How to Enable Game Mode In Windows 10

Introduced with Windows 10 Creators Update (1703), Game Mode, when turned on, ensures that the game the Game Mode is turned on for utilizes most of the hardware resources of the computer. When you enable Game Mode, the optional background tasks such as app updates, scheduled system scans, etc. are automatically suspended, thus allowing the game to use the resources like graphics card, CPU, memory, etc. to their maximum potential. If your computer supports Game Mode, enabling it in Windows 10 (1803 at the time of this writing) is a hassle-free process. Here’s how:

■Launch the game
Click Start, and click the tile (or the icon from the app’s list) representing the game you want to play (Candy Crush Soda Saga for this example). This launches the game and gives you a platform to launch Game bar to enable Game Mode. It is important to launch the game before enabling Game Mode to ensure that Windows assigns and prioritizes the hardware resources to the correct game.



■Open Game bar
Press Windows + G keys together once the game’s interface initializes. This launches Game bar after popping up a few notifications and requesting your inputs. From Game bar, you can capture snapshots, start recording the game, manage Game bar settings, etc.



■Enable Game Mode
Click the Game Mode icon on Game bar. This turns on Game Mode for the game. From this point onward, you can start playing your game without worrying much about lagging or other inconsistencies that you may experience otherwise. You can even configure Windows to automatically enable Game Mode for this game each time you initialize it by checking the Yes, this is a game box when the notification pops up.
Note: To disable Game Mode, click the Game Mode button again.



■Configure Game bar settings
Click the settings icon from the lower section of Game bar. This opens the Game bar settings box. From here you can change the settings for Game bar to make it function the way you want.






■Configure additional gaming settings

Click Edit more preferences in Windows Settings from the bottom of the Game bar settings box. This opens the Gaming window. From here you can configure other gaming settings like where should Windows save the recorded game clips, change keyboard shortcuts to open Game bar, capture screenshots, or record the games, etc.