Windows 11 Security Features Hit Game Performance
Microsoft has officially released Windows 11, not that you probably have it on your system yet. Unlike past years, Microsoft isn’t giving everyone the option of installing Windows 11 right away, but anyone buying prebuilt from this point forward is likely to encounter it. If you’re going to use that PC for games, Windows 11 might get in your way due to some of its new security features. The impact isn’t huge, but testing from Tom’s Hardware shows it is noticeable.
Windows 11 supports several new security features, one of which is known as Virtualization-Based Security (VBS). When enabled, VBS uses virtualization to create a secure area in memory that can be used to run other security features like Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) and Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI, sometimes called Memory Integrity). This does come with a hit to CPU performance that can negatively impact gaming, but there’s good news.
So enabling VBS is bad for gaming, but a feature called Mode Based Execution Control (MBEC) lessens the impact. That’s not available on all processors, but when you look at the supported chips, Microsoft’s Windows 11 restrictions make a little more sense—MBEC requires a 7th generation Intel Core or AMD Zen 2 CPU. Tom’s Hardware benchmarked several games to assess the impact of VBS, finding that Intel CPUs lose about 5 percent of their gaming performance as measured by frame rates. AMD systems were a little lower at 4 percent average.
These numbers all include MBEC, and things would be much worse otherwise. Still, this drop could be enough to make a game that was borderline into an unplayable experience, and it represents between 1/3 and 1/2 of the performance AMD and Intel have typically delivered generation-on-generation. The good news is VBS does not default to “On” when you install Windows yourself. Microsoft is telling OEMs to use this feature, but gaming-focused systems should have it disabled. In the event you do have VBS enabled on a future Windows 11 machine, it can be disabled to reclaim that lost performance.
Windows 11 launched on October 5th for new PCs. Windows 11 includes more robust security, a redesigned start menu, new window management features, and a revamped Microsoft Store. Existing Windows 10 machines will get updates for free, but they will arrive on Microsoft’s schedule, and that could stretch well into 2022.
Continue reading
The Best Smart Home Security Systems
Once a niche business with a few traditional players and some startups, home security systems are now a major battleground for not just security companies, but several internet giants. We round up highlights of the most popular options for 2020.
Microsoft: Pluton Chip Will Bring Xbox-Like Security to Windows PCs
Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm are working to make Pluton part of their upcoming designs, which should make PCs more difficult to hack, but it also bakes Microsoft technology into your hardware.
Security Researcher: ‘solarwinds123’ Password Left Firm Vulnerable in 2019
SolarWinds, the company at the center of the massive hack that hit US government agencies and corporations, doesn't exactly use cutting-edge password techniques.
A File Sharing App With 1 Billion Downloads Has a Major Security Flaw
Trend Micro says SHAREit is a security nightmare that could allow intruders to sneak a peek at your data or even install malware. Perhaps most troublingly, the developers have not responded to Trend Micro's warnings.