I have noticed that mIRC tends to slowdown, a lot, after I start Windows Media Player, or any other program that displays overlayed video. I'll use WMP as an example for all these programs, since I use it most often. I have been playing around with this for a few weeks to make sure it's not something I'm doing wrong, but I can't isolate the cause.
Before starting WMP, mIRC willl easily scroll through a 200+ line MOTD in a few seconds, using little CPU. Though, after running WMP it can take sometimes almost 2 minutes to display the same MOTD. All the while chewing up near 100% CPU. The sluggishness remains even after WMP is closed, and also seems to affect other programs (including the start menu/explorer) while mIRC is viewable. When mIRC is minimized, other programs return to normal responsiveness, until mIRC is brought back into visibility. mIRC itself seems to update faster when not visible as well, leading me to believe the sluggishness lies somewhere in the way mIRC handles its display update. Toggling Fast Text Display produces little or no result.
This slugishness remains until I either reboot my system, or run a 3D game that grabs video from the system. Logging out, restarting mIRC, and changing video resolution doesn't solve the problem. It affects mIRC with and without scripts loaded, even on a fresh Window XP installation before drivers are installed. There is one exception, when running the same system with dual monitors, mIRC is uneffected by WMP. I remove the extra monitor and the problem starts reoccuring.
This wouldn't really be a problem, especially for MOTDs, except that I am often in channels with a high level of activity. If I then run WMP player for some reason, mIRC will happily start gobbling up all my CPU. I don't feel like running a game or rebooting every time this occurs.
If anyone can point out something that I may be missing, or if you have any questions about my setup, let me know. I am eager to squish this bug quickly.
