gileli121
commented
1 year ago Done. Version for testing: WindowTop 5.19.0-beta1 - setup.exe.zip
Dark mode renderer
- Use Direct2D native APIs (built-in in any standard GPU) to implement the inverted color effect
- Use more native Direct2D APIs (such as getting an image histogram) to calculate the amount of light from a window efficiently. This is needed when the "Auto disable" option is enabled (the dark mode will be disabled when the window is already dark)
- When the option "filter images" is disabled, the whole process is implemented by the GPU, and nothing is done by the CPU (The CPU does not handle any image processing logic such as shape detection or light detection. All is done natively by making smart usage of available GPU features by Direct2D APIs)
- When the option "filter images" is enabled, the CPU does this extra process of detecting the images. Even in this process, a small part of it uses Direct2D API for "learning" the window frame colors
- The calculation of the image-detection algorithm is more accurate thanks to Direct2D API (Images will be detected more accurately)
- The rendering performances improved dramatically - 20-30 FPS to 60FPS or more and no need for NVIDIA & CUDA GPU
- The option to enable CUDA acceleration is removed because default by Direct2D does acceleration
- The feature "Glass" removed because it was never worked stable, and no one used it anyway
- Fixed: When closing windows in dark mode, an empty frame is left on the screen that cannot be moved or closed (#257)
- Fixed: Window position in the maximized state when dark mode is on (#256)
- Fixed: When enabling dark mode and set-top, the border for the always-on-top is invisible
- Fixed: When the renderer crash, the app fails to start again.
- Fixed: Bug in the toolbar settings that when enabling/disabling the button, the toolbar preview does not update with the new selected buttons to show
- Changed: The toolbar settings page was a little changed.
This task is a subtest of the main goal - to improve the performance of these effects. The main mission is #105 In this task, I will implement the method to optimize the performance by using the Direct2D API
I found a new way how to improve the rendering performances! Until a few days ago, I was unaware of how to invert the colors of 8,294,400 pixels (the amount in 4K resolution) in GPU without using NVIDIA CUDA API (which requires NVIDIA GPU).
And recently, I found a way to do it! In Direct2D API, there is a GPU-accelerated method to do that, and because it is Direct2D, it is not exclusive to NVIDIA GPUs! It will work on even regular Intel GPUs. This finding means that every computer will use the GPU for this effect. Great stuff!
I made a POC that proves that it is possible to get 60+ frames per second on 4K using just intel GPU, and this is instead of 20-30 FPS.
Not only that, but this finding also comes with a new optimization advantage: because the OS API also does not send the captured frame to the CPU and because Direct2D will do its magic in GPU, now, unlike before, we will never need to move any frame data to CPU (unless the "filter images" option is enabled) so this fact also will help. This will also reduce a lot of battery usage because everything will be done natively by the GPU!
The idea in the message above (To use DOM API) may still be worth checking after this finding. It is still relevant because it tries to optimize the performances when the "filter images" option is enabled.
Originally posted by @gileli121 in https://github.com/BiGilSoft/WindowTop/issues/105#issuecomment-1263320841