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New Microsoft 10 Update Will Add Support For Freesync/G-Sync & Unlocked Framerates In UWP Games

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Microsoft has just announced that a new update for Windows 10 will be issued today that will add two new features; support for both Freesync and G-sync, as well as support for unlocked framerates on UWP games and applications.

As Microsoft stated, here are the new features coming today on Windows 10:

  • Support for AMD’s Freesync and NVIDIA’s G-SYNC in Universal Windows Platform games and apps
  • Unlocked frame rate for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) games and apps

Do note that the developers will need to release patches so that their games can take advantage of these two features. Microsoft expects Gears of War: UE and Forza Motorsport 6: APEX to be the first that will support them.

Microsoft has also commented on the lack of an exclusive fullscreen mode in DX12:

“Full screen exclusive mode was created back in the original release of DirectDraw to provide games with enhanced performance when using the entire screen. The downside of full screen exclusive mode is that it makes the experience for gamers who wish to do other things on their system, such as alt-tab to another application or run the Windows GameDVR, more clunky with excessive flicker and transition time.

We thought it would be cool if gamers could have the versatility of gaming in a window with the performance of full screen exclusive.

So, with Windows 10, DirectX 12 games which take up the entire screen perform just as well as the old full screen exclusive mode without any of the full screen exclusive mode disadvantages. This is true for both Win32 and UWP games which use DirectX 12.   All of these games can seamlessly alt-tab, run GameDVR, and exhibit normal functionality of a window without any perf degradation vs full screen exclusive.”

In other words, don’t expect a fullscreen mode.

It will be interesting now to see whether all (or at least some) of the DX12 games will start supporting multi-GPUs, especially now that a fullscreen mode is not planned at all. Microsoft claimed that PC gamers can expect to see some exciting developments on multiple GPUs in DirectX 12 in the near future.

Furthermore, it will be interesting to see whether more overlay programs will be compatible with this new API (Dxtory, EVGA Precision and ACTION! are as of this moment compatible with it).