Tech Tip of the Week

Gaming and DWM in Windows Vista

If you are trying to play any DirectX games under Windows Vista with an LDDM compatible video card with Aero Glass enabled, you may notice that the game’s performance is slow, but you can disable DWM temporarily when a game executable is running. To do this, follow these instructions:

1. Locate the shortcut for the game you are wishing to play, or the executable file (which can usually be found somewhere within X:\Program Files, where X is the drive letter you have installed Windows Vista to. You can find the target executable file from right clicking on its shortcut and clicking “Find Target”.

2. Right click on the shortcut or the executable, and from the context menu, click on “Properties”.

3. Click on the “Compatibility” tab.

4. Under “Settings”, check “Disable the Desktop Window Manager”, and then press OK to dismiss the properties dialog.

This will temporarily disable DWM while running your game, and it should give you a performance boost with the application. Once the application or game has quit, DWM will be re-enabled.