No, Windows 11 Does NOT Ruin Gaming Performance (Don't Disable VBS)

Don't believe the clickbait...

▼ Time Stamps: ▼
0:00 - What's the Problem?
3:41 - Common Mistake to Watch For
4:07 - VBS Crash Course
6:31 - Articles With Good Benchmarks
7:53 - My Test Computer
9:25 - Benchmark Procedure
10:26 - Benchmark Results
15:06 - Conclusions

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[ThioJoe]

▼ Some additional points to emphasize: ▼
• Yes there is a somewhat consistent but small performance hit (but not always) - Importantly, I *personally* consider a ~5% performance hit negligible because there are probably other factors that affect it way more. I would say 10% is not negligible, and 20-30% would indeed be crippling if that was the case. Clearly some people are getting massive 30% hits in certain limited circumstances but I think there must be another compounding factor at play that does indeed need to be investigated.
• In my opinion, 5% is a totally acceptable tradeoff to get the extra security that VBS and VBS+HVCI offer, so I would definitely recommend enabling it on Windows 11. On Windows 10 though, only IF you have an 8th gen or later Intel CPU that has the MBEC feature - anything earlier WILL have a big performance hit most likely.
• You may consider 5% to be totally unacceptable, and decide to turn off VBS altogether, which is totally within your rights, but I just want to make sure you are doing it FULLY informed about the true performance cost or lack thereof (disabling VBS altogether is actually tougher than it sounds, I had to do it with the registry, and the instructions are not always clear from Microsoft, you'll have to try several things. Also remember disabling memory integrity does not disable VBS)
• Some have mentioned there is a bigger problem with AMD Ryzen processors, which I cannot speak to because I tested Intel. I will say that the PC Gamer article also tested on an Intel 10th gen, so my tests as a comparison are not moot. For AMD stats, I refer you to the Tom's Guide article link in the description, where they tested both Intel and AMD.

• You can check if you have Virtualization Based Security running by searching the start menu for "System Information" and looking for "Virtualization Based Security" which will either say "Running" or "Not Enabled". As for memory integrity, if you are having trouble enabling it even though you have no conflicting drivers shown, you can enable it through group policy editor under "Device Guard" (just look up the instructions).

[MAADUKTV]

It’s not about FPS, it’s about stuttering. Core isolation make stuttering in games.

[ChrisTitusTech]

The big thing you missed was AMD chips do indeed suffer a 15% decrease in performance, which I believe engaget covered as AMD said they are working on a patch for this. Should be fixed soon... but overall I do agree don't disable VBS from what I am seeing. Most high end laptops still use intel, but many desktop users will see a a 15% cpu dip from this upgrade on AMD Ryzen. It should be noted, most games are GPU heavy and shouldn't see a 30% dropoff like PC gamer article said, but I'm still doing testing myself.

[raawesome]

Thank you for being an honest creator rather than looking for clicks.

[Rasherplayz]

I noticed about 3-4 FPS increase after upgrading to Win 11, Thanks for spreading this info to people!.Also, my pc is low end but i still get FPS increase

[minimvl]

In all honestly I feel like games are running more smoothly in some situations. Borderless windowed mode is actually usable for me in some games now.

[ckingpro]

Device Guard is now called WDAC (Windows Defender Application Control). But yeah, the acronym soup is really annoying at times causing confusion. A very simple description of all of this:
We need to begin with VBS itself. So as you might (or might not) know, kernel mode has far higher privileges and access than the normal usual mode (known as user mode) where all your programs run. For example, it sets up page tables to make sure each process can't access another process's memory and handles sensitive operations like file I/O, memory mapping etc. This is all really nice and provides privilege isolation. But, drivers run in kernel mode and many of them can have bugs. Many of the linux kernel (which has drivers for devices in the codebase) and Windows kernel vulnerabilities are from drivers. Plus, many of the protections like memory permissions including no-execute (DEP) of the kernel are handled by the page tables in the kernel which a driver can just change. There is Patchguard which uses checks that are heavily obfuscated and change regularly to try and make it harder to exploit the kernel (but security through obscurity is not a security barrier) and it only protects certain regions.

What VBS allows you to do is run Windows essentially inside a VM (don't worry, all your hardware is passed through so no emulation involved). When you boot, a separate secure kernel first boots, and sets up the virtualization and then normal kernel boots. It can enforce code signing of kernel drivers (hence HVCI: Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity) and locks them. Even if a malicious driver or exploit changes the page tables, the secure kernel through now controls the memory and protects that. VBS also guards regions the regions PatchGuard protected and all executable memory in the kernel must go through code-signing protected by the secure kernel (this is called Hyperguard and is separate from HVCI. Hyperguard works if VBS is enabled, and does not require HVCI. The executable kernel memory check is handled by HVCI). This also means drivers must not create new executable regions or do JIT (which is why some drivers are incompatible). It also blocks known vulnerable drivers even if they are signed (which is huge). The code signing part is Kernel-Mode Code Integrity (may be done in the kernel or under VBS). VBS also allows Control Flow Guard (CFG) in the Kernel (although explaining that would need its own post)

There's also UMCI (Usermode code integrity) but that is used by Windows Defender Application Control (previously Device Guard). This is an enterprisey feature that only allows programs that match certain code signatures (there's a lot more than just this, but this is a simplification). Windows 10 S mode was a way to try and bring this to home users, but Microsoft Store then was useless.

This is where Mode-Based Execution Control (MBEC) came in (GMET is AMD's branding of this, Guest Mode Execute Trap). Previously, the way hypervisor would take control was from any new page of executable memory. This would require the secure kernel to take control, check if it is kernel or usermode executable memory and then do checks for kernel memory for signing. As you can imagine, launching or modifying any process would require these checks (and things like browsers which do JIT to execute code like javascript require even more switches between secure kernel and normal kernel). MBEC allows the chip to only trap executable memory for kernel, making this much faster.

[tzeffsmainchannel]

*This dude has been lying since 2008!!* 😠

[META.]

I get 67fps in Cyberpunk in-game benchmark with VBS on and 75fps with VBS off.

I have no clue how your testing went but my result is more than enough for me to instantly disable it.

[xboxisgay]

isnt this the guy that made tech troll videos now hes trying to be serious? boy who cries wolf

[Oscar.P]

Updated to 11 a couple of days ago on my 4800h HP omen 15 and I don't have any issues, some games run even better.

[ikj]

Yes Guys he is right. I did a clean install of Win 11 3 days ago. When I read the articles about gaming performance, I was really scared. So, I decided to do the testing myself, I have around 36 games and I am a gamer I have played for really long periods I play them with fps counter on often. So, I know what kind of performance my RTX 2060 gives me. And yesterday I did the testing and played them all for some time. I am glad to find that there was 0 to 1% difference in performance. Also in some games like Call of Duty Warzone, It ran the smoother than ever.

[del-chicken]

They should put a disclaimer saying "My experience only"

[roshinthomaskoshy]

I installed windows 11 on my old PC (2nd gen) using the method seen in LTT. I also run windows 10 on the same system. From my brief usage I found W11 performs better than W10, epecially the disk usage(mostly 100% in W10 but settles to low percentage in W11). Another change I noticed is the performance increase(10-20%) in Youtube playback (Noticable for 1080p 60fps videos at 1.25x or 1.5x).

[E-]

bro I remember when you were a meme, you did an absolutely fantastic job, I can tell you genuinely care about this. please keep up the brilliant work, it's genuinely helping people understand their hardware and software, and not just blindly following the trending topics.

[Unknown-xeni]

People: 4-5% fps drop
Me: getting from 100 fps in Minecraft to now like 500 at 1080p high that in low end mx350😍

[fragalot]

I'd be curious to know what kind of PC the PCGamer article author was using. Was he on a laptop or desktop? Was it a clean install of Win11 by the author? Intel or AMD? Was it a prebuilt PC that came with Windows 11? Was there bloatware on it? What other software was installed on that PC while he was benchmarking? There are so many things that can effect performance. That "Sample size of one" was exactly what was going though my mind too Thio, before you said it.

[frankom]

How old we need to be to understand that everytime that Microsoft come with a new version of their software, we should wait till it works.

[royalkumar]

PC GAMER : Gaming performance drop to 25%
ThioJoe: Did you test on SDD ?
PC GAMER : Surprise pikachu face

[ApostKef]

Thiojoe, please make a video about the compatibility of zen+ with windows 11, because i think it is questionable. Zen+ does not support hardware accelerated hvci, so i am really qurious to see the possible performance hit if hvci is on