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Windows 10 Is Adding an Ultimate Performance Mode For Pros (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-and-improved dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: When you're creating 3D models or otherwise running intensive tasks, you want to wring every ounce of performance out of your PC as possible. It's a good thing, then, that Microsoft has released a Windows 10 preview build in the Fast ring that includes a new Ultimate Performance mode if you're running Pro for Workstations. As the name implies, this is a step up for people for whom even the High Performance mode isn't enough -- it throws power management out the window to eliminate "micro-latencies" and boost raw speed. You can set it yourself, but PC makers will have the option of shipping systems with the feature turned on. Ultimate Performance isn't currently available for laptops or tablets, but Microsoft suggests that could change.

10 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. You can do this on older version too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Simply disable Windows Defender.

  2. Why wasn't this an option before? by theraptor05 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I want my computer to run slow. Please leave Ultimate Performance off, maybe insert some extra latency in a few places just because... This is hardly a new requirement. For the work I do, Windows has always been looked past because it couldn't get out of it's own way when running high-performance or near real time code. It will never do actual real time (Microsoft could make that, but it wouldn't be called Windows), but why has this "Ultra Extreme Actually Fast" mode been so impossible in the past?

    1. Re:Why wasn't this an option before? by m.alessandrini · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, they're needed to run "svchost.exe".

    2. Re:Why wasn't this an option before? by edtice1559 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Congratulations on your +4 and I hope you get to +5. Even "high load" applications generally have very brief periods of CPU idle time. Maybe they are waiting for a page swap or to write out the result of some calculation to disk. If the CPU power manager sees 100ms of idle time, what should it do? Seems reasonable to cut the clock down as, for many (most) workloads, this would indicate that the CPU-bound portion is over. If CPU demand picks up, you can pick up the pace again. But how many ms of load do you need to see in order to decide that this is another high-workload period? For almost everything that normal people do, the latency to pick the clock rate back up when CPU demand rises is immeasurably small. For those specific situations where it would make a difference, it's not possible to tell the power manager to never slow the CPU even if completely idle for decades. The actual use for this is probably close to zero but you'll probably see people turn it on for the same reasons you see giant wings strapped to the back of 90 horsepower sedans.

  3. Re:But Telemetry will still be turned on by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Informative

    Try stopping it - run a traffic monitor and take a look. It takes a ridiculous amount of effort to disable all the spyware. It's not just a matter of changing a few buried registry settings, you have to deliberately break services that can't be disabled and use an external firewall because the Windows internal one has hard-coded exceptions.

  4. Re:LOLZ by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    2% isn't going to help much when the Meltdown patch just hit you for 50%.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  5. I want crappy performance mode by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ultra performance... meh...Wake me up when there is an ultra crappy performance mode.

    I like my computers like I like my women, slow and full of viruses.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  6. Forced reboots make this meaningless. by mukinrestak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It doesn't matter how much performance they can wrangle when the OS still forces reboots for updates in the middle of compiling, encoding, rendering, etc.

    You can't "just save" some things.

  7. performance levels explained. by nimbius · · Score: 5, Funny

    for some of the more linux-savvy slashdotters performance levels might seem abstract and vague. as a Microsoft engineer, I can explain these pretty quickly.

    regular performance: Windows performs per normal with some features and functions disabled. this is for your protection, as the tome of windows cannot be simply 'closed' once opened.
    high performance: eliminates microlatencies caused by the thin veil of reality that separates you from pure, raw windows. High performance mode switches cortanas voice to Vin Diesel, and the background to a moistened and slightly unstable steve ballmer who has a random chance to shout 'DEVELOPERS' when clicking any item.
    ultimate performance: God is dead and you now sit upon the throne in this wasteland of pure and unadulterated windows. The seals have been unlocked and the runes aligned as you see once and for all the true blistering power of Minesweeper. Cortana is replaced with a cursed portrait of W.E.B. Du-Buois into which you whisper your darkest desires (and save your passwords.) The startup sound is the entire 16 hour watergate deposition. the shutdown sound is a sacrosanct quote of your last words before you die as theyve been divined from the future.
    Also, SSH is enabled.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  8. What an idea! by GoTeam · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's a good start Microsoft. Now they need to invent a way that you can toggle this feature on and off with a physical button. They could put the button on the case, but they'd have to put a word above it to describe what it does... Maybe "Turbo"? Yes, they should invent the turbo button. That's forward thinking!!!!