Visual Effects Options

INFO: The Visual Effects include most of the special effects in Vista. Select the settings you want to use for the appearance and performance of Vista.

WHY: If Vista is running slowly, you can speed it up by disabling some of its visual effects. It comes down to appearance versus performance. Would you rather have Vista run faster or look prettier? If your PC is fast enough, you don’t have to make this tradeoff, but if your computer is just barely powerful enough for Windows Vista, it can be useful to scale back on the visual bells and whistles.

NOTE: You can choose which visual effects to turn off, one by one, or you can let Windows choose a bunch for you. There are 20 visual effects you can control, such as the transparent glass look, the way menus open or close, and whether shadows are displayed.

RELATED LINKS:
1. How to Open and Change Folder Options in Vista

2. How to Change the Advanced Appearance Settings in Vista

3. How to Open Each Folder in the Same or it's Own Separate Window in Vista

4. How to Change a Default Open Window Size for a Shortcut in Vista

5. How to Enable or Disable Aero Glass Transparency

6. How to Change the Color Scheme in Vista

7. How to Change a Computer Event Sound in Vista

8. How to Change the Desktop Theme in Vista

9. How to Change the ClearType Font Settings in Vista

10. How to Enable or Disable the Translucent Selection Rectangle in Vista

11. How to Display Small or Large Icons in the Vista Start Menu


MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR VISTA :
Vista Home Basic

• Processor: 1GHz (32 or 64 bit)
• System Memory (RAM): 512MB
• Hard Drive: 20GB with 15GB available for Vista
• Video Card: 32MB Memory and DirectX 9 Support
• DVD-ROM Drive

Vista Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate

• Processor: 1GHz (32 or 64 bit)
• System Memory (RAM): 1GB
• Hard Drive: 40GB with 15GB available for Vista
• Video Card: 128MB Memory, DirectX 9 Support with: WDDM Driver, Pixel Shader 2.0, 32bits per pixel
• DVD-ROM Drive

Here's How:
1. Open Control Panel. (Classic View)
2. Click System icon.

OR

1. Open the Start Menu.
2. Right click on Computer and click Properties.
3. Click Advanced system settings. (See screenshot below)

Advanced.jpg

4. Click Continue for UAC prompt.
5. Under Performance, click Settings button. (See screenshot below)

System_Properties.jpg

6. Under Visual Effects, dot Custom: and check the ones you want, and uncheck the ones you do not want.
(See screenshots below)
NOTE:
A) If you dot Adjust for best perfomance, you may have to turn ClearType font smoothing On again. See: How to Change the ClearType Font Settings in Vista
B) If you want to help improve performance, then these are the most common ones to uncheck:

• Fade or slide menus into view
• Fade or slide tooltips into view
• Fade out menu items after clicking
• Show shadows under menus
• Slide open combo boxes
• Slide taskbar buttons
• Use a background image for each folder type

Top and Bottom half of list:
VisualEffects1.jpgVisualEffects2.jpg

7. Click Apply and OK to apply changes.
8. Click OK to close window from below step 5.
9. Close window from below step 3.


That's it,
Shawn