Well it's been in 7.8 and 7.9 catalysts and from another thread on here it looks like the problem has been there since version 7.5 onwards. It's annoying because the 7.9 finally gave me the overscan option I've been wanting since forever!
I have a Shuttle SB83G5M with Intel 900 Graphics + 3.2P4 + 1GB DDR + Hauppage 1100 and the fullscreen UI isn't too bad, but when I go to My TV the TV image is very choppy (it is smooth when I go fullscreen TV). It is also bad when it puts the transparent info on top of the TV image. I am running at 1650x1080. Soon to be getting a 1920x1200 screen. I did a BIOS update which allowed me to allocate 240Mb to video rather than just 128, but it didn't help much.
You reckon it is my video card? Or the system RAM? I am going to get the latest Intel drivers and see if things improve. My budget is shot so a new vid card will just have to wait.
The problem alot of are having is with the ATI catalyst drivers so it's possible it's a driver issue for you as well. The characterists you describe are the exact problem I was having until i downgraded.
I have the very same problem when running MP RC3 on a Intel Extreme (embedded 845 chipset, I believe) - mini-itx boxes.
Funnily enough, it seemed perfectly fine with MP RC2
Something has changed with this build to make the UI really clunky, or to hit the graphics chip a lot harder.
Problem is, I have 10 of the same machines around the house, and in 3 friends houses too.. meaning that I can't upgrade them to RC3, because it will render all of our systems unusable :-(
As I said, RC2 seems pefectly fine.. Can anyone offer a solution (other than replacing the hardware!) or maybe what has changed specifically with RC3, and if I can undo only that particular change?
Having had the same problem, I can say that it is definately due to your graphics card/drivers. I just upgraded my Intel 900 integrated Graphics to a 7600GS and all skins now work very smoothly.
Before I upgraded I also noted that some skins are very slow and process hungry. The only ones I could get to run smoothly was BlueTwo (regular), and the BlackMyst (4:3) skin.
There was also one point where I installed a shed load of plugins and made a bunch of changes to the configuration and it all started to go wrong. It definitely worth doing a full and thorough uninstall and reinstall. Good luck!