I've been running Litestep for quite some time now with the Nonstep theme. Both of these have been updated for a while as well. For some reason, all of a sudden, I've been having various video issues which I just found out were related to Nonstep. I hadn't changed my video card, changed my drivers, moved files, or done crazy with Litestep/Nonstep but all of a sudden various title-bars were overlapping the little black bit of Nonstep's taskbar and this seems to be causing alot of issues, ie-slowdown in window'd games, lag when minimizing various maximized windows, etc. Is there anything anyone knows that could contribute to this? I've tried using other themes and they work fine, no slowdown, but the taskbar is overlapped still (which can cause issues with certain themes). Honestly, I love Nonstep and I want to keep using it so if anyone can help me out, it'd be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Also, yes, I've tried using different drivers, different themes (many of them), different games, and I've tried reinstalling Litestep and Nonstep entirely. =[

Thanks,
-K

So then... it isn't Nonstep? Have you changed your visual styles or other XP graphics settings? Altered hardware acceleration? Installed another program that might interact in a negative way?

Maybe I didn't explain this properly, it IS nonstep, but I've noticed the same sort of effect in other themes, with maximized windows overlapping taskbars and such. The difference is that only Nonstep creates minimize/window close-lag. I've tried altering video settings and whatnot. I'm not sure exactly what kind of options might help when changing visual styles. The thing I'm asking for is specific things that might help the situation.

Maximized windows extend slightly beyond the defined desktop area - that's just the way Windows does it. You can reduce the overlap by extending your desktop borders slightly (jdesk, desktop2) so that there is more space between the edge of the theme's elements (bar, etc.) and the windows. Non-maximized windows will then have a small gap there, maximized windows will fill the area completely. The overlap lag is probably due to a transparent or alpha-shaded component in the overlap region. That'll put more stress on your CPU and/or graphics card.

Thanks very much for the help! I'm not sure where to find these things but I'm sure Google will help me =]

I'd try the module documentation first.

I tried looking around for it but I'm not sure what I'm looking for. Terribly sorry for being a pest =[

Its odd because the problem seems to occur in a handful of themes and not in others. I can't figure out what the reasoning behind that is, and I'm not sure why my video card wouldn't be able to handle whatever issue it is. I'm running a 128MB Radeon 9800 Pro. A little outdated but still not that bad...

Also I'm not sure if this is important, but upon uninstalling old drivers and installing new ones, I receive an error message from Litestep saying something about "Loading a desktop module (desktop2 or jdesk) BEFORE xlabel (light)." I've no idea what this means but maybe someone can help?

EDIT: Its not the module load order, I read up and figured that out, it should be fine...

You should have the desktop module loaded before any "GUI" modules (those that have viusal elements, as opposed to just bangs/hotkeys, etc.). I believe that the actual load order for modules can be seen in the about box (!about, select 'Loaded modules'). If xlabel is being loaded first for some reason that may produce the errors you've seen. It's hard to tell much more without actually copying and using your whole setup.

I just took a looksie at it and it seems that its loading jkey first, followed immediately by jdesk and then xlabel. I'm thoroughly lost at this point, I've no idea what the issue is...

Do you have any window skinning applications loaded? Windowblinds? StyleXP?