Muffin1611
Banned
The feature isn't working. Nobody forced Microsoft to release it in this state. It has exactly one purpose, and does the opposite.
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Microsoft's Windows 10 "Game Mode" is bullshit and actually makes games perform worse
- Thread starter Jigolo
- Start date
The feature isn't working. Nobody forced Microsoft to release it in this state. It has exactly one purpose, and does the opposite.
Mufausa The 3rd
Member
Jesus.. I wonder if this could be part of the reasoning why the Asus laptops that were provided for my tournament last weekend were causing a shit ton of framerate issues for people. This is good to know. I have a meeting with a Microsoft rep on May 10th. So I will discuss this with them and let you all know. If anyone has any questions that they would like for me to ask them or inform them about. Please PM on GAF.
Hawk269
Member
So is this in Beta or is it actually released to the general public and it a main feature of the OS now?
This is a pretty creepy, do you always go to so much effort to find justification for disregarding counter arguments/reports?
It's released to the general public as part of the Creators Update.
Hey, I apologized for coming off strong. These threads on windows 10 features go a certain direction and there are usually a specific contingent of posters you start to recognize and I jumped the gun.
TheExecutive
Member
This is actually a thing? What was the sell on this? It's like admitting that their OS isn't optimized and that they don't feel like fixing it.
The OP makes this problem sound horrendous but from the video the average framerate of the games was largely the same. For whatever reason the minimum frame is lower but the average framerate stays the same, which means the game doesn't perform around that minimum frame pretty much ever.
Seems like a mountain out of a mole hill. I wouldn't use it, but whatever.
Seems like a mountain out of a mole hill. I wouldn't use it, but whatever.
PCs being general purpose, the hardware is utilized by software and OS features beyond a game, which on paper can be reduced to allocate more performance for the game, but in practice that's usually not so easy and maybe not a great idea.
Hawk269
Member
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the Creators Update something you have to opt into? I though it was something like testing upcoming new features that have not been pushed out to the general public like normal Windows update? Or am I wrong?
it's supposed to be a way of disabling all the non essential crap people might have running and freeing up some resources for games as they might need it.
BleedOrange
Banned
Lol. This post attracted some really interesting posters.
Something is clearly wrong, either in Game Mode or in the analysis.
Something is clearly wrong, either in Game Mode or in the analysis.
Fair enough, I did not see your update since it occurred as I responding.
Felix Lighter
Member
It's sole purpose is to improve performance.
Maximilian Kolbe
Member
Seems the result is complete different in a thread that opened at few weeks ago.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1360339
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1360339
It is the next major revision to win10, not an optional update.
You're thinking of the Windows Insider Program, where the Creators Update has been tested for awhile, but was pushed out to general consumers recently.
Yes, it fails at its purpose but if the average framerate didn't tank, then this is hardly "Microsoft releases update that RUINS games".
As an aside, I am a PC Gamer if that matters.
Hawk269
Member
Got it...that is exactly what I was confusing it with. Like anything new (software wise) like drivers etc. I usually wait before installing so they can work the kinks out.
So, essentially, the CPU usage reserved for the OS ends up being greater than the CPU usage that might otherwise be stolen by background activity (sometimes)?
I've had better luck using it with applications that lack exclusive full screen mode, like PCSX2.
For whatever reason, regardless of process priority, emulation or video settings, the application starts dropping frames after about 5 minutes of playing any game. It's not in-game slowdown or performance issues - PCSX2 reports a solid 60 fps framerate, and uncapping the framerate launches it into 200+ fps. The only way to correct the issue is to pause the emulator, minimize the window, and then maximize and unpause.
Game Mode partially alleviates the issue when enabled. PCSX2 automatically "recovers" shortly after the issue starts, but it's still annoying to have rock-solid 60 FPS games drop half of its frames when nothing strenuous is happening in-game.
Otherwise, yeah, I'd leave that shit disabled.
Great post, and helps make sense of why DX12 and well-threaded DX11 games (especially on Nvidia hardware) suffer from Game Mode.
For whatever reason, regardless of process priority, emulation or video settings, the application starts dropping frames after about 5 minutes of playing any game. It's not in-game slowdown or performance issues - PCSX2 reports a solid 60 fps framerate, and uncapping the framerate launches it into 200+ fps. The only way to correct the issue is to pause the emulator, minimize the window, and then maximize and unpause.
Game Mode partially alleviates the issue when enabled. PCSX2 automatically "recovers" shortly after the issue starts, but it's still annoying to have rock-solid 60 FPS games drop half of its frames when nothing strenuous is happening in-game.
Otherwise, yeah, I'd leave that shit disabled.
Great post, and helps make sense of why DX12 and well-threaded DX11 games (especially on Nvidia hardware) suffer from Game Mode.
ChaosShadow
Member
It reserves those cores/threads regardless of any activity that may or may not be present on them, so you will always have less cores available to the game itself. From what i know, the number of threads reserved depends on the total amount of threads on the system, but it will always be a net loss of total number of cores/threads available to the game as some are reserved for background processes.
This isn't huge for older games which aren't as threaded, but newer titles, especially those on DX12 (like BF1) or Vulkan are usually heavily multi threaded when it comes to CPU usage, so game mode is straight taking away some of those available resources, hence lower performance.
Maintenance
Member
Really?
On topic, no shit that Microsoft fucked up again. They should actually justify their "We actually invented DirectX" throaway speech for once.
It's kind of a misassumption of what nongame performace demands there are, then, for a well-configured and decently powerful system?
By hard-segregating resources only for the game, you're improving performance in the very rare circumstance where another process's CPU spikes would hurt the game, while nerfing performance in the very common situation where the game's demands spike heavily while background activity remains stable.
I imagine the the use case that spawned it is something like streaming with software encoding on a malware-laden toaster. I suppose it'd be good for that.
Alternately you could also write a better task scheduler or better UI glue around the one than exists, but that would be hard work.
This is basically what happens in most cases with mid to high end hardware (1-2% or negligible improvement). Other reviews have already confirmed this -- I'm not sure why this site is having issues and none of the other review didn't hit this also, but they are certainly the outlier that isn't getting the same results as other people.
CrypticMutation
Neo Member
Noticed the change right away after updating to the Creators update. Significant frame rate drops
You could actually put this post in any thread about any Microsoft PC gaming initiative over the last decade, and it would work exactly as well as it does here.
It's actually kind of amazing how they manage to fuck it up somehow LITERALLY every time.
Yyyyyup. I can't understand the impetus to push it out as-is.
I'm new be nice
Member
It seems a little strange to me to be calling them poison when they are literally the creators of the entire OS that houses such a prosperous library, though.
It's just such a large company that it's impossible for them to keep consistency across the entire spectrum of what they do.
Ricerocket
Member
As you say right now, game mode does nothing. It shows sporadic results that can't be seen as something anyone should ever enable. Clueless Pc users will see it and turn it on because it sounds great, GAME MODE! enable it now! That is where it seems bullshit like and Linus is right to call it out.
It's in the same class as software scammers will tell you to download their app for 200% improved performance*.
LinkSlayer64
Member
Well, once you reach the bottom, you can only go up I guess.
Hexa
Member
I don't understand this at all. It not just doesn't work, it does the opposite of what it was supposed to. If they released a placebo switch for game mode that didn't actually do anything, that would be better than this. This makes no sense to me. Why even release it in such a state?
LastGamer84
Member
My brand new rig has had nothing but problems since they pushed this update. Turning it on by default is just poor design, and MS should know better. No wonder my performance has gotten worse in the last few days.
But hey, MS knows best right?
But hey, MS knows best right?
Teknopathetic
Member
"It seems a little strange to me to be calling them poison when they are literally the creators of the entire OS that houses such a prosperous library, though.
It's just such a large company that it's impossible for them to keep consistency across the entire spectrum of what they do."
When almost every gaming initiative (I'll give them credit for pushing standardized gamepad implementation) they've pushed on the platform since 2006 has been the hottest of garbage, poison is apt.
It's just such a large company that it's impossible for them to keep consistency across the entire spectrum of what they do."
When almost every gaming initiative (I'll give them credit for pushing standardized gamepad implementation) they've pushed on the platform since 2006 has been the hottest of garbage, poison is apt.
Crayon
Member
Oh you have underestimated Microsoft's prowess.
lol 1997 is a long long time away. But yeah back then they almost deserved the 50 bucks. Almost.
dominate the market long enough to see yourself become the death of the market