Microsoft is regularly adding new features to Windows 11. The most recent feature update added some new features to the Task Manager, improved the taskbar by adding the ability to show seconds in the system tray, and more. That’s not all, as the update comes with a lesser-known change – reduced game stutter with high report rate mice.
Windows 11 July 2023 Update’s hidden feature reduces stutter in games on devices with high report rate mice. In a statement, a Microsoft developer told Windows Latest that Windows 11’s latest update aims to reduce in-game stutter, a major pain point for gamers seeking immersive experiences.
“Some of you will see better gaming performance with the July 2023 update. This [July 2023 Update] improves performance when you use a mouse with a high gaming report rate,” the engineer told us. This change is rolling out with Windows 11 KB5028185, which comes with Moment 3 features and many other changes.
As we all know, Microsoft is betting on PC gaming, and gamers often push their systems to the limit, using high DPI, high report rate mice, and other tools to reduce response times and improve precision.
However, gaming requires a lot of new hardware and input devices for voice chat or streaming games/apps to YouTube, Twitch or other platforms. As a result, a Windows input system is used for configuring keyboards, mice, or graphics cards.
The increased demand on the Windows input stack from these high report rate mice and background processes resulted in significant time spent processing input, ultimately impacting the game-rendering experience.
In response, Microsoft has optimized the processing time for handling input requests. The tech giant improved the performance by throttling and coalescing background raw mouse listeners and capping their message rate.
This ensures more efficient input handling for background listeners, freeing up more cycles to render the gaming experience.
Before these improvements, Microsoft reported observing significant stutter during popular games when using a Surface Laptop Studio with a 1000 Hz mouse and a set of background listeners. However, post these changes, the same setup now delivers a smooth, uninterrupted gaming experience.
This update aims to preserve games’ low latency and high precision input experience while improving input efficiency for background listeners. This move is expected to enhance the gaming experience on Windows 11 significantly, offering gamers smoother gameplay, even with multiple background processes running.
