Windows 10 could get a performance-enhancing 'game mode'

[Cracken]

If it's exclusive to games from Store then it's useless.

Let's get one thing straight: Windows doesn't enhance games. Games enhance Windows.

Without games, you might as well draw the blinds and install Linux.

Agree, if ms didnt have directx I would never run windows on anything

 

[GreenNova343]

If gamers move to linux I don't see my current CTO holding a staff meeting saying we are throwing all the windows desktops ,servers, application licenses out to go all linux because that's what the kids are using.

You are thinking too short term. Kids grow up and use what they grew up with. I didn't say it would happen over night.

Not every kid grows up to use "what they used when they were kids".

If that were the case, I would never have bought a Windows PC in my entire life. Although my parent's first "real" PC (that was used as an actual PC, rather than a glorified word processor/stand-in for the Colecovision console -- our first actual home PC was the Adam, complete with daisy wheel printer & cassette tape drive), the first PC I ever used (& used quite a bit in school) was Apple: first the Apple II+/IIe in elementary school, then a short veer-off to the Commodore 64 in middle school (that's what the "computer lab" had, think glorified & expanded broom closet), then back to Apple IIes in high school -- although we ended up getting the first Macs as part of that "collect your box tops" program.

Yet today, while I can work on a Mac, I find it much more difficult to work with than a Windows PC. Probably because, when I became an adult & went to college, those Macs started disappearing (at the first college I attended, of the 20+ some computer labs on campus, only 1 or 2 actually had Macs, & even then they were split 50/50; at my second college, there were no Macs to be found, just PCs rocking Windows 3.1, then later Windows 95). Even at the college my wife teaches at, there are very, very few Apple PCs there -- & over 90% of them are issued to instructors for their use in the classroom (both in Macbook & iPad format), not for the use of the student population.

Not to mention that people can be "gamers" who have never touched a PC in their life. Of my 4 nephews, 2 of them are "gamers" who primarily game on game consoles (mostly FPS shooters on XBox 360), & are secondary "gamers" on their iPads...but I don't think they've really used a PC, let alone done any gaming on it (& have no idea why WASD & 2-button mice are so important in FPS shooters). Their dad is the same way; although he uses a PC quite a bit (especially when he was in charge of the maintenance guys in his unit while in the service), & plays on the XBox quite a bit with them, he hasn't played a PC game for some time (last time might have been the late 1990s, one of the old Windows 3.1 Formula 1 racing games). The other 2, however, are like me & their father: avid PC gamers (my brother-in-law & I would spend a lot of time when we got together for family things hooking our PCs together to play Starcraft or Age of Empires I & II; nowadays, we still play Rise of Nations, Age of Empires III, & -- before Windows 7 ganked it up -- MechWarrior 4; used to play SWAT 3 & 4, but he thought the language & blood was a bit much for the kids), with a little bit of gaming on our Wiis. So, you can have "gamers" that might not even know what the term "operating system" is (nor why there are such crucial differences between Windows, Mac OS X, & the various flavors of Linux), or you could have "gamers" that actually know their way around a PC.

And that brings up the final point: we usually don't control the hardware/software decisions. Maybe you're lucky enough to work at a company where the "IT Deparment" is actually the entire company. Maybe you work at a company where they really do grant the various divisions full autonomy in deciding what hardware & software they're going to use (although I'd hate to work in that IT department). But for the vast majority of us, the organization we work for either has specific guidelines for what hardware & software can be purchased (as determined by said IT department), or the IT department has been told that, as long as they can keep everything running semi-smoothly, their main consideration is going to be the cost (both up-front & ongoing for support). Which is why the vast majority of offices don't run on Macs: for the cost of purchasing 2-3 Macs, you can usually buy 3-5 Wintel/LInux-capable platforms with comparable hardware (the core i5/i7 chips running those Macs, after all, are the same models available to both other OEMs & DIY types). And until Linux can get to the point that 90% of the Windows/Mac OS X software is available for Linux -- or at least really, really good alternatives (not "well, App B for Linux kind of works like App A for Windows, but it doesn't have features G, H, X, & Y, & you have to use a 3rd program to convert the save files over to the new format..."). And yes, that's important, because the more changes you make to your apps, the more time the company has to spend on retraining the employees to use the new apps. Heck, I remember when we switched over from Office 2003 to Office 2010 at work, & they made available to us some DIY training aids & online training courses to spotlight the changes made between the versions. While my co-workers use a PC in their daily work, I would say that for various reasons the majority of them are not what you can call "computer savvy", or even "comfortable" with computers. Which is why I don't use Apple computers for work like I did in school as a kid: the companies & organizations I worked for & currently work for do not use Apple products, so I have no choice in the matter.

Let's face it: we gamers, computer geeks/nerds, & DIY PC builders are still in the vast minority. And even among us, only a literal handful can end up being a Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Elon Musk, starting their company from scratch & therefore having the power to decide what flavor of PC we want to utilize. The rest of us are subject to the decrees & whims of our bosses, & most of them don't see any correlation between gaming trends (PC or console) & the needs of their operations.

 

[Puiu]

Cool! Can we also get a "non-insane" mode that mimics Windows 7 (without the useless "command bar" in Explorer) to go with that?

you can easily remove that "command bar". (right click --> cortana --> hidden)
as for the "non-insane" mode... you have an UI that is several times faster than windows 7. if you want that slow *** win 7 aero theme then you can just install it from third party sources.

As for the "gaming mode", it reminds of some of the programs that used to turn off services and other things on windows 7/xp, although most didn't really help at all and did more harm than good.

If they make it windows store only then I'm sure there will be some hacks to enable it, but hopefully it will work with everything.

 

[Kibaruk]

Jesus... techspot comments: bash on microsoft, bash on nintendo, bash on apple, bash on trump, bash on everything that moves, types, or reads... it's all bashing, and it's getting really old really fast.

Most of the comments have nothing to do on topic. It's not even fun to reply anymore.

I remember game booster, it let you select which things you wanted to kill in the background, all that "bloat" that apparently didn't exist in W95, XP, or 7, exclusive to the rest of the versions. Maybe people forgot all the boot.ini and regedit "hacks" to really squeeze that whole quarter or half a gig of ram...

"Back in the good ol' days the gallon of gas was in the cents and children as young as 9 smoked and drank whiskey, they were tougher and lived longer"...

 

[cliffordcooley]

Maybe people forgot all the boot.ini and regedit "hacks" to really squeeze that whole quarter or half a gig of ram...

Lets take it back a little further and talk about "EMM386.EXE" and "HIMEM.SYS".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_memory_area

In DOS memory management, the upper memory area (UMA) refers to memory between the addresses of 640 KB and 1024 KB (0xA0000–0xFFFFF) in an IBM PC or compatible. IBM reserved the uppermost 384 KB of the 8088 CPU's 1024 KB address space for ROM, RAM on peripherals, and memory-mapped input/output. For example, the monochrome video memory area runs from 704 to 736 KB (0xB0000–B7FFF).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMM386

EMM386.EXE can map memory into unused blocks in the upper memory area (UMA), allowing device drivers and TSRs to be "loaded high", preserving conventional memory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIMEM.SYS

HIMEM.SYS is a DOS device driver which allows DOS programs to store data in extended memory via the Extended Memory Specification (XMS). This device driver is of particular importance because various versions of Microsoft Windows that ran on top of the DOS operating system required HIMEM.SYS to be loaded to be able to run.

As of MS-DOS 5.0, HIMEM.SYS was introduced and could be used to load the DOS kernel code into the High Memory Area (HMA) to increase the amount of available conventional memory by specifying DOS=HIGH in CONFIG.SYS.

Now those were the days of squeezing out performance. Although this day and age we might question, why we ever thought it was an accomplishment. Back then it was frustratingly painful, getting it all to work the way you wanted.


.

 

[Kibaruk]

Lets take it back a little further and talk about "EMM386.EXE" and "HIMEM.SYS".

Point was... people complain and bash for the sake of complaining and bashing, talk about the "glory days" and they don't remember how hard it was to get the computer under 4 whole minutes to boot and a couple more to be ready to use, yet now everything is "bloat".

 

[cliffordcooley]

Point was...

Yeah I know. You just struck a nostalgic nerve and I had to start talking about my good ole days. lol

Perhaps that is the problem. I miss setting everything up myself and resent having to continually remove startup processes.

 

[JudasSheep]

I have often said MS needs to make a "Gamer" version of Windows. A streamlined version (or at least given to the ability to choose what is installed with the OS) that doesn't have useless things running because MS thinks everyone wants it. I had hope for Steam OS that is would be able to take over as the OS of choice for gamers. Linux is capable of being the OS we all want, but if it doesn't have the support from the studios making the games, then its a moot point. Hopefully, some day someone will wake up and realize there is a market for a Gamer OS.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

I have often said MS needs to make a "Gamer" version of Windows. A streamlined version (or at least given to the ability to choose what is installed with the OS) that doesn't have useless things running because MS thinks everyone wants it. I had hope for Steam OS that is would be able to take over as the OS of choice for gamers. Linux is capable of being the OS we all want, but if it doesn't have the support from the studios making the games, then its a moot point. Hopefully, some day someone will wake up and realize there is a market for a Gamer OS.

Why don't they just make an "XBOX OS" so we can install it on any PC?

 

[JaredTheDragon]

I'd love to argue with you on that, but I feel as if you are correct. Windows would die if the gaming world shifted to Linux. Because one by one everything else non-game wise would follow suite.

Yeah it's like, outside of games... What else is there, besides software whose only right to exist comes from companies who can't bother to make their "industry-leading" lines of code work on other platforms, because they wouldn't make as much money that way or something.

Then people would perhaps eventually start to realize how lame windows really is, when you compare it to more decent OS's - even MacOS.

I would love to argue with you too! But you're much more intelligent and kind than me, so I don't want to, because I would just lose.

It seems like you're not aware of the auto industry, the architectural/construction field, the art field, the photography field, the video creation and editing field, CGI, accounting, or any other professional field that uses a computer. Adobe is worth more than EA, and Autodesk is worth as much as EA, for a couple examples. Sure, there may be some crossover sales for Macs, but most of their revenue comes from Windows users - since most people use Windows. There's absolutely no reason to use a Mac in any of these fields other than stubborn ignorance. Outdated hardware, wimpy operating system, and so slow.

 

[Nobina]

By the way if they implement this it would be really cool if Windows could somehow block everything from accessing the internet except the game I play. That way if I have sudden lag spikes I will know it's not Windows' fault.

 

[wiyosaya]

Personally, I would rather have reliable Windows 10 updates that don't break useful things like automatic hibernation, or leave a computer completely useless for days while you try to figure out what the frack happened. When M$ masters reliable updates, then they should deliver "upgrades".

Oh wait, I forgot. Reliable updates were delivered to Windows 7. The crap updates of late make me think that M$ re-released Windows 3.1/NT and plopped "10" on it to make people think they were getting an "upgrade" while adding lots of useless bloat ware and bling to ensure that it ran slower so people would upgrade to M$ hardware.

Win 10 is just fine. You probably installed yours all wrong by letting the installation select it's installation defaults which is an unforgivable cardinal sin. Next time you redo your installation read each of the screens properly, uncheck everything (and I mean everything) and do it manually, DON'T heed what M$ suggests you do, it's only to their advantage hence you're bombarded with a whole lot of meaningless crap once done.

I DID uncheck everything. And after the installation, I went in and unchecked the rest of the "privacy settings" that don't get unchecked when you uncheck everything at installation time. I then uninstalled all garbage apps that 10 installs that I could. The UPGRADE process went flawlessly.

On my HTPC, I decided to let automatic UPDATES take place. It was two of the UPDATES to Windows 10 that broke the PC - first by killing automatic hibernation, then by leaving the PC with a totally black screen that showed only the mouse cursor if I moved the mouse. I make image backups. All I had to do was revert to the most recent one and all the problems that were introduced by the UPDATES were gone, and 10 works fine again.

However, this time, I went into the policy editor on my HTPC and shut off automatic UPDATES.

Many UPDATES to 10 are total crap.

 

[qking]

I'll be the judge of that, thanks.

 

[qking]

Without games, you might as well draw the blinds and install Linux.

I'd love to argue with you on that, but I feel as if you are correct. Windows would die if the gaming world shifted to Linux. Because one by one everything else non-game wise would follow suite.

Disagree!

What keeps Windows alive is the enterprise market not gamers.

You need to look at the big picture and outside of your box.

The money that MS makes from gamers pales in comparison to their bread and butter the enterprise market!

Yup, speaketh the realz.

 

[captaincranky]

I'd love to argue with you on that, but I feel as if you are correct. Windows would die if the gaming world shifted to Linux. Because one by one everything else non-game wise would follow suite.

Because after all Cliff, the entire computing industry revolves around gamers, much in the same way the sun revolves around the earth.

Why buying just one "Titan" video card, is cost comparable to an entire computer system to run say, a city mass transit system.

And FWIW, a decent chunk of servers already run Linux, and have for years.

So bark with joy puppies, papa M$ is going to throw you a brand new bone....

BTW, does anybody know whether or not M$ sneaked added telemetry into that new Windows 7, "cumulative update"? 'Cause you know, you can't separate the Win 7 updates you want from those you don't any more.

 

[commanderasus]

I run a 7 year old pc with Win 7 64 bit SP1 and Direct X 11 with 12gb of ram. I have not put ANY updates in it since I built it except what the games install. It runs fine. The old adage 'if it is not broken DON"T UPDATE IT. I tried Win 10 on another computer and it was only an exercise in frustration. I am not switching period.

 

[Lionvibez]

I run a 7 year old pc with Win 7 64 bit SP1 and Direct X 11 with 12gb of ram. I have not put ANY updates in it since I built it except what the games install. It runs fine. The old adage 'if it is not broken DON"T UPDATE IT. I tried Win 10 on another computer and it was only an exercise in frustration. I am not switching period.

Please tell me that machine isn't connected to the internet.

That's almost as bad as running an unpatched windows XP box.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Please tell me that machine isn't connected to the internet.

That's almost as bad as running an unpatched windows XP box.

Yet there are people who can stay away from Malware, so for them it doesn't matter how outdated their OS is.

 

[captaincranky]

Please tell me that machine isn't connected to the internet.

That's almost as bad as running an unpatched windows XP box.

I guess my XP SP-2 32 bit erotic art surfer would probably require you to be drunk or heavily sedated to use to go on the web then, ay?

And yet, I don't have a stitch of trouble with it.

Some background: I can't even update it to SP-3, because then the computer's restore discs won't work. (There's actually a "repair" function these discs, which works much in the same way as the one in a free standing copy of Windows.

With that said, M$ makes the assumption you have no security software installed, when they send out those crap "security updates" of theirs. (Which in the case of the infamous, "get Windows 10 now" variants, were malware in and of themselves.

The browser, (Firefox), and it's script blocking extension, ("NoScript"), provide more security than all of M$'s "cumulative security updates" combined. Those things working in conjunction with a good AV product, (in this case AVG Free (! I know right?)), and even Google itself are like having a life sized St. Christopher statue on the dashboard of your monitor.

On a side note, we have a member here who always proclaims, "AVG stands for "Ain't Very Good". Yet my clean, uninfected XP box is working just fine and dandy, while his, "smart move to adopt Windows 10 machine", is the subject of a really persistent and annoying, "boo hoo my computer isn't working right", thread/diatribe.

I've seen file sharing services that my evil twin brother has used for years, be labeled as "poisoned" by Google, because some neophyte has clicked on the "download" button, which held the "Open Candy Surprise", instead of the one with the clean file. I wonder how much personal information Google collects, when someone makes such a report?

Some imbeciles, given the choice between 3 doors, will always find the tiger. My evil brother on the other hand, always finds "the door with the the lady behind it".

My evil brother also has the common sense to recognize when he's been infected, and keeps those blessed restore discs close at hand.

But yet, the Russians were able to infect the DNC convention, by emailing poisoned links to dumb a** politicians in attendance.

With all of that said, you, how do you, with your latest, fully patched copy of Windows, have anything to fear from my evil twin, or any other poor, ignorant, unenlightened, throwback, Luddite soul on the web?

Why not dial the sanctimony back a notch or two?

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

Yet there are people who can stay away from Malware, so for them it doesn't matter how outdated their OS is.

Exactly. My Windows 7 gaming machine isn't patched either and it runs perfect. I don't typically browse the web on it as I use a Linux distro for that. Even still when browsing the web I know what not to click on...

 

[Lionvibez]

If you guys have full control over those pc's and don't allow anyone else to use them I get it.

However for me you still have a unpatched box on your network and if for any reason someone gets in that machine will be the first point of contact to attack the rest of your network.

I don't like playing with fire like that but to each his own

 

[GirlDownunder]

Anyone remember "hardware profiles" in good old XP?

The first thing I thought when I read about this "crazy game enhancing mode" announcement was that it'd already been done- lol....

 

[Ascaris]

Yesh, but I also hate all the effort you need to put in. I had Win 7 too and while better than 10, it just annoyed the bajingles out of me. I hate the whole IE business, pre-installed crapware, needing all sorts of utilities just to keep it running decently after a little while and of course all the security problems - even UAC is a problem.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Windows 7 lets you quickly and easily disable IE, and it disables it more completely than previous versions, to the point that the IE executable isn't present in the IE directory anymore. It doesn't truly uninstall it, but it's a pretty good approximation, which definitely could not be said for (for example) Windows XP when IE was "disabled." For a disabled program, it sure did pop up uninvited quite a lot (and I do not mean just for Windows Updates). In contrast, in Win 7, I simply have never seen IE, ever.

Pre-installed crapware (depending on what you mean by the term) is not part of Windows 7 itself, but was put there by the computer OEM. I've never had a PC that came with 7 preinstalled, so all of my Windows 7 installations have been lean and clean.

Windows 10, on the other hand, does install crapware, like Get Office (pure adware), Xbox (for people who never indicated they have any interest in it), OneDrive (same), Cortana (a huge one if you don't want it), Edge (can't even sorta-uninstall it like with 7 and IE), not to mention ads in several places that show that some of the adware is now part of the OS.

I'm not sure of which security problems you mean that only affect 7 and not 10. MS claims 10 is more secure, but... well, they also told us Windows 10 is the best Windows ever, and I hold both terms in equal esteem.

 

[commanderasus]

Please tell me that machine isn't connected to the internet.

That's almost as bad as running an unpatched windows XP box.

I do not play any online games so that computer suffers from "no connections available"