What's under the glass
Under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced:
ListviewShadow
1 = drop-shadow label icons on desktop/list views; on iGPU + Remote Desktop adds composition cost per redrawListviewAlphaSelect
1 = translucent blue marqueé; alpha composition every repaintWhere you actually feel it
- Thin client / RDP sessions — every pixel of translucency re-encodes.
- Multi-thousand-item folders where marquee + repaint dominate Explorer's render loop.
- Not: modern dGPU local use. There your flip is aesthetic, not a performance bolt-on.
Measure, don't argue
Before/after is one Explorer restart away; the perception-test is 30 seconds of “open a large folder, hover select,” not a benchmark suite. Undo is the documented default: 1 for both.
ProofTune ProjectEngineering notes — every claim here names the bytes a real tool touches. Verify first, install second.