Windows 10 Game Mode: Free FPS Boost Of A Few Percent, With More To Come

Megalith

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Microsoft’s “Game Mode” for Windows 10 will supposedly be available for Insiders as early as tomorrow, and this Ars headline gets right to it in regards to what kind of performance improvement we can expect—the program manager for Xbox claims framerate increases of 2 to 5 percent. As suspected, Game Mode likely works by suspending background tasks and limiting the impact of multitasking through process priorities. The mode is reportedly being developed in “iterations,” which probably means we will see more novel ways of bettering performance as the feature ages. I think the most interesting comment is the idea that Microsoft is trying to make PC gaming more console-like in an effort to boost “predictability.”

The overarching goal is to make Windows 10 "the best operating system for games"—and critically, to make it more consistent, so that frame rates and performance are more predictable and uniform. Gamill said that when Game Mode is active, the operating system will tend to be biased toward allocating CPU and GPU resources to the game. Gammill didn't say this (and probably for good reason; there are segments of the PC gaming community that would regard the following as dirty words), but it sounds to us like the aim is to make PC gaming a little more, well, console-like. Console hardware is much more predictable than PC hardware, with developers knowing exactly how many processor cores and GPU shaders, and how much system memory, they'll have access to at any moment. Game Mode won't be turning the PC into a console any time soon, but it could start to provide a little more predictability.
 
I like that for some titles it will be on automatically. Eventually it will be as commonplace as using DirectX for the API.
 
I vaguely remember Microsoft touting this same "game mode" before Vista launched. It turned out to be just a myriad of general improvements to the OS like better multi-tasking, multi-threading, and superfetch and they dropped the "game mode" moniker after launch.
 
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cool ive been waiting to try this to see if it really does anything. the tick-box showed up two updates ago but still does nothing.

I 'm glad they are trying to improve game performance but then I'm glad I don't have to edit autoexec.bat, config.sys and himem.sys files.

PC gaming has come a long way and is a shit ton better.
lol oh the "good" old days :)
 
That picture has to be a joke. Unless it was an FW900 with Doom. Which would be a sweet combo. I miss my old Sony tank.

Anyway, I think they are moving the pc towards being more consolish too. Fine. Just fucking give me Madden back already. Only been a DECADE now.
 
That picture has to be a joke. Unless it was an FW900 with Doom. Which would be a sweet combo. I miss my old Sony tank.

Anyway, I think they are moving the pc towards being more consolish too. Fine. Just fucking give me Madden back already. Only been a DECADE now.
Would be cool to have Madden back. Would be cool if things were really in the game like they say to.
 
It's easy to see what they are going for, a standard set of processes that run in the background. That is what the predictability is. Turn off all of that shit HP printer crashing garbage and you'll have a stable system.

But that picture pretty much sums up the tricked win10 install people. "WHAT IS THIS FUCKING SHIT! GIMME BACK WHAT I HAD"! lol.
 
Lets hope it disables the windows key in fs applications
To me a game mode would be more about those annoying issues that can hit people while they are playing or doing power point presentations.

Updates disabled. Ask other applications to respect game mode, IE auto downloading updates pause. Hopefully antivirus can detect it and switch into their own game modes.

Oh I noticed they are saying windows+G is the shortcut, this should piss off NVidia, isn't shadow play running on that shortcut?
 
Lets hope it disables the windows key in fs applications
To me a game mode would be more about those annoying issues that can hit people while they are playing or doing power point presentations.

Updates disabled. Ask other applications to respect game mode, IE auto downloading updates pause. Hopefully antivirus can detect it and switch into their own game modes.

Oh I noticed they are saying windows+G is the shortcut, this should piss off NVidia, isn't shadow play running on that shortcut?

Alt-Z is shadowplay default I think
 
I 'm glad they are trying to improve game performance but then I'm glad I don't have to edit autoexec.bat, config.sys and himem.sys files.

PC gaming has come a long way and is a shit ton better.

Juggling IRQ and DMA settings and configuring them with jumpers!

On my old old 386, I had a modem that had to share IRQ with the serial mouse, and in Windows the only way to get the modem to work was to keep moving the mouse for the duration of the session.

However, it worked fine in DOS (Doom and Duke DeathMatch sessions)
 
If the photographer had pulled back a bit, we might have seen something interesting going on behind her.
Just sayin...
 
Microsoft’s “Game Mode” for Windows 10 will supposedly be available for Insiders as early as tomorrow, and this Ars headline gets right to it in regards to what kind of performance improvement we can expect—the program manager for Xbox claims framerate increases of 2 to 5 percent. As suspected, Game Mode likely works by suspending background tasks and limiting the impact of multitasking through process priorities. The mode is reportedly being developed in “iterations,” which probably means we will see more novel ways of bettering performance as the feature ages. I think the most interesting comment is the idea that Microsoft is trying to make PC gaming more console-like in an effort to boost “predictability.”

The overarching goal is to make Windows 10 "the best operating system for games"—and critically, to make it more consistent, so that frame rates and performance are more predictable and uniform. Gamill said that when Game Mode is active, the operating system will tend to be biased toward allocating CPU and GPU resources to the game. Gammill didn't say this (and probably for good reason; there are segments of the PC gaming community that would regard the following as dirty words), but it sounds to us like the aim is to make PC gaming a little more, well, console-like. Console hardware is much more predictable than PC hardware, with developers knowing exactly how many processor cores and GPU shaders, and how much system memory, they'll have access to at any moment. Game Mode won't be turning the PC into a console any time soon, but it could start to provide a little more predictability.

So if you disabled all the search related stuff and some other services ,you might actually already have game mode ;) . Would be nice if they disabled automatic upgrades during game mode maybe that bar is too high ;) .
 
So if you disabled all the search related stuff and some other services ,you might actually already have game mode ;) . Would be nice if they disabled automatic upgrades during game mode maybe that bar is too high ;) .

If Game Mode™ pauses telemetry uploading and disabled Windows 10 from rebooting you in the middle of your game for a forced update, that could be a real Game Changer™.

 
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I 'm glad they are trying to improve game performance but then I'm glad I don't have to edit autoexec.bat, config.sys and himem.sys files.

PC gaming has come a long way and is a shit ton better.

You can look at it the other way also how much did that force you to learn?

The kids today don't have that.

Doing that at 12 eventually lead me into an IT career.
 
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You can look at it the other way also how much did that force you to learn?

The kids today don't have that.

Doing that at 12 eventually let me into an IT career.
Are you implying computers no longer break or something? I'd argue Microsoft is forcing people to learn plenty.
 
Lets hope it disables the windows key in fs applications
To me a game mode would be more about those annoying issues that can hit people while they are playing or doing power point presentations.

Updates disabled. Ask other applications to respect game mode, IE auto downloading updates pause. Hopefully antivirus can detect it and switch into their own game modes.

Oh I noticed they are saying windows+G is the shortcut, this should piss off NVidia, isn't shadow play running on that shortcut?

Windows + G has been the game bar in windows 10 since launch. So Microsoft isn't changing anything with the use of that key, just changing what all options you get. Right now it starts to stream a game or records it. With the update it will do more.
 
I've seen this pic somewhere.... read an editorial som guy wrote on his mum, if I remember correctly she's irish. and it's an actual pic but the image on the screen has been changed.
Lemme' see if i can find it caus it was a good read, quite fun !
 
The caverat is you need to have the Xbox bar running.

upload_2017-1-26_11-41-6.png


It seems its just alterting process priorities and power plans.
 
Waiting for "New Win10 Game mode breaks twitch streaming, interestingly doesn't break facebook live integration" story to hit.

Also, I'm expecting under "learn more" that by turning on the option, you allow MS to track X, Y, and Z to "improve the experience".
 
I 'm glad they are trying to improve game performance
Its funny you think they're doing it to "improve game performance". More like... they are limiting user control under the vale of improving game "performance".

Microsoft - Taking away your options, one giant leap at a time!
 
So it disables microsofts virus's and bloatware to free up some cpu. WoW, that is so nice of them!

Why don't they offer a slimmed down version of 10 and charge for it?
 
If the PR says 2-5% you now its going to be
0-0% in 99% of the user cased
0-2% in .09% of the users cases
2-5% in 0,01 special made to improve the benefits case.

Soo yeah.



Obvios self advertising link for my free software for the same type of effect
https://hardforum.com/threads/project-mercury-cpu-priority-booster-for-heavy-multitaskers.1858462/

- Boost main process to above normalt priority
- Reduce minimezd applications to below normal priority
- Disable coreparking
- makes windows navigation faster to react
 
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