One of my biggest concern about myBoard are performance and framerate issues, and myBoard is definetely not as fluid as I want, and this is mainly due to the fact that myBoard make extensive use of BitmapEffects for visual effects such as shadow, or glow.
These effects are software rendered, which means that the CPU is in charge of images effects calculation in addition of all myBoard business logic. Even on my Dual Core E8400 + 2Go of ram, myBoard framerate sometimes drop under 10 ips while on the same machine I can run Crysis with much more details at a higher constant framerate.
And the reason why Crysis runs much better is because it relies on the GPU for effects calculations such as motion blur, bloom, HDR, shadow ect … these effects are known as vertex and pixel shaders and are heavily used in game developpement because they can greatly improve image realism at no CPU cost.
Now, where am I going with this ? Well as some of you know, myBoard is based on Microsoft presentation framework WPF 3.0, and Greg Schechter, WPF Architect, recently annouced that WPF 3.5 SP1 will include pixel shaders support. Actually, the 3.5 SP1 Beta is already out, so developpers can already start playing with pixel shading through WPF.

Since I’m new to pixel/vertex shading I’m trying to figure this thing out, then I’ll start to replace all software effects used in myBoard by hardware accelerated ones to improve performances. I’ll keep you updated