i'm posting this in general, 'cause its a general question. this is something that, after using ODNT for a year, i never really saw a concise answer to. it's very simple. you might want to smack me with something:

with windowblinds and winfx, and desktopx, all applying visual effects like shadows and type smoothing, should you turn off the windows xp visual effects (system prop >> advanced >> performance >> visual effects) such as animate windows, fade or slide menus, shadows, smooth screne font edges? i'm concerned that they are 'overlapping'.. windowsfx may animate menus faster, but if windows is set to apply an effect, and winfx is applying the same effect, are we wasting performance?

the last time i tried turning off certain options in windows, to let windowblinds take over, i got funky results. but is there a general rule?

can OD take all of the work off of xp's shoulders?