Windows 10 Fall Creator's Update Brings Improvements For PC Gamers

Some attention paid is better than nothing.

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Starting this week, Microsoft’s Fall Creator’s Update for Windows 10 will be deployed to the public. As is tradition, expect your PC to download this update in the background and then randomly initiate itself right when you try to do something important, despite the fact that you clearly set the operating system to defer updates. Despite Microsoft’s Cosby-esque approach to pushing updates without your consent, the Fall Creator’s Update is packing some needed changes that make things easier for those using their PCs to do important things, like playing PUBG, Divinity 2, or Shadow of War.

As was first reported on back in September, the new update adds GPU usage monitoring to the Windows 10 Task Manager. User can observe overall GPU usage or choose to monitor several different usage parameters, such as VRAM, render percentage, and encoding percentage. Another change for the better includes Windows Volume Mixer support for UWP applications and games. Previously, titles like Gears of War 4 and Forza Motorport 7 offered no options for individual volume control at the operating system level, forcing users to modify the system volume, possibly interfering with VoIP applications and music playback.

Added earlier this spring in the last Windows 10 Creator’s Update, Game Mode was a feature designed to ensure the operating system was focused on delivering the best possible performance for your games and disabling non-critical processes to free up resources. Previously, users had to manually enable or disable the feature via the windows gaming settings menu. With the Fall Creator’s Update, a Game Mode toggle has been added to the Game Bar overlay menu, allowing the mode to be toggled in-game, on the fly. Finally, a new option called Xbox Networking has been added to the system gaming settings. This will allow users to ensure optimal network quality for multiplayer games and voice chat applications.

The Fall Creator’s Update can be acquired now by opening the Windows Update application on your Windows 10 PC. As a major change to the core operating system, expect the installation to take up to 20 minutes or more, depending on your hardware and software configuration.

Contributing Tech Editor

Chris Jarrard likes playing games, crankin' tunes, and looking for fights on obscure online message boards. He understands that breakfast food is the only true food. Don't @ him.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    October 18, 2017 9:20 AM

    Chris Jarrard posted a new article, Windows 10 Fall Creator's Update Brings Improvements For PC Gamers

    • reply
      October 18, 2017 9:54 AM

      as a reminder, this is flagged as a new "version" so remember to do disk cleanup and select system files. you will recover probably about 30GB.

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        October 18, 2017 10:01 AM

        And make sure you run Disk Cleanup as admin too or it won't get everything.

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          October 18, 2017 11:20 AM

          quite true. I have it on about 15 devices now and the laptops with the 256GB (one has 128!) really appreciated the cleanup.

          it's a pretty slick update, and enables the "view configured update profiles" in the update panel so people can see what group policy is applying. pretty handy!

      • reply
        October 18, 2017 3:31 PM

        The true protips are always in the comments

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        October 18, 2017 7:14 PM

        You might not want to do it immediately. Those files are also the files you need to restore from in the event that something gets borked. I'd wait a week before running disk cleanup.

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      October 18, 2017 10:31 AM

      I installed it and nothing blew up... yet. Hopefully games and the XB1 controller will work fine.

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        October 19, 2017 1:11 AM

        My wireless XB1 controller always desyncs after restarting my PC, i was hoping this update would do anything about this but none

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      October 18, 2017 10:34 AM

      [deleted]

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      October 18, 2017 11:10 AM

      Are the settings on the game bar available elsewhere? I disabled that thing as fast as I could.

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        October 18, 2017 11:25 AM

        [deleted]

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          October 18, 2017 7:12 PM

          Really? I'm there after the update but there is no option for it. The only way to access the settings/ "game mode" stuff is through the bar.

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            October 18, 2017 7:42 PM

            [deleted]

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              October 18, 2017 7:43 PM

              Yeah it's gone. Gotta use the game bar now. rIP.

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                October 19, 2017 1:17 AM

                Eh, I won't. that thing gets in the way of other overlay functionality I actually won't.

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            October 18, 2017 8:43 PM

            I haven't seen you on xbl lately, you better fix it !

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              October 18, 2017 8:46 PM

              I didn't know I was ever on it!

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              October 18, 2017 9:35 PM

              I didn’t even know I was ever on it!

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                October 18, 2017 11:48 PM

                I've seen you on poe like all the time till a few weeks ago

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                  October 19, 2017 1:05 AM

                  Oh weird. Didn't know it broadcasted that info. I just haven't played poe in abut.!

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                October 19, 2017 1:56 AM

                [deleted]

    • rms legacy 10 years legacy 20 years mercury super mega
      reply
      October 18, 2017 11:20 AM

      Headsup Shacknews webguys: The login window is broken under Edge after the update. The input text boxes don't respond properly, the sign in button doesn't work. It does work properly in Chrome.

      • rms legacy 10 years legacy 20 years mercury super mega
        reply
        October 18, 2017 11:26 AM

        yeah, article headline hotspots are small and don't line up with the mouse pointer, that kind of thing. Hope you can fix it!

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        October 18, 2017 4:06 PM

        [deleted]

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      October 18, 2017 5:29 PM

      DirectX 9 memory allocation bug was fixed as well in this update. Time to start modding Oldrim

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      October 19, 2017 1:19 AM

      [deleted]

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