I like having Aero enabled when I have to work. Sometimes I like to play games though.
What's the performance hit on games? Is there a performance hit at all from using Aero?
Statistically, there is no performance hit.
There are numerous benchmarks that turning off Aero does not imporve frame rates. An often cited article is the Firing Squad article.
Another more recent article is the Lifehacker article.
You would think a bunch of computer geeks would know how to keep AERO on(technically the DWM) AND still play their games.
The technical explanation is that only one program can have exclusive control of the GPU. So the program can either ask DWM to disable itself, or it also does so by itself if a program tries to make a direct call to the primary graphics driver rather than, you know, crashing the system.
Yes, there most definitely is. Aero keeps taking away video memory that could otherwise have been spent on the game.