A feature request so rainmeter uses less of system resources

[YRS1999]

Most of us have a Rainmeter Widget that shows Animations, but they also take up a lot of system resources and make our system slow for eg Music Visualiser,
So can you add 2 things:

1st. is whenever any app is in full-screen mode or in other words desktop is not visible the animation or say that widget will be suspended/stopped and resume/start once the desktop is visible again!

2nd. is an option to add "whitelist apps" as the widget will only be loaded when the app in the whitelist is running this will also be a nice improvement, for eg. music visualizer, I only want it to run when I'm playing music(generally chrome/yt music and groove music) instead of every time a sound is played by any other app which uses a lot of resources!

Rainmeter is really nice app I hope you'll add these features to improve it even further.
ThankYou!

[SilverAzide]

Most of us have a Rainmeter Widget that shows Animations, but they also take up a lot of system resources and make our system slow for eg Music Visualiser,
So can you add 2 things:

1st. is whenever any app is in full-screen mode or in other words desktop is not visible the animation or say that widget will be suspended/stopped and resume/start once the desktop is visible again!

2nd. is an option to add "whitelist apps" as the widget will only be loaded when the app in the whitelist is running this will also be a nice improvement, for eg. music visualizer, I only want it to run when I'm playing music(generally chrome/yt music and groove music) instead of every time a sound is played by any other app which uses a lot of resources!

Rainmeter is really nice app I hope you'll add these features to improve it even further.
ThankYou!

Did you read the manual section regarding Game Mode?

[YRS1999]

Did you read the manual section regarding Game Mode?

No, but I did it now and also tried the game mode it it doesn't work properly like I added chrome.exe in the list it unloads everything even though I am on desktop and running chrome in the background, and instead of unloading and reloading everything it would be just faster and nicer to suspend the animations which take most of the resources, static widgets don't take that much resources so it's fine for me I think there should be tab like Suspend Animations under which we add app.exe for which we need to suspend them!

What do you think?

[death.crafter]

No, but I did it now and also tried the game mode it it doesn't work properly like I added chrome.exe in the list it unloads everything even though I am on desktop and running chrome in the background, and instead of unloading and reloading everything it would be just faster and nicer to suspend the animations which take most of the resources, static widgets don't take that much resources so it's fine for me I think there should be tab like Suspend Animations under which we add app.exe for which we need to suspend them!

What do you think?

It is not possible for Rainmeter to suspend the animations as skins kinda work independently. If you want to stop animations, then you gotta unload those skins.

Also GameMode doesn't care if you are running an app in the background, or foreground, it will unload the skins. And I don't think there is much use of pausing a skin in GameMode as it will take a lot of work for no reason. I mean Chrome isn't a game anyway.

[David8192]

No, but I did it now and also tried the game mode it it doesn't work properly like I added chrome.exe in the list it unloads everything even though I am on desktop and running chrome in the background, and instead of unloading and reloading everything it would be just faster and nicer to suspend the animations which take most of the resources, static widgets don't take that much resources so it's fine for me I think there should be tab like Suspend Animations under which we add app.exe for which we need to suspend them!

What do you think?

Another way would be to use a suite like this: https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=38518
Load everything except the visualizer. The little skin with a visualizer image will load the visualizer if you open a music player and unload it if you close the player. You don't have to lift a finger. I hope you can find something useful from it.

[Cariboudjan]

Hate it.

It would mean every time you went back and forth to the desktop there would be:

A) A delay between going to the desktop and when your skins would appear (Especially on slower machines)

B) Cause massive CPU spikes whenever the desktop is accessed, slowing down your PC.

If you want to do this on your end, it's as easy as using a separate skin that checks if Explorer.EXE is focused, and unloading/loading skins accordingly.

Also, if the skins you're using are causing THAT MUCH of a problem for performance, theyre probably really poorly designed skins.

[eclectic-tech]

No, but I did it now and also tried the game mode it it doesn't work properly like I added chrome.exe in the list it unloads everything even though I am on desktop and running chrome in the background, and instead of unloading and reloading everything it would be just faster and nicer to suspend the animations which take most of the resources, static widgets don't take that much resources so it's fine for me I think there should be tab like Suspend Animations under which we add app.exe for which we need to suspend them!

What do you think?

There is a plugin you can use to take actions when a process is running or not, it is the built-in Process plugin.

You can specify a process to monitor and take actions using IfCondition checks of the named process.

Since visualizers are the biggest drain, here is an invisible example skin that can monitor one of 25 different visualizer skins and deactivate/activate them based on whether the defined player process is running or not. It also monitors the sound level and deactivates the visualizer if the sound level drops below 0.00001 (during long pauses).

avm.png

Right-click the Rainmeter notification icon and navigate to the 'Custom skin actions' of this AudioVisualizerMonitor to select your visualizer.
The monitored visualizers and the player process can be defined in the skin's [Variables] section.
Currently, it has most of my skins defined...

[sl23]

I use the built in Process Plugin for several things. Here's some examples:

Running emulators displays a "Screensaver" background...

Code: Select all

[mProcessEmu]
Measure=Calc
Formula=1
IfCondition=(mProcessDolphin=1) || (mProcessPCSX2=1) || (mProcessRPCS3=1) || (mProcessN64=1) || (mProcessRetroArch=1)
IfTrueAction=[!ActivateConfig "RM\ScreenSaver" "ScreenSaver v2.ini"]
IfFalseAction=[!DeactivateConfig "RM\ScreenSaver" "ScreenSaver v2.ini"]

[mProcessDolphin]
Measure=Process
ProcessName=Dolphin.exe

[mProcessPCSX2]
Measure=Process
ProcessName=pcsx2.exe

[mProcessRPCS3]
Measure=Process
ProcessName=rpcs3.exe

[mProcessN64]
Measure=Process
ProcessName=Project64.exe

[mProcessRetroArch]
Measure=Process
ProcessName=retroarch.exe

Running Foobar or VLC disables meter groups within that skin...

Code: Select all

[mProcessFoobar]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=Process
ProcessName=foobar2000.exe
IfCondition=mProcessFoobar=1
IfTrueAction=[!DisableMeasure mConnection][!HideMeterGroup Clock] [!ShowMeterGroup Foobar] [!UpdateMeterGroup *] [!Redraw]
IfFalseAction=[!EnableMeasure mConnection][!HideMeterGroup Foobar] [!ShowMeterGroup Clock] [!UpdateMeterGroup *] [!Redraw]

[mProcessVLC]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=Process
ProcessName=VLC.exe
IfCondition=mProcessVLC=1
IfTrueAction=[!HideMeterGroup VLC] [!UpdateMeterGroup *] [!Redraw]
IfFalseAction=[!ShowMeterGroup VLC] [!UpdateMeterGroup *] [!Redraw]

Running specified apps via variables disables the clock's hourly chime...

Code: Select all

[mProcessDisableChime]
Measure=Calc
Formula=1
IfCondition=(mProcess1=1) || (mProcess2=1) || (mProcess3=1)
IfTrueAction=[!DisableMeasure mChimeHour][!SetOption ChimeIcon FontColor "#White60#"][!UpdateMeter *][!Redraw]
IfFalseAction=[!EnableMeasure mChimeHour][!SetOption ChimeIcon FontColor "#AquaDark#"][!UpdateMeter *][!Redraw]

[mProcess1]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=Process
ProcessName=#Process1#

[mProcess2]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=Process
ProcessName=#Process2#

[mProcess3]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=Process
ProcessName=#Process3#

So disabling FFT meter's should be simple enough. I don't think you can change the skin's Update rate in the Rainmeter section, but adding UpdateDivider to meters and using the Process plugin to change that to -1 so it doesn't update while certain processes are running can be done.

@eclectic-tech: so even when a visualiser isn't used and there's no sound, it still consumes the same CPU? Think I'll take my own advice then!

[eclectic-tech]

@eclectic-tech: so even when a visualizer isn't used and there's no sound, it still consumes the same CPU? Think I'll take my own advice then!

From my experience using the AudioLevel plugin, 'yes', there is only a slight decrease in CPU load whether sounds are active or not. This may not be true for simple visualizers that use shapes, but any that use images seem to load the CPU as long as the skin is loaded. Disabling or pausing the parent measure didn't help in my experience.

There may be other ways to do this, but to completely eliminate lag in other programs, caused by visualizers, I would recommend to unload the visualizer skin.

[sl23]

Oh ok, so you could have another skin load another skin when media players are opened