Laggy mouse

[Arcanyxia]

Alright so here's an odd one, whenever hovering over some wallpapers my cursor will lag mildly (It's not super bad but it is noticeably lagging) however moving it over a non-wallpaper thing like an open window will instantly resolve the issue, until I move my cursor back over the desktop. The window I hover over doesn't need to be in focus either. I've noticed this happens with some video wallpapers and some scene ones, I recently tried removing some particle effects from one I put out that was lagging but that didn't even slightly change anything. It also doesn't seem to be linked to quality as I have some larger more high quality video wallpapers that don't lag as much as that scene one (my "duel" if anyone is curious) the whole nvidia integrated graphics didn't change anything either. I think it could be related to other programs running as it seemed fine after restarting my computer for a few seconds, then went back to being laggy. Could also be steam itself like some sort of compatability issue because the problem did start around where steam got me logged in. I'm too lazy to find and list out all my specs right now but I'm rocking a 970m, I believe an i7 and 8 GB of RAM and task manager puts me at a rough average of constant 40% cpu usage. I've also got a monitor and use my laptop as a second screen and whichever one has the laggy wallpaper will lag while the cursor is on it, but won't also effect the other screen. The wallpaper itself doesn't appear to be lagging at all, it still runs every particle and wave effect fine.

[Biohazard]

Scene wallpapers don't even discern which window you hover over, so it really shouldn't make a difference. Videos don't even know anything about the mouse either...

Can you run the .bat from here when you are having the issue: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o2jth39bcvvej57/ListDlls.zip?dl=0

It should create an out.txt file. Can you share that file on www.pastebin.com ?

[Arcanyxia]

Done, it's been posted unlisted link is https://pastebin.com/E733rvkY

And about the top of your response, yeah that's what I thought, which makes it especially odd that it will also stop when hovering over a window that isn't in focus. I have some wallpapers that have special mouse effects but for the most part a lot of them run fine. Thanks for the quick response though

[Biohazard]

Thanks! Hm I don't see anything inside the wallpaper process itself there, was a scene with particles open?

Something is weird though. It looks like there are only Intel graphics drivers loaded, but you also have Nvidia? At least there are Nvidia processes like NVIDIA Share.exe. This is unusual, with an Optimus laptop it should load Nvidia drivers on top of Intel ones. Are you on a desktop with Nvidia graphics card and iGPU enabled in the BIOS? (NVM. you are on a laptop, but then this is weird.)

[Biohazard]

Okay what you could try:

- Close the program fully
- Remove the Wallpaper Engine application profile from the Nvidia Control Panel
- Start it without Steam: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\wallpaper_engine\wallpaper32.exe

This way it will launch without profile. Running through Steam will recreate the profile. I wonder if that somehow caused it to act like this, but I don't think it should be this way.

Also is the high CPU usage coming from DWM.exe or the wallpaper processes?

[Arcanyxia]

Originally posted by Biohazard:

Also is the high CPU usage coming from DWM.exe or the wallpaper processes?

I believe wallpaper processes, currently I have about a total of 12% of CPU (out of currently 23% cpu usage) coming from webwallpaper32 in two different forms (two different instances/task of them running, one is averaging 7 the other 5) DWM is about 2% most of the time
Will now try what you suggested

[Arcanyxia]

Update, running without steam didn't change anything.
And yes, the wallpaper does have particles. It's effects in total are: 2 instances of small ember preset, only modified for position, god rays, and about 10 different water wave effects. I tested deleting the embers and it didn't change anything, though I can also delete more if necessary as it is my own wallpaper (can't do this for other wallpapers that are problematic obviously but since one of mine is also causing the problem it's probably the best one to use for troubleshooting particle effects if necessary) and is called "Duel" The one on my second monitor currently that has never lagged has a rotating audio responsive wheel and a clock and is called "音乐可视化(deemo)_新增多彩，无声可视化"
and yeah I have nvidia, it's an alienware laptop if that helps at all

[Biohazard]

Does that laptop have Nvidia Optimus, i.e. when you right click wallpaper32.exe you can choose a graphics processor to run it on? I guess maybe this is why I am confused, it could be working differently there.

The CPU performance might come from the web wallpaper being unoptimized. Some eat a lot of CPU, but I don't know about that particular one by heart right now (I'm usually using the VU Meter one which is pretty optimized).

If the scene is really running on the Intel GPU, I think the water effects could be expensive. Could you try a stock wallpaper like the 3D car for comparison? If you use high MSAA and have a 4k screen though, even that could stress the Intel GPU already. But all in all, I can't see how this relates to hovering yet, since it draws the same thing to the screen no matter where you hover.

[Arcanyxia]

Yeah I can rightclick and pick between "High-Performance Nividia processor" and "integrated graphics (default)"
The 3D car runs fine and generally I'm not too concerned with the CPU performance as it's not actually lagging the whole computer, just the cursor, and only when over the default wallpaper (though some laggy-cursor effects do transfer over if playing high cpu usage games or if I try to use the editor while a wallpaper is running, though the effects can be stopped by just pausing it.
MSAA is currently set to none, and my monitor is 1920x1080, though I am at 60fps. I believe if I lowered the fps it would likely solve the issue or lowered quality I could, but it's not too much of a hassle having a slightly more laggy cursor when on the desktop, still it's very weird especially considering that 1. The wallpaper doesn't lag, all its particles and whatnot run fine, 2. The computer itself doesn't lag at all, 3. The cursor lag stops whenever hovering over a window, even if said window isn't in focus

[Biohazard]

Hm yeah, from what you're describing I guess it couldn't be a simple performance issue then.

The hover problem in general is something new to me. At this point maybe it would be worth checking if the combination of Wallpaper Engine and another application is triggering this. Could you try disabling the Nvidia share/stream functions in Geforce Experience and also disable GameDVR in Windows?

You might also want to try closing some programs that aren't part of Windows through the task manager and just see what happens; like 'TiltWheelMouse.exe' perhaps (it seems to be mouse related but not sure what it does). But make sure you are not doing anything important when you try this and restart the laptop after you have tried closing some things.

[Arcanyxia]

Huh. That's weird, disabling Nvidia share seems to have either entirely solved the problem or mostly solved the problem. The cursor still seems a very tiny bit laggy but I'd be willing to bet that's just me imagining it. Well, thanks for the help

[Biohazard]

Well that was a lucky guess then, hopefully it stays that way.

[Andr00F]

For me this problem was fixed after I forced wallpaper engine to use the dedicated graphics card, thanks for this thread!

[spartananator]

Originally posted by GiClan | Andr00F:

For me this problem was fixed after I forced wallpaper engine to use the dedicated graphics card, thanks for this thread! :HearthAmulet:

Originally posted by Cheyenne:

Huh. That's weird, disabling Nvidia share seems to have either entirely solved the problem or mostly solved the problem. The cursor still seems a very tiny bit laggy but I'd be willing to bet that's just me imagining it. Well, thanks for the help

Originally posted by Biohazard:

Well that was a lucky guess then, hopefully it stays that way.

I know this is dead but in case anyone else comes looking for n answer to this topic, look in your system tray (the little arrow in the bottom right corner) and close anything that doesnt need to be open one by one and check to see if the lag goes away. I noticed that when im on my razer and i open razer synapes it causes this laggy problem. I think it has to do with applications that call up the nvidia graphics. since synapse allows you to change performance modes, and screen refresh.

It would also seem that this problem is connected to optimus enabled laptops.

[󠁳⁧⁧ Spy Hawk22]

Once again I'm aware this is a dead thread but just might be still relevant to some people like me. However I believe I found a "fix". Basically, I noticed my mouse lagging a bit, not too noticeable but definitely there once I applied a certain wallpaper. The reason? I believe it's due to the wallpaper you're wanting to use supporting more than just 1 single monitor. I'm pretty sure it's lagging your mouse because Wallpaper Engine is trying to display 3 different high-quality wallpapers at once, but you may not notice or need it because if you're like me, you only have 1 monitor to worry about. So, the fix is basically apply a wallpaper that only supports 1 monitor. Sometimes the wallpaper you're trying to use doesn't say anthing about supporting multiple monitors, but if you're experiencing cursor lag only on your animated wallpaper, it might be worth a try to look for other options. This will allow Wallpaper Engine to run just 1 simple wallpaper instead of trying to constantly animate 3 of them.

[The Useless Teammate]

I have the same problem, any of the suggested solutions above I don't know how to do it. The mouse lags when it is hovering over the desktop. the problem becomes worse when I open my second monitor.