Bugged acrylic behaviour in Windows 11

JohnnyGui · Apr 29, 2022

I noticed that an active window/app always shows the acrylic effect with the colors of the desktop background even when there are windows/apps behind it blocking the desktop background.

My desktop has green colors and as you can see the Settings app is showing green hues even though Edge is blocking the desktop from behind.

Does anyone else have this issue?

valinet · Apr 30, 2022

It’s not bugged, it’s that way by design. And it’s not acrylic, they call this Mica material. Read more in the official guidelines: Mica material - Windows apps

JohnnyGui · Apr 30, 2022

valinet said:
It’s not bugged, it’s that way by design. And it’s not acrylic, they call this Mica material. Read more in the official guidelines: Mica material - Windows apps

Thanks for the reply. I recall Windows 10 showing the colors of the windows behind the active windows instead which would seem more natural and logical to me.

valinet · Apr 30, 2022

That's how Microsoft envisioned this. From a computational perspective, Mica is arguably less resource intensive than acrylic - a redraw of the backdrop brush is necessary only when the wallpaper changes, as opposed to when anything in the background changes.

Acrylic/Aero is indeed nice, but it really is just a gimmick that's not really needed. The thing is, it wastes power needlessly - the screen has to redraw when the slightest thing changes just to have some eye candy effect. Opaque windows are more ecological and really, they can look fine just as well, if not better. If you think about it, why waste computational cycles for something that's not really necessary. The power savings are also much more important on portable computers, which we know struggle already with battery life, because of Intel and Qualcomm's chip designs.

JohnnyGui · Apr 30, 2022

valinet said:
That's how Microsoft envisioned this. From a computational perspective, Mica is arguably less resource intensive than acrylic - a redraw of the backdrop brush is necessary only when the wallpaper changes, as opposed to when anything in the background changes.

Acrylic/Aero is indeed nice, but it really is just a gimmick that's not really needed. The thing is, it wastes power needlessly - the screen has to redraw when the slightest thing changes just to have some eye candy effect. Opaque windows are more ecological and really, they can look fine just as well, if not better. If you think about it, why waste computational cycles for something that's not really necessary. The power savings are also much more important on portable computers, which we know struggle already with battery life, because of Intel and Qualcomm's chip designs.

Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense performance wise.

@valinet I noticed that the Start menu does show colors of apps/windows in the background for some reason.

valinet · May 3, 2022

JohnnyGui said:
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense performance wise.

@valinet I noticed that the Start menu does show colors of apps/windows in the background for some reason.

Yeah, I am not Microsoft, I find it difficult as well to understand some of their decisions, to be honest. Glad I was of help.

Bugged acrylic behaviour in Windows 11

JohnnyGui

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valinet

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JohnnyGui

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valinet

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JohnnyGui

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valinet

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