My OS - Win98.

If I use a high-resolution (32 bit bitmap) image as desktop wallpaper, does that affect my pc's performance significantly? I mean, slowing down of pc, increased load on pc RESOURCES etc..In my experience, using large high definition pictures for my background slows down the loading of my desktop.
If the filesize is small however (less than say 100kb), it should be fine.I have never noticed any difference.
If the screen has to refresh the background it may be a tiny, tiny bit slower.
But.. if you WANT to MAC the sped you can shut off some other things that do slow it down a bit. In Windows XP, right click on My Computer and select PROPERTIES. Then advanced. Look for the performance box. Click Settings.

Thanks a lot for the hints, mates! If the wallpaper has to be below 100 KB, then I will have to use JPEG images. But the system prompts me that active desktop has to turned on if a JPEG is used for wallpaper. But I have a utility running in the background, that is,'TransText'. This utility doesn't work when active desktop is turned on. So I guess I will have to bear with bigger size of BMP wallpapers.