More details on Windows 10 coming up Game Mode.

[GoodBytes]

Microsoft shares some details a bit the new "Game Mode" that will be released with the Creator Update.

While we don't know what exactly happens in the back, it is similar to how the XBox One works when enabled, based on their explanations. However, the company say that the feature is still in development, and will continue to be after it is released. So keep in mind that details mentioned here can change.

 

 

Game Mode priorities a games running on the system, stopping and reducing priorities all processes on the back at an aggressive level that is happening behind the game. This applies only if the game is visible on your screen. If you focus on another window, or you minimize the game, Windows will disable Game Mode until the game is refocused.

 

 Ars says:

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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. [Kevin Gammill, Partner Group Program Manager for the Xbox Platform] said that when Game Mode is active the operating system will tend to be biased toward allocating CPU and GPU resources to the game.

 

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The Creators Update will contain the first iteration of Game Mode, but it shouldn't be the last. What that first iteration actually does is still something of a mystery. Gammill refused to be drawn into specifics, but he said that it was something along the lines of suspending or deferring unnecessary background tasks and using process priorities and processor affinity to limit any performance impact of multitasking.

 

Game Mode is available for both Win32 and UWP (Universal Apps) made games. Both will see a performance boost of some kind (or more stable fps). However, UWP will get a bigger boost. That said, keep in mind  that UWP app are at a higher level than Win32 apps in terms of layers between the app/game and the hardware. However, as UWP has a big part that is the same for all games, Microsoft can optimize more there. So it is safe to assume that the task is handed down to developers of the games made for Win32.

 

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Game Mode will work for both traditional Win32 games and new Universal Windows Platform (UWP) games sold through the Windows Store. Gammill said that both types of game will see gains, but that UWP games may see slightly better numbers. Win32 games can do things like create multiple processes (often used by games with special launchers or copy protection) or install background services, and these are invisible to Game Mode, so they may not be properly optimized. UWP games can't do these things, so they don't suffer the same problem.

 

The feature will support all games. It is not something that game developers needs to implement. And by default, on tested games, the feature will be enabled by default.

 

The feature is recommended to be disabled if the game has issues (obviously), or if you want to do something else in the back while you game.

Microsoft shares that, currently, Notifications, Cortana, and other important Windows task will continue to run on the back when this feature is enabled. However this may change at a later date, the company is still evaluating everything, and again, it could change after Creators Update is released.

 

Microsoft is working with Nvidia, AMD and Intel on this feature.

Windows Central says:

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Microsoft is working with their hardware partners, including Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA, to make sure Game Mode is as good as it can be.

 

Insiders Fast Ring should be able to enjoy this feature starting the next build release. It should be coming this week or early next if all goes well.

 

Introduction Video: (contains no comparison performance, if you wonder):

 

Source 1: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/01/windows-10-game-mode-a-free-fps-boost-of-a-few-percent-with-more-to-come/

Source 2: http://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-game-mode

 

Are you exciting for this new Game Mode feature?

[Electronics Wizardy]

There have been many a program that disables background processes to try to make games faster, with normally no difference(or less than a few percent). How will this do if differently.

[Sir Asvald]

Btw, you have a typo in the title.  

 

 

[2FA]

I'm pretty sure this will only help if you have seriously crappy hardware.

[themaniac]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

There have been many a program that disables background processes to try to make games faster, with normally no difference(or less than a few percent). How will this do if differently.

my guess that it will be able to lower the priority of stuff built into the OS

[Mira Yurizaki]

I experimented with this, and found it makes almost zero to a tiny difference. At least on a high-end machine:

I even experimented with setting the game's priority to real-time, so that it's always going to go ahead of most other programs, but it had almost no effect except in one game, but it was a negligible benefit. So I have no idea what Microsoft could do to make performance better. I'm going to lean on the belief that this sort of thing will only affect those with lower-end machines.

 

[manikyath]

20 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

There have been many a program that disables background processes to try to make games faster, with normally no difference(or less than a few percent). How will this do if differently.

if i'd have to guess how, i guess this would have hooks into the vareous hidden workings of windows, and can command them to either stop completely (for example checking for updates, scanning for virusses, etc.) or if they cannot stop completely, command them to be less resource intensive (for example, explorer.exe could be instructed to invest less resources into smooth operation during a time it would not be expecting interaction anways.)

[SageOfSpice]

so that frame rates and performance are more predictable and uniform. 

 

I think it has much less to do with increasing FPS and utilizing the hardware better so much as it has to do with preventing benign Windows requests from hogging system resources. In theory this would mean that process time wouldn't have to be delegated the same way, it would simply be made available which would decrease latency and increase the consistency and fluidity. More system memory could be made available which in theory could be the difference between some games having to dip into virtual memory and whatnot.

 

There is a bit to be gained from this on unoptimized systems. I also think it's a good step in the right direction for games and programs on the whole. I have no problems with Windows getting their OS out of the way of what I want to do. As with all things they tend to do though, they're going to have to break everything first.

[GoodBytes]

42 minutes ago, Abdul201588 said:

Btw, you have a typo in the title.

GoodBytes the illusionist... as you can see there is no more typo!

Thank you! thank you! I'll be here all night with more illusions!

 

thanks!

[CoolMarquis97]

Yeah really can't see this doing much. Still a nice feature though ! 

[MageTank]

2 hours ago, SageOfSpice said:

so that frame rates and performance are more predictable and uniform. 

 

I think it has much less to do with increasing FPS and utilizing the hardware better so much as it has to do with preventing benign Windows requests from hogging system resources. In theory this would mean that process time wouldn't have to be delegated the same way, it would simply be made available which would decrease latency and increase the consistency and fluidity. More system memory could be made available which in theory could be the difference between some games having to dip into virtual memory and whatnot.

 

There is a bit to be gained from this on unoptimized systems. I also think it's a good step in the right direction for games and programs on the whole. I have no problems with Windows getting their OS out of the way of what I want to do. As with all things they tend to do though, they're going to have to break everything first.

Yeah, I imagine this will mostly be for minimum framerate dips in situations where a background task starts to use additional CPU resources during a game. Windows Defender is often guilty of this, so much so that I disable it often when gaming for long unpredictable sessions. 

 

Anything that helps with minimum framerates, no matter how small, is a welcomed boon. 

[Doobeedoo]

Really nice, glad they made this and it's intended to work without a fuss. Also I'm interesting to see how it manages with streaming a game with OBS too, though I guess it will prioritize it alongside a game too. Good to know they will continue actively working on it also.

[Zodiark1593]

While they're at it, can they also fix their DirectDraw support? 

[Dabombinable]

This probably won't do much for those with i7....

[zMeul]

4 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Are you exciting for this new Game Mode feature?

not in the slightest

• there are other software solutions out there and some are quite old and don't require you to run W10 nor being logged in into an online account
• I have no intention of wasting my time and money on UWP games

 

- process priority -

I have toyed with this on different occasions and discovered that setting a process priority higher than "Above Normal" interferes with Windows' own operation and also affects network transfers

setting process priority to "Above Normal" in some cases can lead to a more uniform CPU usage and more stable framerate - but it's case to case dependent and won't affect everyone's system the same

it works on XB1 because the target machine is always the same

 

- affinity - 

if the software allows moving/selecting core# affinity, it can have a notable impact on single threaded games by moving them from core 0 where Windows does it's business - but only for single threaded games

it can also be used on some circumstances where the target machine has way more threads to work with, by confining recording software (for example) to select number of threads

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

While they're at it, can they also fix their DirectDraw support? 

They won't, because it's been replaced by Direct2D.

 

Edit: On that note, according to Wikipedia, DirectDraw has been deprecated since DirectX 7 and is no longer included in development kits since 2010. So anything modern that uses it really should get on with the times.

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, M.Yurizaki said:

They won't, because it's been replaced by Direct2D.

 

Edit: On that note, according to Wikipedia, DirectDraw has been deprecated since DirectX 7 and is no longer included in development kits since 2010. So anything modern that uses it really should get on with the times.

There are a couple games I want to play that are DirectDraw, though as the companies no longer operate, Direct2D is not a possibility. DirectDraw emulation worked fine up to Windows 7. Windows 8 and beyond however, framerate is horrible in DirectDraw games, something like 10-13 fps. 

[mach]

If this can stop random lag spikes on win 10 it's gold.

Because even though I have perfectly capable hardware, there are some lag spikes which last 1 second or so, happening from time to time. No big deal but not perfect. I believe that's a win 10 problem.

[Trik'Stari]

And will the telemetry be stopped, to allow the game, possibly an online game, to have some bandwidth?

 

I find this particularly important, as I have a shit internet connect which is unlikely to improve anytime soon (thank's a lot Century Link. How such a shit company managed to buy out Level 3 Communications is beyond me. We need to end this allowed "limited monopoly" practice and mandate that ISP's compete)

[Humbug]

Well good luck to them.

 

But tbh I think it's 15 years too late. This should have come in the Athlon64 / Pentium 4 era at latest.

Our PCs now are so powerful and are basically designed to effectively run multiple programs in parallel... And things are only going to go further in that direction.

[Techicolors]

I'm getting vibes from IObit Game Booster and Razer Game Booster.. 

[BuckGup]

Does this change the priority of games? When you changed GTA V to high priority you got a solid 10-20 more FPS.

[Drak3]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

And will the telemetry be stopped, to allow the game, possibly an online game, to have some bandwidth?

 

I find this particularly important, as I have a shit internet connect which is unlikely to improve anytime soon (thank's a lot Century Link. How such a shit company managed to buy out Level 3 Communications is beyond me. We need to end this allowed "limited monopoly" practice and mandate that ISP's compete)

They managed to do so becuase they use very untrustworthy Marketing firms to scam their customers into using their services. I worked for one about a week before leaving, because I won't lie to the consumers on the behalf of a company like CenturyLink.

[zMeul]

4 hours ago, Technicolors said:

I'm getting vibes from IObit Game Booster and Razer Game Booster.. 

it's basically the same thing

[LAwLz]

Great... Another thing to disable after a fresh install.

I really doubt this will make any difference except on really low end machines, or in some very very rare cases. Or maybe I am overestimating the average user and they run a billion spyware programs in the background, while simulations only having slightly above the minimum CPU requirement for the game.