Microsoft Unlocks Framerates For Smoother Gameplay On Windows 10 (pcper.com) 96
An anonymous user writes: Back in March, Microsoft's Phil Spencer addressed some of the concerns over the Unified Windows Platform and PC gaming. He noted that Microsoft would "plan to open up VSync off, FreeSync, and G-Sync in May" and the company would "allow modding and overlays in UWP applications" sometime further into the future. Well, it appears that Microsoft is on point with the May UWP update. According to the MS DirectX Developer Blog, a Windows 10 update being pushed out today will enable UWP to support unlocked frame rates and variable refresh rate monitors in both G-Sync and FreeSync varieties. Today's update won't automatically enable these features in UWP games like Gears of War or Quantum Break, they will still need to be updated individually by the developer. Microsoft states that Gears of War and Forza will be the first to see these changes, but there is no mention of Quantum Break here, which is a game that could DEFINITELY benefit from the love of variable refresh rate monitors.PCWorld has more details.
i am disapointed (Score:2)
"oday's update won't automatically " whats the use of win10 if not the automatically part.
Re:i am disapointed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Just because an operating system includes driver support doesn't mean the game uses a driver feature. Windows supports VR output for games. But unless the developer actually uses the API your software doesn't magically work in VR. It'll automatically update your software, but it won't add *features* to software on its own.
That would be like complaining "what's the point of automatic updates if they don't add XYZ feature automatically to the code!?"
Re:i am disapointed (Score:4, Funny)
I let Microsoft update my computer to Windows 10 but that didn't even upgrade my laserjet into a 3D printer. Lame.
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woosh....
Framerates is either the band's name (Score:1)
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I'm a little saddened by the fact that Windows 10 now outnumbers Windows 7 in steam's stats. The honest fact is, the plebs don't care about UWP, or even about forced upgrades or telemetry reporting back everything you type, speak or do. Microsoft wins again, thanks largely to the apathetic masses.
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No it wont. It'll all be done in secret courts with subpoenas that are classified.
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Pretty sure that all the optional feedback settings have been turned off, but still not sure why I should give a shit about some telemetry going back to the software management teams. What is the big deal, actually? There are far too many people using the O/S for Microsoft to be monitoring each and every one of them, it is the big picture of over-all numbers of people and applications and what works and doesn't and such, that matters to them. Why get so rabid about some telemetry?
We need real reasons, n
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Why should they monitor each and every one of them. Come to think of it, why should they monitor even ONE of them?
Does this mean you think it's ok if McDonald's monitors every one who eats there to ensure proper satisfaction? It's none of their damned business.
Privacy is vital and a basic right. Don't be so quick to sell yourself for a half assed OS. If you can't see what's wrong with telemetry then you're amazingly naive. This is not some corporation that has proven itself to be responsible and trustw
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What data is actually being reported back to MS? Do you have any verifiable details on the data being transmitted? Does the transmitted data contain personal details that can be used to identify or track a specific user?
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So in other words you have no idea what data is being sent to MS. Your "good picture" is nothing more than a wild ass guess. Sort of like the fabled "back door" hidden within Windows that allows MS to access your machine at will. If there was a backdoor why are people constantly trying to create their own? Some of these guys are damn smart and if there really was a designed backdoor in the OS someone would have found it and published the details. Do we live in a world where facts are replaced by innuendo, g
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Perhaps it has to do with Steam users generally not worrying much about other people having partial control over their computer?
I'm one of those people who have refused Windows 10 so far, but I also use Steam very sparingly:
DRM (even in a relatively benign form) and one-sided EULA terms are a reason why I only have purchased a handful of Steam games so far, with correspondingly low activity on Steam.
In the Steam usage stats, people like me will obviously not leave a big footprint.
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I'm a little saddened by the fact that Windows 10 now outnumbers Windows 7 in steam's stats. The honest fact is, the plebs don't care about UWP, or even about forced upgrades or telemetry reporting back everything you type, speak or do. Microsoft wins again, thanks largely to the apathetic masses.
Surely if they did care about all those things then they probably wouldn't use Steam. It has forced updates, telemetry reporting (aka achievements), cloud saves (albeit optionally) and DRM. The apathetic masses had already spoken a long time ago.
The gamers on Steam are not representative of the general population. They do care less about privacy and are more interested in getting the latest & greatest in hardware & software. They also want to use DirectX 12, which is a major reason to use Windows 10
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So what's your point? It's easier to get a blowjob from a Windows 10 user?
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UWP is only for Windows Store apps. Steam games won't get this feature.
Remember the Tim Sweeney editorial from just 2 months ago?
https://games.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org]
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Ah, so that's why it's called Windows 10!
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It's pointless even if gaming. The frame rates are high enough that no one can see anything faster than 60fps anyway (and I seriously doubt that any but the most pedantic can see faster than 30fps). They only want the big numbers so that they can brag.
Re: Thanks Microsoft (Score:2)
You're kidding, right? 60 to 90 is a noticeable jump in smoothness, and many people can distinguish between 90, 120, 144, and even 165 Hz.
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They don't even show movies or television at that speed. If someone can distinguish between 144 and 165Hz I'd be wondering if they were also one of those who claim to hear the audio difference when using gold plated connectors.
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movies and tv have obvious judder. Temporal blurring helps fake it a little but it's obvious especially for people exposed to high frame rates. Another thing is input lag. Lower frame rates increase this dramatically.
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You obviously haven't seen 60Hz and 144Hz side by side, or hell even 90. Once you see that smoothness, a 60Hz monitor will look janky. Go do that and get back to us.
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You don't have a clue.
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You're obviously not a gamer, or not a very good one.
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I'm not a PvP or shooter player. But I play a lot of games.
Why would you ever write a game as a UWP? (Score:2)
UWP just seems like another stupid layer of bloated crap between the game and the hardware.
Re:Why would you ever write a game as a UWP? (Score:5, Informative)
As its primary purpose is to siphon money off to MS, what do you expect? This is basically an attempt to force the console-model on any PC running Windows 10.
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Uhhh... you mean like XOrg, Win32 or Cocoa? Every OS needs a GUI layer/API to handle application execution.
UWP also handles installation/uninstallation which if anything prevents bloat and definitely prevents installation rot.
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For Windows PC games whats wrong with just using whatever API windows has already? (DirectX or whatever...sorry I'm a Linux dev)
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Xbox is a different platform. Who cares if they work the same. Xbox is a console, in a world where making games exlusive to your platform is a standard practice. So Microsoft creates yet another proprietary API which means it is utterly useless if you're not on PC or Xbox, and irrelevant to those creating platform exclusive games, and not all that important for those few game companies who want to make things portable.
The goals of Microsoft do not overlap with the goals of their customers.
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But developers can not write once and use anywhere. Even if they don't want portability outside the Microsoft family, the developer may want to take advantage of the many differences between Xbox and Windows (who am I kidding, console games are designed to be dumbed down).
Last decade I had a friend who worked in the games industry. The Xbox wasn't out yet but he said he was hoping that it would be very popular. The reasoning was that the other consoles all had onerous licensing requirements, and they had
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xbox games don't work well as pc games either.
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Those already exist and have already existed on windows since winG on windows 3.1. Windows already has an installer manager. Personally I'm just happy with unzipping to a directory and running the executable.
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Microsoft, still trying to leverage their monopoly to the detriment of all.
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UWP just seems like another stupid layer of bloated crap between the game and the hardware.
That's incorrect. UWP isn't "another layer". If you write a DirectX UWP app then it goes through the same DirectX APIs as it would if you were doing a regular win32 app.
UWP has some replacement APIs -- e.g. it removes the gdi32.dll drawing APIs from win32, replacing them with faster rendering that's more hardware-accelerated, and it bypasses the user32.dll window-managed APIs from win32 replacing them with its own model. But those things are irrelevant to games.
UWP has a couple of new entry-point APIs, e.g.
UWP is not the right solution for every problem (Score:4, Interesting)
I get where Microsoft is going with UWP - It's replacing the legacy overall application framework that's been cobbled together since DOS/3.11. Every windows desktop application has a bit of baggage that's a holdover from DOS, and can in theory interact and work with legacy DOS systems (USB floppy drive? and sneakernet? Add an old DOS hard drive via a USB cable?)
UWP is a different beast. Sandboxed applications that come through a managed app store - Yeah it's tablet like but it's easy and safe for users. Bad applications can't root your system and getting new ones, updating them is easy as hell.
Of course, conveniently, Microsoft gets a piece of the pie or has their hand in every UWP application in some manner or another.
Trouble is UWP is tied to the shitfest that was windows 8 "Metro" and got an astoundingly bad start. It's also got serious issues. Ask any developer that wants to code something more complicated than an online photo browser or "App" that that replaces a web page for some simple service.
Huge pain in the ass straight jacket that makes porting legacy applications near impossible.. Limited access to system resources. Interface issues that make it a complete nonstarter for any serious productivity application. And as we see now, really really really poor and forced choices for games that make it useless for anything that's not a port of a tablet/mobile game.
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No one is ever going to get a decent game of of a app store. You're going to get simple tablet/phone like games that don't need performance.
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I think Valve would disagree with it, considering they ran one of the very first "app stores" on the internet... and their games aren't simple ones either.
And until recently, it actually was quite difficult ot get onto their app store.
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That's a game store. "App" store means the mini things you get on phones and tablets, highly simplified, limited input choices, limited requirements for cpu or 3D graphics, etc. The most complicated "app" is something that would run on a basic $200 PC, whereas the topic was about how to squeeze just a bit more performance.
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There will not be a Windows 11. Microsoft has said that Windows 10 is the last version ever. What this means in practice is that they will just keep modifying it over time, adding new features, removing older features that they've grown tired of supporting, changing the UI every time they want, etc. And customers must follow along, because no one is allowed to defer these updates forever. Even Windows 10 Enterprise edition is not immune, since at some point the security patches will stop coming unless y
The joy of closed source (Score:1, Troll)
The joy of closed source, where you have to beg and wait for a feature and even a large community of users and/or programmers have no other recourse if the answer is either no or wait forever.
That's part of why I like the flexibility offered by open source operating systems -- even if a feature is beyond the ability of some or most of the people who want it, if someone comes along who does have the ability to implement it then it will be done.
That's also my beef with ostensibly open source Android -- I stil
Re: The joy of closed source (Score:1)
I have all sorts of garbage apps that just show up by magic
Get a Nexus phone. Just pure vanilla Android and no vendor apps or auto installed 3rd-party anything.
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But if you value your life, do not get a Nexus 6, I heard they might turn against you.
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It's for those of us who don't like to share. I'm selfish about all my data. If I want someone to see something I'll cut/paste it into an e-mail. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
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What are you talking about? In the stock contacts app, you can share a contact via Bluetooth or Android Beam. I have Barcode Scanner installed and it actually turns the contact into a vCard QR Code.
Or do you mean share all my contacts? If I wanted to do this, I use an app called CardDAV-Sync to pull contacts from a CardDAV server. But I don't want to do this.
You can install apps on vanilla Android, you know. You just get to choose.
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It is needed for game footage capture. Without it youtubers have to use an external device between the monitor and the pc with the associated lag. Or point a camera at the monitor.
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It's a self-serving enhancement (Score:2)
Microsoft employees just wanted to have better frame-rates while snooping on their customers^D^D^D^D^D^D^D^D^D bitches.
reasons why they are doing this (Score:2, Informative)
1- They are only doing this because the xbone is failing hard to the PS4. If they had a dominant position on consoles, we wouldnt be talking about this.
2- Again, to give the 360 and now the xbone advantages, they crippled DirectX gamepad tech. (DirectInput - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
3- Trying to kill Steam,but given how dirty M$ will always be, they will kill Steam and with it, multiplatform releases (OSX and more important, Linux/Steam OS).
Might be more, but perhaps you get the idea.
Personally, I a
Playing catch up with a walled garden (Score:4, Interesting)
UWP is getting built up as fast as possible to match Win32, and when parity is achieved, UWP will have all the new API updates and Win32 will stagnate. Eventually MS will say it's not worth supporting Win32 as a development platform and will leave it to a virtual machine for compatibility. It will be deemed too insecure and out of date. UWP will be supported on more devices. Through MS's store, UWP applications have DRM containers and the Windows PC won't be as open as it used to be, allowing for community fixes and game updates like texture packs and mods. Anyway that's what it seems like.
Why do modern monitors need refresh rates? (Score:3)
CRT displays relied on phosphorous glowing for a short period after being blasted by electrons. You had to keep redrawing the screen to refresh the pixels. But modern monitors are based on LED technology - they don't need refreshing - you just turn them on and off. So why have refresh rates at all? Why doesn't the device simply send frames to the monitor as and when they are ready and the monitor just display what it's told. If I don't send a new frame for an hour the monitor should just sit there for an hour showing the same picture without any refreshing or switching or scanning or any of that.
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So why have refresh rates at all?
Legacy. The monitor technology changed long before methods of driving them caught up. Starting with digitising the analogue signal sent by the PC. The concept of refresh rates were firmly baked into the monitor technology and then it simply stuck with the move to digital. Unfortunately digital signalling was all about sending the required graphics to the monitor and interfaces weren't designed to be generic, i.e. data exchange was essentially limited to something similar to a low-rate I2C bus.
Fast forward t
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Note that both Nvidia and AMD have variable framerate solutions that require specific hardware.
Your OS just sucks (Score:1)