Is WPF Hardware-accelerated when Window AllowsTransparency = true?
.net, .net-4.5, c#, wpf
Solution
It seems that transparent windows (`AllowsTransparency = true`) are hardware accelerated for Windows Vista and upper: HW Acceleration of Layered Windows
There is also an hotfix to make it work under windows XP as well: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937106/en-us
Problem
I have been looking at making my own window frame in WPF, similar to Visual Studio. I have read that setting `AllowsTransparency = true` would force WPF to render in software-mode. This example is the source of my confusion (emphasis mine), which states: Complete customization of WPF window can be done only when AllowsTransparency is set to "True", which causes that the window is software rendered which might be not as fast GPU rendering. However, I've read elsewhere that with window layering you can have hardware-acceleration and this is what WPF does. I also find it hard to imagine that Visual Studio 2013 -with its custom frame and transparent border blur- would be software-rendered. Is there a definitive answer to the question (assuming Windows 7 onwards), Is WPF Hardware-accelerated when Window `AllowsTransparency` is true?