Windows 10 is getting a modern Task Manager for games

[TeenageFBI]

I just tried this out. I can pull up the resource monitor but, er, it shows everything but the game's process. Tested with Hexcells Plus and Hades. Sorting by CPU usage, it shows everything but the game's executable. The normal task manager of course shows the process.

edit: I realize that the game isn't listed because MS doesn't want us to acidentally kill the game's process. I still think it should be there for the sake of comparison, just prevent the user from actually killing the game's process.

 

[rebelcrusader]

I just tried this out. I can pull up the resource monitor but, er, it shows everything but the game's process. Tested with Hexcells Plus and Hades. Sorting by CPU usage, it shows everything but the game's executable. The normal task manager of course shows the process.

Click to shrink...

I believe this is working as intended

The point is to kill other programs that may be hurting perf on your game without changing window focus - not to kill the game you are currently playing - this would also be so you don't accidentally kill that process

I just tested and i am seeing the same with modern warfare

 

[R dott B]

Might give it a try...If I ever get my 3090.

 

[TeenageFBI]

I believe this is working as intended

The point is to kill other programs that may be hurting perf on your game without changing window focus - not to kill the game you are currently playing - this would also be so you don't accidentally kill that process

I just tested and i am seeing the same with modern warfare

Click to shrink...

That's probably the reason but it could be useful to have the game listed to compare it with the other processes. Maybe display it but prevent the user from killing the game?

 

[ivan.k]

I just tried this out. I can pull up the resource monitor but, er, it shows everything but the game's process. Tested with Hexcells Plus and Hades. Sorting by CPU usage, it shows everything but the game's executable. The normal task manager of course shows the process.

Click to shrink...

That's the point. You're killing other processes that might slow down the game.

 

[delete12345]

What's wrong with task manager as it is?

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Task Manager is for general purpose process management.

I believed this new Game Process Manager (or Xbox Process Manager, I dunno) is tailored specifically at resources running in the background that may be related to games (graphics driver process, audio processing, background processes like launcher, updates, etc.), and you manage them similar to Task Manager, but it doesn't touch on kernel or system level processes.

 

[justiceiro]

Not gonna lie, game bar was one of those things that slowed down my computer the most during gaming. But was pretty handy to make few videos years ago.

 

[KamenRiderEra]

Yeah, people still thinking that gamebar is bad should give it a new chance.

 

[Nzyme32]

Game bar is great, wtf why

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I disabled it a while back. I honestly wasn't having issues, but I remember reading at the time that it was causing some weirdness with G sync. Is that situation all cleared up? If it is I'll start using it again, as it seems like a nice utility.

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Also had it disabled for years, all the way back when so many games issued warnings to disable Gamebar due to the performance issues it caused then. I haven't investigated it since, because I have no use for gamebar anyway. May re-evaluate eventually

 

[Readler]

that's stupid

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Guilty as charged. What is it good for?

 

[SuikerBrood]

I use Game Bar a lot tbh.

- For recording footage
- Inviting friends in Game Pass games
- Changing sound of programs

 

[Plywood]

Cool! I don't have it yet. ._.

 

[Issen]

I use Game Bar a lot tbh.

- For recording footage
- Inviting friends in Game Pass games
- Changing sound of programs

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I use Game Bar for recording footage as well but I find that often when I use the "capture last 30 seconds" option it either just doesn't capture anything or captures a black screen. Definitely not as foolproof as on a console.

 

[TeenageFBI]

Cool! I don't have it yet. ._.

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Game Bar is a Windows Store app so try checking for updates there. Then you have to press the widget menu at the top of Game Bar for the Resources section.

 

[Stalwart]

I hope the original is not taken out, I prefer it.

 

[truncated_pachyderm]

Any empirical evidence that shows Game Bar negatively affects performance? Any tracker for other issues it has been isolated to cause in games (such as crashing, etc.)?

 

[Dictator]

Y

Yeah, this.

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Yep

 

[Deleted member 20831]

Any empirical evidence that shows Game Bar negatively affects performance? Any tracker for other issues it has been isolated to cause in games (such as crashing, etc.)?

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Almost negligible, but you may want to disable background recording when you are using RAM intensive application/games.

Looks like the frames are dumped directly onto RAM and only written to disk when you save the video.

Example: Flight Simulator with just 16GB of RAM, disable background recording and only use manual recording.

 

[Plywood]

Game Bar is a Windows Store app so try checking for updates there. Then you have to press the widget menu at the top of Game Bar for the Resources section.

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Just tried updating, no dice. Nothing new in my widgets yet, but thanks anyway!

 

[chrisypoo]

Also had it disabled for years, all the way back when so many games issued warnings to disable Gamebar due to the performance issues it caused then. I haven't investigated it since, because I have no use for gamebar anyway. May re-evaluate eventually

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If you do re evaluate it, let me know what you find out. I currently don't have a great deal of reason to use game bar, but like I said, if it works seamlessly and causes no issues with G Sync, well then I'm happy to reenable it. Variable refresh rate is a must for me though, can't go back to gaming without it and if anything messes with it it's immediately dumped.

 

[Deleted member 9330]

I turned Game Bar off when I switched to Shadowplay for my intermittent game captures, I'd be happy to turn it back on for the features and just keep the game DVR part turned off.

 

[Deleted member 17184]

If you do re evaluate it, let me know what you find out. I currently don't have a great deal of reason to use game bar, but like I said, if it works seamlessly and causes no issues with G Sync, well then I'm happy to reenable it. Variable refresh rate is a must for me though, can't go back to gaming without it and if anything messes with it it's immediately dumped.

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I have the Game Bar enabled and no G-Sync issues.

 

[Spacejaws]

I disabled it awhile ago because it was messing with Steam controller in Origin, when launching Origin games through Steam my controller wouldn't be recognized.

Think Bandicam had issues seeing games too kept taking pictures of black screens instead, I know I had a few issues and just haven't felt the need to turn it back on. For FPS markers and such I have Nvidia running I'm not sure what else I really need from the Gamebar other than it eating up resources for something I won't use much.

 

[Nooblet]

What's wrong with task manager as it is?

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Windows could sure use a task manager to stop the task manager when the task manager stops responding.

 

[Deleted member 679]

Imagine using Xbox Game Bar

 

[Nihilistic Monk]

You can get it from here. It's exactly the same process, except you have to run the Update Tool instead of it going through Windows Update. I did it with no issues.

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I did this with an Intel NUC that was being stubborn. Absolutely no problems after updating.

When they hold patches back because they've apparently tested and found a problem with your setup, they should disclose what that problem is. Frustrating.

 

[BeI]

Aside from Steam overlay, Gamebar is probably my most used overlay because of all the stuff you can easily do in one place.

 

[The Turbanator]

Nice to see more gaming enhancements coming from Windows. The only "easy" things I would still ask for from MS would be the ability to re-order controllers once connected (only possible rn through the Steam Input wrapper, and only on the wrapper level) and add a native D-input to X-input driver at OS level, so that I don't have to open/close Steam/X360ce/BPM to make certain games or emulators play nice with DS4s.

An OS-level controller manager in general would just be nice. Kind of surprised we haven't seen it thus far given MS has like twice made major pushes to the Xbox platform on Windows 10, but I suppose they assume everybody on PC is using Xbox controllers.

Edit: Also make the audio mixer more thorough please. There are plenty of games that don't change audio output with Windows (eg turn on game through speakers, remember to switch PC audio to headset, game still plays through speakers and has to be closed and reopened) and being able to throw whatever program into whatever audio output you want would be amazing.

 

[1-D_FE]

I believe this is working as intended

The point is to kill other programs that may be hurting perf on your game without changing window focus - not to kill the game you are currently playing - this would also be so you don't accidentally kill that process

I just tested and i am seeing the same with modern warfare

Click to shrink...

This is actually a thing that happens to people? Who knew. The only time I've ever needed to use taskbar is because the actual game shit the bed and I need to kill that game process to unlock the mess it created.

 

[AncientReptileBrain]

i wish microsoft would clearly label or identify all their background-ware stuff that starts without you knowing -- i freak out every time i see "Your Phone"

 

[cyrribrae]

Love gamebar, I use the youtube pip and audio mixer so much haha

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Wait YouTube PIP o.o what?

i wish microsoft would clearly label or identify all their background-ware stuff that starts without you knowing -- i freak out every time i see "Your Phone"

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lol yea. But Your Phone is legitimately useful sometimes. My Samsung screen started chronically overheating for like a couple weeks. Wouldn't turn on at all or it would flash green. Only way I could use it was using the remote function on Your Phone LOL. Had to click around for the permission acceptance first.. but... lol. Now that my phone has inexplicably started to work again, I still use it to send and receive texts from my computer.

 

[The Pet of the Month]

Wait YouTube PIP o.o what?

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check the widget store in the game bar :)

 

[discotheque]

I use gamebar for one thing now: adjusting my volume without having to alt tab out of games. I used to use it for performance monitoring, but Nvidia's overlay has a much better tool for that.

 

[cyrribrae]

check the widget store in the game bar :)

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Holy crap. Widget store?!?! lol I have not been keeping up with this. Thanks lol

Woah this is so cool!! Haha, thanks. Only annoyance is no ad blocker XD

 

[Ploid 6.0]

that's stupid

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It's yet another overlay, it can create issues with a good amount of games. Maybe the games are not optimized well, but making sure it's off is usually in a troubleshoot rotation enough to just have it disabled just in case. My most recent game that needed gamebar disabled was Avengers. I already had it disabled, but I saw it in a list to fix issues.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

I like game bar for tracking achievements with game pass games, as well as an easy way to access the sound mixer. Also I can see the notes thing being convenient for certain games.

 

[chrisypoo]

I have the Game Bar enabled and no G-Sync issues.

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Right on. Was it fixed at some point or was there ever a legitimate issue with G Sync? Did I perhaps misinterpret something? It's entirely possible. Thanks for your input though.

Is there a way to use the game bar short cut of the guide button on an xbox controller while keeping the guide button as the steam shortcut button? I know I worded that terribly, what I mean is could I configure the Xbox game bar to pop up when I tap the guide button and perhaps if I hold the button or double tap it it launches Steam big picture mode? Just curious. Thanks again.

 

[The Pet of the Month]

Holy crap. Widget store?!?! lol I have not been keeping up with this. Thanks lol

Woah this is so cool!! Haha, thanks. Only annoyance is no ad blocker XD

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yeah theres always new stuff in it so check it out, i keep notes for some games with one of the widgets

 

[Deleted member 17184]

Right on. Was it fixed at some point or was there ever a legitimate issue with G Sync? Did I perhaps misinterpret something? It's entirely possible. Thanks for your input though.

Is there a way to use the game bar short cut of the guide button on an xbox controller while keeping the guide button as the steam shortcut button? I know I worded that terribly, what I mean is could I configure the Xbox game bar to pop up when I tap the guide button and perhaps if I hold the button or double tap it it launches Steam big picture mode? Just curious. Thanks again.

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Not sure if there's that option. As for the possible issue, I've had the Game Bar enabled for over a year now. Maybe there was one at launch, but I haven't noticed anything since.

 

[cyrribrae]

yeah theres always new stuff in it so check it out, i keep notes for some games with one of the widgets

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Haha that's cool. This is such a great idea. I might just use this as a much better way to do YouTube PIP whenever I do anything o.o I love that it's a borderless window! And I just tried doing a playlist and it totally worked. This is actually transformative LOL.

 

[Snowybreak]

The game bar is pretty cool. The Spotify widget does exactly what I need it to.

 

[Pargon]

This is the dumbest shit.
Who at Microsoft thought it was a good idea to add an in-game task manager and ask users to monitor background resources and kill applications to improve game performance?

Why the fuck would anyone want to do that?
Bring back a functional Game Mode which gives the game exclusive access to most of the CPU cores.

What they already implemented was so close to fixing the problem automatically - and only affected other applications while the game was in focus.
The main problem is that it was released when a significant portion of players only had 4c/4t CPUs, and that it was not designed to avoid overloading core0.
Those were trivial problems to solve. With an ever-so-slightly smarter design, Game Mode would have been ideal.

This makes me so mad.

 

[Deleted member 12323]

Why use game bar recording over shadow play? (Asking Nvidia folks of course) :)

 

[DanteMenethil]

gamebar is a great tool to find groups in xbox games like sea of thieves

 

[ivan.k]

gamebar is a great tool to find groups in xbox games like sea of thieves

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Hmm, I like that NoLazybeards group

 

[nikos]

Why use game bar recording over shadow play? (Asking Nvidia folks of course) :)

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I honestly don't see a reason to, and the new GeForce Experience shows system performance data. I like to disable as many overlays and background processes as possible, even with a high end system.

 

[MCD]

This is the dumbest shit.
Who at Microsoft thought it was a good idea to add an in-game task manager and ask users to monitor background resources and kill applications to improve game performance?

Why the fuck would anyone want to do that?
Bring back a functional Game Mode which gives the game exclusive access to most of the CPU cores.

What they already implemented was so close to fixing the problem automatically - and only affected other applications while the game was in focus.
The main problem is that it was released when a significant portion of players only had 4c/4t CPUs, and that it was not designed to avoid overloading core0.
Those were trivial problems to solve. With an ever-so-slightly smarter design, Game Mode would have been ideal.

This makes me so mad.

Click to shrink...

The idea is to turn game bar slowly into a full big picture mode so I'm guessing this will come but at a slow pace.

 

[thisismadness]

Game overlays are as out of control as launchers. At some point, I came to the realization that I had like 5 overlays running in the background -- steam, discord, nvidia, gamebar, and rivatuner. I guess that was 6 when I was playing a non steam game in steam.

That said, I'm into the idea of just having a modular overlay at the OS level that third parties hook in to.

 

[ApexNorth]

OK, thankfully you don't need update 2004 for this which fails to install on all my Windows 10 Devices.

 

[dgrdsv]

That said, I'm into the idea of just having a modular overlay at the OS level that third parties hook in to.

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This would be a proper way of doing it - but Game bar isn't that at all.
MS has thoroughly forgotten that their task is to create and support Windows OS platform instead of making freaking widgets and redesigning the calculator for nth time.
This can be equally applied to all Win10 novelties, be it Game bar or MS Store. I fully expect them to stop evolving DirectX at some point too and switch to making, I dunno, their version of Unreal Engine as a part of the OS.