At GDC 2017, Microsoft trickled out a few more details regarding its upcoming "Game Mode" for Windows 10. If you remember, "Game Mode" is an upcoming Windows feature which is currently going through its "Beta" phase on Windows 10's Creators Update, which will purportedly improve performance in games or similar full-screen applications.

According to the details Microsoft let out, Game Mode will ultimately dive deeper than the simple attribution of higher priority to a game's process. Instead, "Game Mode" will be able to allocate entire CPU cores (whether there is any distinction between physical or logical cores wasn't disclosed) solely to the purpose of processing your game of choice. This will probably end the dynamic allocation of threads that currently occurs, where game processing can jump around in the cores employed, while also looking to ensure that the entirety of the CPU and cache is dedicated to the game. This could, theoretically, aid performance in some more exotic core complexes (I'm looking at you, CCX).Microsoft is also planning to improve things on the GPU side of the game, by fully prioritizing game-related graphics memory allocation, downgrading all other VRAM needs to their absolute minimum.

In the initial throes of Game Mode, it's expected that users will be able to define whether a game runs in Game Mode or not (which is handy, considering there could be some unforeseen consequences in either your gaming or Windows environment). Likely, this means there will be a general Game Mode toggle, as well as an application-specific one. On their part, developers will reportedly have the option to run hardware queries at the beginning of their game's process so as to trigger Game Mode alongside it.