Software rendering mode – WPF

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Here’s what we did:

private void Window_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    if (ForceSoftwareRendering)
    {
        HwndSource hwndSource = PresentationSource.FromVisual(this) as HwndSource;
        HwndTarget hwndTarget = hwndSource.CompositionTarget;
        hwndTarget.RenderMode = RenderMode.SoftwareOnly;
    }
}

It worked OK for us, EXCEPT… This needs to be done for every Window. In .NET 3.5 there was no way to make the setting take effect application-wide. And there are some windows that you won’t have as much control over – for example, right-click “context” windows. We found that there was no good solution for .NET 3.5 except the registry setting.

Edited

Here’s the logic we used to determine when to force software rendering. It was suggested by a Microsoft support engineer.

public bool ForceSoftwareRendering 
{
    get 
    { 
        int renderingTier = (System.Windows.Media.RenderCapability.Tier >> 16);
        return renderingTier == 0;
    }
}

In .NET 4 Microsoft added an application-wide setting that works perfectly for us. Its a much better option because you don’t need to set it on every window. You just set it once and it applies to all windows.

System.Windows.Media.RenderOptions.ProcessRenderMode

Edited

The new .NET 4.0 property can be set at application startup like this:

public partial class App : Application
{
    protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
    {
        if (ForceSoftwareRendering)
            RenderOptions.ProcessRenderMode = RenderMode.SoftwareOnly;
    }
}

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