Okay, lets say i enjoy listening to a particular song from a video file i downloaded.
If i were to start the video but i minimized the player itself, am i causing the video card to work ?

I mean, if i leave it minimized for a long period and let it repeat itself over and over again, am i straining the video card unnecessarily ?

one way to find out is to check your video card temps. if the temp is higher during the minimized playback of a video file than its normal idle emp, then yes.. your vid card is being used during the video playback even while minimized.

I think your video card overheating... Better do not minimize it.

Minimizing videos will not have an impact on video card. the card will only render what are you seeing. That's why sometimes when you maximise a video, you can get a lag, ecspecially a large file. the video card is rerendering the file at the time.

So what i think is correct ? What i don't see (during minimized form) isn't rendered by the GPU ? Logically, i thought so. Just checking out.

Thanks.