Vista - Dreamscene sucking all my CPU. Plz help.

Hey all, I recently made the jump to Ultimate x64 and love it. However, I recently installed the Windows Dreamscene and then followed it up with Stardock Deskscapes. This is when i realized something fishy with my video card/driver/config/??.

Everything is stock, no OC or anything. Brand new formatted HD and OS so theres nothing that seems abnormal - I infact have pretty much no progs installed yet. My specs as following:
Ultimate x64
3GB Ram
AMD 64 x2 +3500
Sapphire Raddeon x850 Pro
Performance score -- Graphics: 5.9 Gaming Graphics: 4.9 Processor: 4.1 Memory: 4.6 HD: 5.6

So given that, I figured i should be able to run most things fairly smoothly. Heres the problem, with a still background pic my cpu idles at 0%, with a Windows DreamScene video it idles at 40%, and with Stardock Video it idles pretty much at 90-100%! Ram stays at 30% for all. Now i understand those videos can be somewhat of a step up to a still picture, but buddies of mine with similar computers tell me they are idling around 15%. 90% seems to be a red flag that somethign isn't right. I've installed ATI's newest Catalyst drivers (7.10 I believe), ran through all the Windows updates, and made a half attempt to get codecs. Granted a wallpaper is fairly superficial, but I figure if theres something wrong in the video department, it's going to show its face when I attempt at games or photoshop rendering. Does anyone have any ideas? Please help

Hi Donger,

It really depends on the Dream file (Stardock video) that you are using. Some will use more resources than others. Download a few other Dream files and try them to see how they vary as a test.

http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?libid=50&sort=rating&c=1

Shawn

Hi, thanks for the reply. Yea I tried about 10 different ones and they do vary in cpu usage (+-10%), but it still in the alarming areas. It is just bizarre given my specs, I feel like theres some underlying problem. Thanks again for any advice.

Donger,

You might look in the Resource Monitor to see what is using the CPU. Open Task Manager, click Performance tab, and click Resource Monitor button. Just expand the CPU section at the right to see. Look under Average CPU to see the average cpu usage for the process.


ATI has the 7.11 version out now if you do not already have them.

AMD GAME! Drivers and Utilities

Shawn

I've got a Q6600 and 4GB RAM with a GF8500 and none of the Dreamscene/Stardock backgrounds hit any of my cores very hard. I guess it really does look like a driver thing because although everyone says the 8500 sucks (they started saying this after I'd got one, naturally) even my lowly card copes. ATI have always had a reputation for great silicon but crap drivers.

well, the problem here is that your gpu sucks you need to upgrade. depending
on the mobo, if you have a new mobo (in the last year) you sould go for 8600
or up or a 2600xt or up then you sould be fine. the reason is the gpu cand do
all the requirered things to run dreamscene so the cpu has to help. but with
a new gpu aka video card you sould be fine.