Microsoft Adding "Ultimate Performance Mode" To Windows 10

[Raevenlord]

In a blog post, Microsoft detailed some new features that have become available for Microsoft's Insider Program Fast Ring users, of which the titular "Ultimate Performance Mode" certainly wrings the most attention. The Ultimate Performance Mode is really a performance plan integrated into Windows, which basically throws all power saving features out the Window to make sure that the underlying hardware is always running at its peak performance. Microsoft says that latencies and microstutters should be reduced as much as possible, thus allowing users to wring "ultimate performance" from their systems.

Microsoft says this is focused on the Workstation market, and should be especially deployed in mission critical scenarios where every second counts (wait, doesn't gaming qualify by this measure?) As a result of this re-balancing on idle and power states, power consumption goes up; the main reason why Microsoft isn't making this feature available for battery-powered devices - at least for now. The consumer side of the equation is being left out in the cold, for now, when it comes to this Ultimate Performance Mode; but users should remain optimistic. There's no reason why Microsoft would leave this option to Workstation environments only, so a consumer-focused release (be it in the Insider Fast Ring or on the regular Windows 10 update cycles) is still out in the open.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[BadIronTree]

 

[eidairaman1]

I always visit power properties/options in Windows to turn off all that stuff anyway.

 

[RejZoR]

I'm assuming this also entirely disables Core Parking and stuff. I just wonder what this really changes beyond Performance Preset which as far as I know already does this. Along with running CPU at full clock without any downclocking on idle.

 

[Toothless]

"Increase your power bill mode!"

 

[birdie]

Most people will enable this mode and forget to disable it after ending their gaming sessions which will result in hundreds of millions of PCs consuming a lot more power at idle.

What Microsoft should have done is enabling this mode automatically whenever a full screen D3D/OpenGL/Vulkan application is running.

I hope they'll reconsider this "solution" (more like a regression).

 

[qubit]

I've already switched off all power saving features in the BIOS and Windows. It's handy to have one setting though to do this for you on the Windows side.

 

[RejZoR]

Most people will enable this mode and forget to disable it after stopping playing which will result in hundreds of millions of PCs consuming a lot more power at idle.

What Microsoft should have done is enabling this mode automatically whenever a full screen D3D/OpenGL/Vulkan application is running.

I hope they'll reconsider this "solution" (more like a regression).

This should be a part of the "Game Mode". Which is already a dynamic, per game thing.

There is an alternative though, avast! Antivirus has a Game Mode option which switches between Balanced and Performance mode when running a game. When you close the game it switches back to Balanced. I'll poke them about this Ultimate Performance mode, if they have plans to support it in their Game Mode. This way you can't forget it in wrong mode unnecessarily.

 

[_JP_]

I'm guessing this is just the reinstatement of the "High perforce mode" after the 1709 update.
Those Ryzens already have AMD's power plan and those with Intel can just turn off EIST/CPPC so...this is redundant?

 

[R-T-B]

Those Ryzens already have AMD's power plan and those with Intel can just turn off EIST/CPPC so...this is redundant?

Not really. On the intel side, not everyone is brave enough to enter the bios. Having it in OS increases accessibility.

 

[Vayra86]

Modes... is this Microsofts' new approach to fix all things that suck? First we had Game Mode, now this... it reminds me an awful lot of all those 'SPEED UP YOUR PC OMGROXXOR' applications that do nothing that isn't already possible.

 

[DRDNA]

I'm guessing this is just the reinstatement of the "High perforce mode" after the 1709 update.
Those Ryzens already have AMD's power plan and those with Intel can just turn off EIST/CPPC so...this is redundant?

High Performance and Power Saver are still options in the Power Options, it is just that they buried it more but it still available for choice.

then

 

[TheDeeGee]

I always use Balanced, and games run like a charm!

CPU and GPU ramp up anyways during a 3D Application.

 

[Vya Domus]

which will result in hundreds of millions of PCs consuming a lot more power at idle.

Totally exaggerated. I don't even think there are hundreds of millions of PC gamers in the first place.

 

[craigo]

This annoys me,
Considering how long android and ARM have been in development compared to Windows and x86_64 one would assume that a modern PC would learn and adapt to specific high demand applications rather then the ham fisted approach being offered by the software/hardware these days.. PC`s are being gradually retarded and mobile platforms are catching up fast. But we all knew this..

 

[Vya Domus]

Considering how long android and ARM have been in development compared to Windows and x86_64 one would assume that a modern PC would learn and adapt to specific high demand applications rather then the ham fisted approach being offered by the software/hardware these days..

It does , much more so than the average user is aware , processors do power saving down to the individual bits of circuitry inside it regardless of whatever power plan you select. But people like to have placebo switches at their disposal.

 

[DRDNA]

Totally exaggerated. I don't even think there are hundreds of millions of PC gamers in the first place.

https://mygaming.co.za/news/feature...world-and-pc-gaming-dominates-the-market.html

"There are 1.8 billion gamers in the world, and PC gaming dominates the market"

 

[Vya Domus]

https://mygaming.co.za/news/feature...world-and-pc-gaming-dominates-the-market.html

"There are 1.8 billion gamers in the world, and PC gaming dominates the market"

"Social games" , "Board games" , 30% most played type of games each ? Yeah it's up to debate if that really is considered "gaming" , at least in my opinion.

 

[craigo]

Sigh,
1.8 billion users forcefully undermining the powersaving features.. probably joining dubious blockchains (read cluster) to compute god knows who`s data for an undisclosed purpose with flyby night flavour of the month coin. (prime numbers my arse) Probably using coal fired power
So that they can offset the cost of their microtransactions in the latest horrible console port EA title.. BLEAK

 

[newtekie1]

As a result of this re-balancing on idle and power states, power consumption goes up; the main reason why Microsoft isn't making this feature available for battery-powered devices - at least for now.

So what about all the desktops and workstations that have UPSes attached that Windows reads as a battery? And I don't see how they will differentiate betweeen a workstation and a normal desktop either.

 

[Hokum]

 

[blobster21]

Sigh,
1.8 billion users forcefully undermining the powersaving features.. probably joining dubious blockchains (read cluster) to compute god knows who`s data for an undisclosed purpose with flyby night flavour of the month coin. (prime numbers my arse) Probably using coal fired power
So that they can offset the cost of their microtransactions in the latest horrible console port EA title.. BLEAK

cool story bro.

 

[kn00tcn]

i thought i had to come here to correct things, but after rereading the news post, it seems it did state 'workstations', but the comments really seem like they dont realize it's ONLY for the 'pro for workstations' edition of windows

so much complaining, modern hardware has idle states, some of it isnt even under control of the OS, so stop it, disable power saving in bios, mod the gpu bios, it's not like windows can control gpu power states yet NOW people want to say windows is slowing normal users down!? it's not like normal settings arent boosting to load or turbo clockspeeds either!

 

[craigo]

i thought i had to come here to correct things, but after rereading the news post, it seems it did state 'workstations', but the comments really seem like they dont realize it's ONLY for the 'pro for workstations' edition of windows

so much complaining, modern hardware has idle states, some of it isnt even under control of the OS, so stop it, disable power saving in bios, mod the gpu bios, it's not like windows can control gpu power states yet NOW people want to say windows is slowing normal users down!? it's not like normal settings arent boosting to load or turbo clockspeeds either!

With that said "features" that are tested by "Insders" certainly not tested in a production environment are to be added to "pro" versions of an os that cant utilize arcitecture from anly two manufacturers properly

 

[Divide Overflow]

So Microsoft is saying this isn't even Windows 10 final form?