For months now Microsoft has been dropping only mere breadcrumbs and tiny pieces of information regarding the new Windows 10 Game Mode. Said to be able to ‘make games run faster’ (obviously).
However, the incoming ‘revolution’ which is going to be part of the Creators Update” is really all just a fancy-sounding way of tuning system resources on your computer to dedicate more of your CPU and your GPU to game-related functions.
Game Mode in Plain English
Long story, short Game Mode will ensure that more CPU cores will be dedicated to gaming instead of wasting their resources and energy on background tasks that oftentimes do really do anything that any of us even care about.
Meanwhile, for GPUs, the major change is that it’s going to be keeping more of your game’s data in local RAM to make for easier, shorter, and smoother loading times, and there’s also the fact that Game Mode actually will dedicate more of your GPU power to gaming itself. Although, that last part is kind of redundant and will likely offer little to no noticeable benefit considering that GPUs naturally devote most of their focus to gaming anyway.
Quite frankly, we are looking at a 2 – 5% boost for the most part. Not that impressive honestly.
The Xbox and PC Relationship
As for the whole ‘bringing PC and Xbox closer together’ part?
Well according to Eric Watson from Microsoft’s Xbox Advanced Technology Group the long-term mission objective is to merge the Xbox One and PC closer and closer together, and that…
“When we add new features to Windows, they transfer to Xbox…the line between console and PC is continuing to blur…The line dividing Windows and Xbox continues to become more of a gradient of features and functionality.”
So, in essence, the two platforms are going to begin to share more in the way of apps and functionality in the short-run while looking for more innovation in the long-run.
In any case, it’s certainly refreshing to get some of our curiosity addressed regarding Windows Game Mode at least.