Windows 10’s Game DVR (and Game Bar)

I just discovered something that needed reporting.

Several days ago my machine suddenly became severely crippled; almost like when you get a virus, or like you install a corrupted\poorly constructed program,. Everything virtually slow to a halt; my keyboard had a severe lag or would not type at all, had trouble bringing up context menus, couldn't launch some programs and couldn't close other for a very long time.

It was like the CPU was permanently maxed out, but my little "CPU Usage in Tray" utility showed pretty normal activity. I was contemplating bad ram or maybe the graphics card.

I had installed nothing remotely questionable recently. Only windows updates.

But there was a red flag that I initially ignored.

When I opened my "Everything" search program, up popped a message box up saying "press win+g to open game bar". I've been using "Everything" portable for years with no such behavior.

When I rebooted the machine, all seemed ok., but eventually started again. I finally put 2 & 2 together and realized that when I opened "Everything" and got that pop-up, is when the strange behavior always began.

It's all about the "Windows 10’s Game DVR (and Game Bar)" that was newly included in the Creators update. More info here.

https://www.howtogeek.com/273180/how...-and-game-bar/

This "Game DVR (and Game Bar)" is on by default when the Creators update is installed. I went to Settings>Gaming, and disabled everything in there. Things went back to normal as far as I can see.

I don't know why "Everything" triggered it, but that probably means there could be other seemingly unrelated things out there that could do the same thing, so beware.

I have Windows 10 Creators Update & Everything on my pc and I have no such issue between the 2 with Game DVR & Game Bar enabled.
Do you have Everything version 1.4.1.877 installed ?

I don't have Everything set to start with Windows 10, if that helps you.
I don't get any errors like you get with Everything with Game Mode & GameBar both enabled.

BRKKAB said:

I have Windows 10 Creators Update & Everything on my pc and I have no such issue between the 2 with Game DVR & Game Bar enabled.
Do you have Everything version 1.4.1.877 installed ?

You're right, I should have considered that. I had an earlier version.

BRKKAB said:

I don't have Everything set to start with Windows 10, if that helps you.
I don't get any errors like you get with Everything with Game Mode & GameBar both enabled.

No, not starting with windows.

Maybe the aberration was due to the Everything version itself? Certainly looks like it, but the symptoms were so serious I didn't want to let it pass without mentioning it here to save someone else the stress.

Others might also be using an earlier version, and who knows if some other obscure thing might instigate it as well.

Thanks for the feed back, I feel a little better now

Just adding my two cents, I have game MODE enabled with the latest version of Windows 10. I do not have Game DVR's recording in the background enabled which I believe is off by default anyway.

I have no issues with Game Mode enabled. I have tested every game I have that has an in game benchmark (ROTTR, GOW4, Ghost Recon Wildlands, etc) and ran the benchmarks with game mode off and on. It's not really making a difference one way or the other, and that may be due to the fact that my hardware is more than capable of running games at 1080P. However, just the concept that game mode will reduce background resources while gaming is enough for me to keep it on, as long as it's not causing an issues, which so far it isn't for me.

specialkone said:

Just adding my two cents, I have game MODE enabled with the latest version of Windows 10. I do not have Game DVR's recording in the background enabled which I believe is off by default anyway.

All my gaming settings were enabled by default on mine, fwiw

specialkone said:

I have no issues with Game Mode enabled. I have tested every game I have that has an in game benchmark (ROTTR, GOW4, Ghost Recon Wildlands, etc) and ran the benchmarks with game mode off and on. It's not really making a difference one way or the other, and that may be due to the fact that my hardware is more than capable of running games at 1080P. However, just the concept that game mode will reduce background resources while gaming is enough for me to keep it on, as long as it's not causing an issues, which so far it isn't for me.

I'm not a gamer, so I will defer to you.

I installed the latest "Everything", and re-enabled all the gaming stuff. I then opened "Everything", and that "press win+g to open game bar" still appears, but the bad behavior seems to have vanished.

I'm still curious what is unique about my setup that initiates that, since you guys don't see the message.

Another thing I'd like to know is if those gaming settings have an effect on the system if you are not a gamer. I'm always interested in something that will save resources and I'd like to know how it does it, in other words, what does it turn off?

Since I'm not a gamer, will it make a difference whether I have the gaming settings on or off?

I haven't read anything about Windows 10 game mode performance in non gaming (Win 32 or UWP games) applications. My guess is it has no impact, on or off. It's design is to set hardware priority while playing games.

It's also really only for older or low-end pc's.
Game mode really isn't needed for newer cpu's, motherboard's, ssd's or video card's with $GB vram or higher video cards.
It also relies on the game actually supporting it. Most won't right now.

The Game Mode and Game Recorder were buried in the Xbox App from Windows 8.1 and earlier versions of Windows 10 but not many people realised that, I have always configured that.
These have been brought in to the main Windows 10 settings which is certainly a plus, easier to get at.

As a default I leave the Game Bar Off, Game DVR Off, Game Mode On.
The Game Mode makes no difference on mine anyway, no ill effects On or Off. I play one game now and again. It's only basically a priority thing when playing a recognised Game.
The Game DVR has other uses, not only games.