Windows 10: Game mode can impact FPS negatively with stutters and freezes

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 05/06/2020 09:40 AM | source: pcgameshardware.de | 60 comment(s)

Designed to give games priority and to make them perform faster, as so often that turns to be not true. Microsoft game mode is causing a number of issues, lowering your FPS.

Ever since the Creators Update of Windows 10 from (yeah that was spring 2017), game mode has been introduced. Normally it is an options and modus operandus that you need to enable yourself. Once enabled, performance when playing should improve by prioritizing your game and keep background processes what they are intended to be for, in the background in idle. As of recently, many users on Reddit report that the activated game mode leads to stutters and frozen screens reports PCgameshardware.

These problems occur with different game titles such as Call of Duty: Warzone or League of Legends. According to the current user reports, both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards are affected by the problem. Specifically, the performance problems with the Radeon RX 5700 XT, RX 570, RX 480 and R9 290 have been identified. On the side, Nvidia users with Geforce GTX 980 and the Geforce GTX 1080 Ti are hit by stutters and frozen screens.

In order to be able to enjoy PC games smoothly again, it is therefore recommended to deactivate the game mode in the event of problems. To do this, open the Settings app in Windows 10 and click on the Play entry in the menu. The game mode can now be switched off in this window. As users report, this should have solved the performance problems.

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kakiharaFRS
Senior Member

Posts: 952
Joined: 2015-11-21

#5785825 Posted on: 05/06/2020 11:47 AM

who didn't know this already ? it's been know since day 1 okay I guess not everyone is a modder/tweaker

so here's something really useful for you guys, like Jonas above mentions cpu affinity can save your gaming experience
most games cannot handle more than 4 or sometimes, sometimes only...8 cores so use 4c/8t as your default go to setting
so if you experience stuttering the 1st thing you need to do it open task manager->right click game process->set affinity->and select 8 threads (4 cores) or 16 threads (8 cores) and see how it goes
avoid cpu0 and cpu1 (on multithreaded cpus) as a lot of apps and process all hammer the 1st threads and never use the ending threads (that was a well known problem of forza horizon 3 at release it had 100% usage of cpu0 ruining your performance)
I personnally always select the last threads

games that handle 8 cores generally don't care about you having more (I have a 24c 3960x and 8c 9900k even on the 9900k I limited most games to 4c/8t)
setting affinity every time is a pain you can use process lasso to fix that (and do other things) https://bitsum.com/
I've been using it pretty much since XP back then some games couldn't even handle 4 cores >< some used one core !
this saved my gaming on threadripper for most games, a tweak website reviews probably didn't do so keep that in mind
some games are unsalvageable tough :/ skyrim LE and subnautica (the original) give me half or less fps than on a 9900k, can't have everything heh

if you experience stuttering I can't recommend enough using afterburner and rivatuner https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/msi-afterburner-beta-download.html
and setting up (it takes a bit of work) at least an on-screen graph of frametimes and fps you will see on your screen live the changes of "smoothness" when tweaking cpu affinity or ingame graphic options

with it you will instantly see the frametimes and fps graphs go up down or go from chaotic to a flat line and know 100% for sure if your gaming experience is better or not
no more "guessing" which settings ruin your "fps" you will know for sure
a giant THANK YOU
to the team responsible for this

p.s.
thanks guru3d for this article, somehow an update re-enabled game mode >< I'll take note to check every time after big win10 updates

MaCk0y
Senior Member

Posts: 1169
Joined: 2015-12-30

#5785836 Posted on: 05/06/2020 12:47 PM

Coincidentally I had this turned off and turned it back on to test something. Apparently game mode doesn't mess with CPU/GPU prioritization anymore so it shouldn't be the cause of stutter. I can't find where I read this.

Passus
Senior Member

Posts: 2169
Joined: 2015-03-11

#5785838 Posted on: 05/06/2020 12:49 PM

I have had this turned off along with gamebar since they came

loracle
Senior Member

Posts: 360
Joined: 2017-01-17

#5785846 Posted on: 05/06/2020 01:14 PM

I always deactivated this crap, since i noticed low scores in benches when on.

fantaskarsef
Senior Member

Posts: 14161
Joined: 2014-07-21

#5785852 Posted on: 05/06/2020 01:31 PM

It's bothersome and nobody asked for that in the first place. Deactivated before I even play a game after installing windows.

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