Microsoft Details Gaming Enhancements Coming With Windows 10 Creators Update
Next year, in the spring, Microsoft will be releasing a new update for Windows 10 that they are calling the Creators update. Earlier this year, the company announced several new features are coming to the platform (a few enterprise enhancements too) and at WinHEC last week, they detailed a more bits of information about the initiatives for gaming on Windows 10 and Xbox.
In a session called Graphics and Gaming Investments in Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft has highlighted where it is investing for the Creators update and how this translates into enhancements for the user.
Microsoft is continuing to heavily push its Xbox Play Anywhere experience. For those not familiar, this is a feature where you can purchase a game on the Xbox and then play it on your PC without having to buy the game again. The company is working to extend this type of experience with Xbox accessories too with the addition of more peripherals supporting Xbox Wireless.
Xbox Wireless is the device that makes it possible for the Xbox controller to work with your PC and in 2017, 8 new partners will be enabling hardware to work with the dongle currently used for the Xbox controller. This includes headset partners like Astro, Turtle Beach and Plantronics; all these devices will soon work on both your Xbox and your PC.
Other enhancements include game streaming being built into Xbox and Windows 10 (this was announced previously) as well as a much wider set of graphical enhancements like WDDM 2.2, HDR/WCG. With the Creators update, Microsoft sees HDR/WCG bringing HDR streaming to Windows 10 along with new games and apps taking advantage of these new features.
And finally, Microsoft will start bundling drivers with Windows Store games to improve the performance of the game once downloaded. This will work by the game download trigging Windows Update to acquire the minimum driver requirements to make sure that application works as intended.
This may perturb some users who like having complete control over the driver updates for their hardware as this auto-download mechanism will overwrite the existing installation of the driver. Of course, you can still roll-back the update but hopefully Microsoft gives us a way to stop the auto-download of the driver via the Windows Store when this feature arrives.
If you want to watch the entire session where Microsoft announced these features, you can find the video here.