Looks like that's not the case with File Explorer in the public release of Windows 11 (Build 22000.194). Essentially, any well-written process should free up the allocated memory space once it has been terminated. The other major bug that was noticed by Insiders (via u/gyrohan269 on Reddit) is a File Explorer memory leak. They found performance regressions of up to 5% in Far Cry New Dawn, 25% in Horizon Zero Dawn, 24% in Metro Exodus, 28% in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and 10% in 3DMark Time Spy. PC Gamer tested several titles to see how VBS impacts gaming. VBS will not be enabled by default if you are doing an in-place upgrade from Windows 10 or even for most clean installs, but OEM machines will have it turned on by default - and that can dent your fps numbers while gaming.
For instance, kernel mode code integrity uses a VBS feature called Hypervisor-enforced Code Integrity (HVCI) to check if all kernel mode drivers are properly signed or not before loading into memory. This secure enclave prevents any vulnerabilities in the main OS from affecting these functions. This was also confirmed in a press release by UL Benchmarks, makers of the popular 3DMark and PCMark suite of benchmarking tools.įor those not in the know, VBS uses hardware virtualization capabilities to isolate certain security features in memory. The culprit here seems to be Microsoft's implementation of Virtualization-based Security (VBS). Gaming performance deltas can vary as little as being within the margin of error to something as large as a generational gap between two GPUs.
Windows 11 forces several security measures for the overall good, but they seem to negatively impact gaming performance, which was touted as one of the highlights of the OS at launch. Users are finding issues in several crucial areas of the OS, which may negatively impact the overall experience.
Windows 11 is now official, but it seems that the OS is far from done yet.