Common questions before buying

[Biohazard]

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Does Wallpaper Engine affect game performance?

Wallpaper Engine is optimized for performance by design and allows you to customize its performance impact. Most wallpapers will not have any noticeable effect on most computers, however the performance depends on how complex the specific wallpapers is.

You can configure Wallpaper Engine to pause or completely disable the wallpapers while playing games (or all fullscreen / borderless-fullscreen applications in general). All performance settings can be found in the "Performance" tab in the Wallpaper Engine settings. You can also configure it to turn off, pause or mute when you launch specific applications or games, giving you full control even for special use-cases. If you have multiple monitors, it will pause per monitor by default, meaning that if you start a game on one screen, only that one screen will be paused while Wallpaper Engine will continue to run on the other screens which is usually a good compromise between performance and aesthetics.

If you configure wallpapers to automatically 'Stop' (as opposed to just pausing them), they will be completely unloaded and not have any effect on any game or application. If you have any questions or problems, please check the FAQ and ask on the forums.

Does it require Steam to be running?

No. Steam is only required to download new wallpapers.

Can I install it on multiple PCs?

Yes.

Do wallpapers cost money? Why do you use the word "subscription"?

All wallpapers in Wallpaper Engine are free and there are no hidden costs. The reason why we use phrases like "subscribe to a wallpaper" is because all wallpapers are technically free Steam Workshop subscriptions. This means that Steam will remember all wallpapers you are interested in and re-download them automatically if you re-install Wallpaper Engine.

Will Wallpaper Engine show up on Steam?

It will not show up as 'in-game' while simply running as a wallpaper in the background. However if you open certain windows, like the Browse Wallpapers window, it will show up until the window has been closed. This is necessary in order to be able to show you the Workshop wallpapers you have subscribed to.
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Does the Workshop have XYZ

You can check the Workshop at the top without owning the app.

Do the audio wallpapers require a specific media player?

No, the audio wallpapers are intended to work with any player. If your player supports an 'exclusive mode', you will have to switch it off for audio wallpapers to work. Should there be issues from your hardware/other software please check the FAQ for the audio problems covered there.

Will it work on a non-activated Windows version?

Wallpaper Engine is not built to work around Microsofts limitations of non-activated Windows versions. It may work at the time and it may stop working permanently in the future. If Microsoft decides they don't want this to work on a non-activated Windows version then there is nothing we can do about it. So do not buy this without activating Windows or expect that it may stop working in the future due to changes from Microsoft.

Also, this program has an option to change the Windows accent colors to match the live wallpaper. DO NOT ENABLE THIS OPTION WITHOUT ACTIVATING WINDOWS BECAUSE THE COLORS WILL NOT BE REVERTED AND YOU CANNOT ACCESS THESE SETTINGS IN WINDOWS ITSELF TO REVERT THEM BECAUSE IT IS NOT ACTIVATED. This option is never enabled by default and you must take care to only enable this if you understand that you cannot access these Windows settings and will permanently change the colors and they will not look like they did before.

If you enabled the theme changing feature on an unactivated Windows and want to revert the theme colors, you can use third-party tools for this. One example would be this: https://rammichael.com/getting-brighter-colors-in-windows-10