Game Mode for Windows 10 Creators Update, Beam Integration, and more set to begin rollout to Windows Insiders and Xbox Preview members next week
Microsoft announced their Windows 10 Creators update late last year, and as more information started to come out, it didn’t appear to be too promising for gamers on Windows 10 computers. It was already known that it would optimize PCs for running games, but in a tweet by Xbox Platform Lead Mike Ybarra, Game Mode has been confirmed to bring optimization benefits to both UWP games and Win32 games typical of Steam, Battle.net and the like.
Microsoft also announced several improvements to the Xbox Dashboard, and gave us a friendly reminder that Beam integration would be coming to Xbox One and Windows 10. Ybarra noted that the forthcoming updates are “about four key themes: Streaming, Performance, People, and Competition.”
Beam Support arriving on Windows 10 and Xbox One
Beam will connect to your Xbox Live account, making it easy to stream your favorite games to Beam and your Xbox Live community. No extra software is needed and viewers anywhere will be able to watch your streams and interact with your broadcast. On a Windows 10 PC, press Windows + G to pull up the Game bar and click the broadcast button to start streaming. On Xbox One, you can start streaming with one button press from inside the Guide.
After purchasing Beam in August of 2016, Microsoft has been making strides to integrate the service with its Unified Windows environment. Beam touts latency of 5 seconds or less (near-zero with their FTL streaming protocol,) as well as a myriad of interactive features, and is slated to be integrated into Windows 10 devices when the Windows 10 Creators Update rolls out to users this Spring.
Game Mode for Windows 10 works with both Unified Windows Platform Apps and Win32 Games
Creators Update details revealed. And yes, Game Mode will include both Win32 and UWP games. https://t.co/4UclQ3JTcN
— Mike Ybarra ?? (@XboxQwik) January 13, 2017
Game Mode, while inactive in the current Windows Insider build, will allow games to take priority over other processes, all while accessing hardware resources.
Windows Insiders will start seeing some of the visual elements for Game Mode this week, with the feature being fully operational in builds shortly thereafter. Our vision is for Game Mode to optimize your Windows 10 PC for increased performance in gaming. This is a big update for Windows; we’re looking forward to Insiders getting their hands on this new feature for further testing, and we’ll have much more to share on what it is and how it works soon, so stayed tuned.
Ybarra also confirmed that he will be doing a podcast with Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb detailing many of the features that will be coming in the Windows 10 Creators Update:
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Next week I'll be doing a podcast with @majornelson and we will talk about the many features coming, many not in today's post.
— Mike Ybarra ?? (@XboxQwik) January 13, 2017
What are you looking forward to with the Windows 10 Creators Update? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: Xbox Wire, Mike Ybarra on Twitter
