishal
vishalgaurav01@gmail.com
]]>May 5th 2007 4:02AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 4th 2007 6:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 4th 2007 8:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
--

Presumably Bill Gates did when he pitched this to OEMs.]]>May 4th 2007 6:49PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
And Todd, Apple didn't invent everything under the fucking sun. Aero is pretty; get over it.]]>May 4th 2007 6:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
Vista's aero, whilst making a little bit of difference (higher load across the GPU as you're playing flipsy's and requiring it to render information behind then active window) the real reason is of course superfetch.

As fantastic an idea as it is, superfetch insists on looking at a hell of alot of information on your hard drive when you start doing.... anything really. That spinning HD drains battery like hell.

It's dropped my battery life, but mine is a Vaio SZ series, and the XP based power management was superb]]>May 6th 2007 6:33AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=macs_cant]]>May 4th 2007 6:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
:p]]>May 4th 2007 6:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
it's unbelievably retarded. i shouldn't even need to point out that just about every single word on the page is either completely wrong, mind-blowingly idiotic, or an outright lie. where do you find this crap?]]>May 4th 2007 6:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/

As for Aero. *shrugs* As if 10.0 was any better out of the gate. Hell Vista is a hell of a lot better then 10.0 originally was. I expect SP1 will do some serious fine tuning with much of Vista's graphics subsystem. things will get ironed out in the coming year or so. Yes I think vista as it stands is very much half baked however they have got a solid foundation there. They simply need to tweak it and work the bugs out. That being said I'm not looking forward to my Vista MCP certs.]]>May 5th 2007 3:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 4th 2007 6:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
Sure, maybe they have offloaded desktop rendering to the GPU, but they have also added tons of new CPU code as well, meaning higher demands on both. Then they top it off with a slick appearance to make you think you have a more efficient OS. Just look at the system requirements!

Thanks Microsoft. So far I see no good reason to upgrade to Vista. Maybe in a couple years, once the hardware catches up and at least two service packs are issued.]]>May 4th 2007 6:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
i wonder how many that really is, as in installed user base.

"20 million [...] includes OEM sales" (earlier engadget article)

I wonder if the "OEM Sales" include every Vista PC sitting in the factory, or on a shelf or in a box, or if it only counts those SOLD to CONSUMERS. (I doubt it, MS is known for channel-stuffing etc.)

]]>May 4th 2007 6:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
"2. Protest. I'm keeping my web site shitty as a protest against all the slick-looking, contentless web sites out there. Nobody cares about your stupid rotating icons and fading links. Mine isn't the only site on the internet that uses a simple layout, perhaps you've heard of this one? [picture of Google]

Some webmasters have spent years tweaking their layout and designing their site, and very few get any traffic. This site, as shitty as it looks, gets over 1 million visits per month. I use large fonts also as a protest against all the stylish garbage you see out there. When I go to a web site, I WANT TO READ THE CONTENT. Trust me, that micro-font everyone uses isn't nearly as original as they think. I've chosen a black background for most of my text because it's easier on the eyes than staring at a white screen. Think about it: your monitor is not a piece of paper, no matter how hard you try to make it one. Staring at a white background while you read is like staring at a light bulb (don't believe me? Try turning off the lights next time you use a word processor). Would you stare at a light bulb for hours at a time? Not if you want to keep your vision."

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=faq]]>May 5th 2007 7:15AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 5th 2007 7:15AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/Hey here's another Big Duh that someone should test: see how much battery power is eaten up by the TCP/DRM overhead on Vista. Do a side-by-side test doing some innocuous thing like copying files from one directory to another, or copying files in from the network and see how much less battery life you get. (I'm sure it's got to be something >0%, you're not going to get DRM checking without expending CPU cycles.)
]]>May 4th 2007 6:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/Theres probably plenty of legacy code underneath that wasn't rewritten either, mixing with a bunch of code for new features, not to mention compatibility for old programs etc.]]>May 4th 2007 7:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 4th 2007 7:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 4th 2007 7:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 4th 2007 7:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/page11.html

"Windows Vista doesn't require more energy than Windows XP, whether running under full CPU load or idle. We also tried to stimulate the power consumption at the plug by aggressively moving windows or by switching between multiple tasks in 3D mode (Windows key + [Tab]). We would have expected an increased power draw, since Vista and its AeroGlass interface are more 3D-intensive and require 3D acceleration. However, there was no noticeable increase in power requirements due to the involvement of the 3D subsystem. This might be different with automated loads, but a single user cannot cause sufficient 3D load to influence the power draw."

Do some god damn research before you blurt out what you think is obvious.]]>May 4th 2007 7:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 4th 2007 8:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 4th 2007 8:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
Doing graphics related work on the GPU will decrease power consumption because that is what it is designed to do. Doing it on the CPU (ie no Aero) causes the CPU to work harder. Overall the hardware acceleration cancels out the power consumption of the fancy graphics.]]>May 4th 2007 8:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
my OS should not make my battery go dead faster because I switch windows. I disabled Aero after 30 minutes of playing with it. Pretty does not save power.]]>May 4th 2007 8:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 4th 2007 8:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/2. Higher system requirement does not equate to lower performance. Vista requires a NEWER video card because it uses NEWER hardware features, namely Pixel Shader 2.0, NOT because it needs more raw horsepower.

Come on people, think! QUIT TRIVIALIZING!]]>May 4th 2007 8:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
(yeah, I don't know either.)]]>May 5th 2007 11:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
Good God.]]>May 4th 2007 9:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
Aero is the 3D hardware accelerated windowing technology; Glass is the stained glass effect it puts on the borders.

Flip3D and DWM are still enabled.]]>May 4th 2007 10:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
second of all, i have noticed almost no difference in my battery life running aero than running classic or xp. plus what does slow down the computer is a bloated corrupt installation, which Vista is not perfect at preventing, but is better than xp. ]]>May 4th 2007 10:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/1. Memory usage does not affect power consumption in any significant way.

Really, so you're saying that putting in an extra stick of RAM is in no way going to make a noticible difference in power drain?
]]>May 4th 2007 11:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
Try putting your computer into Sleep mode. Notice how it'll drain maybe 1% battery life per hour. In Sleep mode only your RAM and certain functions of your CPU and motherboard are powered.

Now when you're using your computer, you get maybe 2-3 hours of battery life. That means that RAM + CPU sleep mode is using up around 2-3% of your battery life at most.

You must be crazy if you're going to buy less RAM for your laptop just because you're afraid that it might tax your battery more. That's over-optimizing.]]>May 5th 2007 12:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/]]>May 5th 2007 3:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
You're conflating the arguments. Having more RAM, you're probably right. Software that requires more RAM, probably means more stuff gets shuffled to the swap/page file which will use up significantly more power as it must spin up the HD.]]>May 5th 2007 1:43AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
SuperFetch caches preemptively and statistically, whereas Windows XP just does it on-demand. If your reasoning is correct, Windows Vista should run less smoothly than Windows XP, not just be slower. While it's debatable whether Windows Vista is _faster_ than Windows XP, the concensus is that it is much _smoother_.

I also speak from experience. I'm running Vista on a 4 year old machine with 1GB of RAM, a Radeon 9600 and a P4 2.4, and I upgraded to Vista a couple months ago. Aero runs perfectly fine.

I'm also using a TabletPC running Vista with the same amount of RAM. My battery lasts around 3-4 hours using Word, Visual Studio, Sidebar and Aero.]]>May 5th 2007 2:21AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/This was reported during the beta testing in June of last year. It was one of the things that was supposed to be fixed, but wasn't. Older versions of Windows didn't put the continuous load on the graphics chips that Aero does. This is supposedly one of the things that laptops 'designed' for Vista have, additional cooling.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6079215.html?tag=nl ]]>May 5th 2007 2:08AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://img513.imageshack.us/my.php?image=taskbaryw4.png

It's 512MB of RAM that Windows XP works better than Vista with. Vista doesn't use exponentially more RAM than Windows XP, it just has a larger footprint. Once you've cleared that, Vista's memory usage is much more efficient than XP.

And again, it's the number of DIMMs that you have that determines how much power your RAM consumes, not the actual amount that's in use. Most laptops come with both of your RAM sockets occupied, so upgrading that won't change the number of DIMMs you're using.


How in the hell did we get from blaming Aero to blaming RAM? I think in the end everyone just feels better blaming Microsoft rather than blame their aging batteries. That's the cause of this misconception.]]>May 5th 2007 3:42AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
As for bugs and problems in the "graphics subsystem", I'm sorry but I haven't found any, not regarding power consumption. It's that sort of blanket statement (and uncited/unexplained crap like in this article) that sets up the "it sucks, dunno why, don't wanna find out why" sentiment.

And you know what? I don't care how many copies of Vista get sold, but I am getting frustrated at the way people seem to shut off parts of their brains when they talk about Windows. When it starts affecting journalism like it's evidently affecting Engadget, it's a cause for concern.]]>May 5th 2007 4:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 5th 2007 4:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/May 5th 2007 3:31PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/vistas-aero-interface-blamed-for-truncated-battery-life/
Carlos Mencia gets a bunch of viewers, but he's still a worthless moron with absolutely nothing interesting to say. i think the parallel is obvious - no matter what stupid excuses the guy gives. ]]>May 5th 2007 11:44AM