Why enable Aero on Windows 7?

[gevarre]

After the latest SteamVR update, I got a message saying to enable Aero on Windows 7 for better performance.

What exactly does enabling this do? I'm asking because turning this on causes several games to constantly bring up the "low resources" warning, which is rather annoying.

[SnugglePilot]

Having aero off caused a bunch of performance problems in Fantastic Contraption related to how the different windows (steamvr/steam/game/etc.) all interact with each other. Someone once told me the reason in more technical terms and it was basically "because windows" heh :)

[ＸＲＡ]

weird thing is SteamVR disables Aero when it runs, then says that it should be enabled? (or is that Windows 7 stepping in and disabling it?)

[bendotcom]

With extended mode, we disable Aero because otherwise the extended monitor (which is the HMD display) is locked to 60Hz, which is bad. Some people left it off all the time to avoid the flashing when VR started and stopped.

If you are using direct mode, that no longer applies. Now you want to have Aero on, because it avoids problems with windows overlapping your 2D desktop view. Without Aero, having a window on top of your 2D view will make your VR rendering performance drop.

Or, as Andy Moore said, "because Windows".

[gevarre]

So I'm guessing there's no way to have this automatically be turned on when the HMD starts and off again when it's done? And does this affect Windows 10 or just 7?

[Programmer Joe]

This only affects Windows 7. It's not possible to turn off Aero in WIndows 8 or 10.

[Gluefire]

Please allow the permanent disabling of this notification. I'm not gonna enable Aero and have to dismiss it every time when starting up SteamVR.

[dmi3ymail]

If you want to disabled notification "For best performance when running VR, please switch to an Aero Theme by right-clicking on desktop and selecting Personalize in the drop-down."
Create key in System Registry:
1) Run regedit.exe
2) Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\vrmonitor\dismissedWarnings
3) Create key Type = "REG_SZ", Name = "DismissableWarning_WindowsAeroDisabled", Value = "true"

[Gluefire]

That works, many thanks.