Active window (graphics query)

This is more out of curiosity than anything else, but whenever I have my SL window to the fore, the fan on my graphics card is in overdrive, whirring away like hell. However, if I keep the SL window open, but pull another window in front of it (even a small one, like my AIM buddy list, for example), the graphics card fan quietens down immediately.

The card is still having to render everything going on in the main SL window behind the AIM buddy list, so why does having another window (however small) as the active one make a difference to the fan's activity?

In case it makes a difference to my question, I'm using an NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT card. I'm also feeling pretty headachy and lousy today, so non-techie replies are appreciated

Having Second Life not as the "Active" top window actualy lowers the programs priority. You can actualy notice a much lower fps when it is not the top window infact.

Graphics cards temperatures do not change slowly, it's temperature can change quite dramatically in just a split second.

So what is happening is the card is being put under less load and cooling down considerably, the card senses this and adjusts the fan speed for maximum power efficiency.

Thanks, Dante (both for the reply and making it suitably non-headachy *g*). It's something that's been bugging me for a while, but I never thought to ask here for an answer until now.

This is interesting ... does this mean I could lower the priority of SL using the windows task manager? would that make a difference? is it a good idea?

my last laptop died because SL ate the graphics card.

I have the same card as the OP... Nvidia 8600.. and I get exactly the same. Glad to hear the explanation of an effect I had noticed too.

Imogen

Lowering or raising the priority of something manually is not really a good idea. The operating system does this automatically, but it is designed to do it.

Changing the priority of something can have seemingly random and sometimes negative effects, not only on the program in question, but everything running on your computer.