Question

I am looking to style my application with some graphic elements. Icons and other thinks.

Is it better from performance and best practise point of view to use vektor graphics (XAML) or turn my graphic to a PNG?

And Why?

I am aware of the fact that vector graphics are scaleable… this is just a performance questions on large xaml based apps.

Answer 1

You have to weigh your own needs. If it’s solely performance, then I’d say that depends on the number of images. If they’re a large number then XAML would indeed be more performant, otherwise it would be negligible.

But I have to say for sheer maintainability, especially since you’re talking about icons and such, you’re far better off with bitmaps and I’ll tell you why. Anyone and their brother can edit an icon. You can’t say the same with vector graphics. If you want to replace your icons at some point, you simply replace the image. You don’t have to go through the hassle of either creating and/or finding vector images and then (most likely) having to convert them to XAML through an export filter. Additionally, there are literally millions of CC licensed icons in bitmap form that you could use for nothing more than attribution.

Yes, there are some hassles with bitmaps (such as some quirks dealing with the ActualWidth/ActualHeight) from time-to-time, but those are minor, in my opinion.

ADDED: Yi-Lun Luo from Microsoft stated vectors are faster back in 2008. With the release of version 3 in 2009, Silverlight has taken advantage of the GPU which makes vectors even faster, if you enable it as well as if you also use BitmapCache. So on from a purely performance standpoint, vectors would be faster, theoretically.