Question Longer loading times in games on Windows 11 ?

[kamild_]

I switched to Windows 11 a few weeks ago (clean installation).
First games I tried are TF2, CS:GO and modded Minecraft. In all of them, I see increased loading times (booting up, loading a map/world etc.) compared to Windows 10. CS:GO seems like the worst offender, with some loading times doubled if not tripled.
I made sure Core Isolation is disabled, as well as GameDVR. I see no excessive CPU or disk usage in Task Manager, overall I still have less apps running in the background compared to my previous Windows 10 installation.

PC specs:
Ryzen 7 3700X,
32GB RAM DDR4-3733,
GTX 1070,
ADATA SX8200 Pro 2TB SSD

What else could I check to find the cause of this problem?

 

[Colif]

VBS?
Virtualization-based Security

Microsoft explains it as follows: "VBS uses hardware virtualization features to create and isolate a secure region of memory from the normal operating system. Windows can use this 'virtual secure mode' to host a number of security solutions, providing them with greatly increased protection from vulnerabilities in the operating system, and preventing the use of malicious exploits which attempt to defeat protections."

It's a feature mainly intended for enterprise customers to be able to lock down the corporate PCs they drop into their offices and make sure they don't get compromised.

And if you're upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11 then you don't have to worry about VBS being enabled, unless you were already running an enterprise version of the older OS, that is. The issue comes if you're receiving a machine which has had an OEM build of Windows 11 installed on it.

it shouldn't be on though

The thing to note, though, is that VBS is not enabled by default for all clean installs of Windows 11. I downloaded the latest ISO version of the OS in order to check VBS out on our test rig, but had to do some registry editing, and BIOS tweaking, in order to actually enable it. So, it's nothing to be concerned about if you're just grabbing a Windows 11 download for a fresh install yourself.

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/windows-11-pcs-can-hobble-gaming-performance/

maybe

In fact, some people had already noticed that after a clean installation of Windows 11 the VBS function was activated.

It seems you already did this, since you mention Core isolation - https://stealthoptional.com/how-to/windows-11-vbs-how-to-turn-off-vbs-in-windows-11/

 

[kamild_]

VBS?
Virtualization-based Security


it shouldn't be on though

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/windows-11-pcs-can-hobble-gaming-performance/

maybe


It seems you already did this, since you mention Core isolation - https://stealthoptional.com/how-to/windows-11-vbs-how-to-turn-off-vbs-in-windows-11/

Yeah, I disabled it back then. I did check again right now, still off.

 

[Colif]

If I was in this situation I would ask on here as there might be someone there who has seen this before - https://www.elevenforum.com/

Its posssible a Cumulative Update will fix it as it does seem to be something in 11 that is to blame.

If you get an answer there, can you let us know?

 

[kamild_]

If you get an answer there, can you let us know?

Posted. Will post here as well if they manage to come up with a solution.

 

[kamild_]

Except for CS:GO, loading times seem to be sorted out now. Something we both somehow have failed to check. It was Microsoft Defender somehow slowing up things. I did some testing back and forth (disabling and enabling Defender) a bunch of times and it's confirmed, for some reason Defender slowed down loading times a lot even though on Windows 10 it ran just fine.
Guess it's time to reinstall Norton 360 as I still have an active license for it
(yes, I know about Norton and the crypto stuff, but I don't even see that feature in my installation, so...)

 

[Colif]

Norton crypto is only in the Norton 360 versions so far... who knows if its not in the free ones and just runs and gives all profits to Norton.

I don't think of Defender as I don't use it.

I can't find anything about why defender is like that. You could perhaps add the games to a whitelist that isn't scanned on launch?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...security-811816c0-4dfd-af4a-47e4-c301afe13b26