I honestly have pretty good luck with DeskScapes on XP. Have a little trouble pulling some of the video dreams, but it is after all an old box, not a great video machine in any shape or form. The Hybrids and Dynamics run well with low cpu usage.
I'm just happy, grateful, and a little surprised that Stardock bothered/managed to get DeskScapes working on XP. When I saw Vista's DreamScenes and DeskScapes I thought "I like it, but I won't be seeing it in the near future." I think I might have actually foamed at the mouth just a little bit when the DeskScapes XP-compatible version came out.
That was one of those "pleasant little surprises" that comes along every once in awhile.