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Mirage

Performance and Playback Strategy

The “Performance” section has two parts: playback rules (automatically adjusting playback in specific situations) and render quality.

Mirage performance settings with playback rules and render quality controls

Real interface: performance settings control both system-triggered playback behavior and scene-wallpaper render quality.

Playback rules

Section titled “Playback rules”

Mirage continuously monitors system state and automatically changes wallpaper playback behavior in the situations below. Each item can be set to its own action.

Trigger Available actions
Another app gains focus Keep running / Mute / Pause
Another app is full screen Keep running / Mute / Pause / Stop (free memory)
Another app plays audio Keep running / Mute / Pause
Display goes to sleep Keep running / Pause / Stop (free memory)
Laptop runs on battery Keep running / Pause / Stop (free memory)

What the actions mean:

  • Keep running: playback is unchanged.
  • Mute: keeps playing but muted.
  • Pause: freezes the frame (speed set to zero).
  • Stop (free memory): fully stops the render process to free RAM and VRAM.

Multiple triggers at once

Section titled “Multiple triggers at once”

When multiple triggers are met at the same time, Mirage applies the strongest action. The order from weakest to strongest is: Keep running < Mute < Pause < Stop. For example, if you’re on battery and another app is full screen, set to “Pause” and “Stop” respectively, Mirage actually performs “Stop”.

Render quality

Section titled “Render quality”

The quality options mainly affect scene wallpapers (SceneWallpaper).

Quality presets

Section titled “Quality presets”

A row of preset buttons applies a whole set of quality parameters in one click: Low / Medium / High / Ultra. They simultaneously adjust anti-aliasing, post-processing, texture resolution, reflections, and frame rate. After choosing a preset you can still fine-tune the individual options below.

Anti-aliasing

Section titled “Anti-aliasing”
  • Off
  • MSAA ×2
  • MSAA ×4
  • MSAA ×8

Anti-aliasing takes effect after switching wallpapers.

Frame rate

Section titled “Frame rate”

The frame rate is adjustable between 10 and 120 and takes effect in real time.

  • Above 30, a note warns that a higher frame rate increases power draw.
  • Above 60, a red warning appears, as an excessively high frame rate significantly increases power draw and resource usage.

For most live wallpapers, 30 FPS is smooth enough and more power-efficient.

Audio spectrum

Section titled “Audio spectrum”

“Enable audio spectrum (web wallpapers)” controls whether audio spectrum data is provided to web wallpapers for audio visualization.

Section titled “Related settings”
  • Global volume and global mute are in General and audio settings.
  • More advanced options like process priority, pausing when VRAM is exhausted, and restarting after a crash are in the advanced options of Settings.