How to Enable the Windows 10 Creators Update’s Game Mode

Among the many new features and improvements that the Windows 10 Creators Update brings is Game Mode – a feature designed to improve performance for games. The idea behind Game Mode is pretty simple: when activated, the feature informs your computer that you want it to focus on the running game(s), and the computer in turn de-prioritizes all other resource-intensive applications and puts them on the backburner, dedicating the maximum possible amount of resources towards the running game(s) and improving performance.

The gaming community is still looking into just how effective Game Mode is at its job, but it is safe to say that any feature that allows for a computer to dedicate as many resources as possible to a game regardless of whatever other programs are running in the background is a feature that all gamers would want to use. Once you upgrade your computer to the Windows 10 Creators Update – whether manually or when the update is rolled out to your machine, you will have Game Mode on your computer.

Enabling Game Mode so it can do what it has been designed by Microsoft to do, on the other hand, is a different story. Right now, Windows 10 users who want Game Mode enabled are going to have to enable the feature separately for each individual game that they want it to work its magic with. However, there is also a universal toggle for enabling/disabling Game Mode in the Windows 10 Creators Update’s Settings that, according to Microsoft, automatically enables Game Mode when white-listed games are launched, but the list of those games is pretty short at the moment.

To enable Game Mode at the system level across the Windows 10 Creators Update, you need to:

1. Open the Start Menu.
2. Click on the Settings icon in the lower-left corner of the Start Menu.
3. Click on Gaming.
   
4. In the left pane of the window, locate and click on Game Mode.
5. In the right pane of the window, under the Game Mode section, make sure that the toggle underneath the Use Game Mode option is turned on.
   
6. Close the Settings.

When you launch a game and want Game Mode to be working while you’re playing that game, you are going to have to enable the feature for that specific game, and do so for every single game that you want Game Mode to be working with. In order to do so, you need to:

1. Launch the game you want Game Mode to be used by your computer for.
2. Once you are in the game, press the Windows Logo key + G to bring up the game bar. The same result can be achieved by simply pressing the Xbox button if you have an Xbox controller connected to your computer.
3. Click on the Settings icon in the far-right of the game bar.
4. In the window that pops up, make sure that you are on the General
5. Locate the Use Game Mode for this game option under the Game Mode section, and check the checkbox beside it to enable the option.
6. Close the window, and dismiss the game bar if you have no other business with it. From here on out, Windows will automatically activate Game Mode every single time you launch and play this specific game.