Stardock Releases New Windows XP Tools

Stardock has issued two important Windows XP-related releases; the first will help users ensure that they're getting the best video performance from Windows XP, while the second is a final beta release of the company's much-anticipated OS skinning application.

The first application, XBench, is freely available from the Stardock Web site. It addresses an issue the company discovered early in the XP beta, where most video drivers were poorly handling the new 2D features in the XP shell--such as alpha blending fade effects and shadows. XBench gives video card driver writers a chance to benchmark their software and improve them to work more effectively. Over the summer, companies such as ATI, Matrox, and NVidia used the program to improve their XP-compliant drivers, and the first NVidia entry is available today.

"Early in the beta of Windows XP we noted that many of the video cards weren't making good use of the new visual features of Windows XP," says Kris Kwilas, the Project Manager of XPBench at Stardock. "These new features, if accelerated by the video card could allow entirely new types of software and effects to be done on the PC without a performance penalty. So we created XPBench as a way to help video card manufacturers optimize their drivers for XP. We were very pleased to work with NVidia on their Detonator XP drivers. The difference in performance between their previous drivers and the new XP drivers are phenomenal,"

To test this, I ran the XBench application on the final build of Windows XP using the previous NVidia Detonator drivers, and then upgraded the system to the latest drivers, which are XP compliant. The results are astounding: The layered windows tests performed over ten times faster, while the overall benchmark score was almost four times as high.

Stardock's other recent release is the final beta of its upcoming WindowBlinds 3 product, which was beta tested under the name WindowBlinds XP. Using WindowBlinds 3, users are able to edit, create, and add their own skins (Visual Styles) to Windows XP from the Appearance Tab in display properties. Beta 6 is a major update in that it is based on the final version of Windows XP and uses the actual Visual Styles engine rather than its own for the controls. The final version will be rebranded as WindowBlinds 3 and work on Windows 98/ME/2000 as well as Windows XP.

"Users who like the new Windows XP look will eventually want to have more choices in how Windows XP looks," says WindowBlinds Product Manager Brad Wardell. "As it stands, users only get three choices--olive green, silver, and blue. With WindowBlinds XP, users can add any of the thousands of skins available for WindowBlinds and they are treated as native XP Visual Styles."

XBench can be downloaded for free from the XBench Web site. WindowBlinds XP Beta 3 is also available for free from the Stardock Web site. To download NVidia's new XP-compliant Detonator drivers, please visit the NVidia Web site.