Microsoft today announced the general availability of Windows 11 2022 Update – also known as Windows 11 version 22H2 – which is the first major update to Windows 11 since its initial release last year. The Windows 11 2022 update naturally brings a lot of new features and capabilities to the table, and this includes some improvements to gaming, including improved HDR support, a new Control bar, and more.
control bar
The Xbox Game Bar has been a feature in Windows since the early days of Windows 10, but with the Windows 11 2022 Update, Microsoft is working on improving it for console users. If you access the Xbox Game Bar using an Xbox console, instead of your usual set of tools, you’ll see a quick launcher for recent games and game players you’ve used. This way, you can quickly jump into a game when you pair a console with your PC, so you can start playing more quickly without switching between console and keyboard.
Of course, you still have the option to switch back to the normal game bar view with all the widgets it includes, so you can access social features, audio settings, etc. Again, you’ll only see this Control Bar when using the Xbox console – the usual keyboard shortcut (Windows + G) will still display the typical Game Bar user interface.
HDR Calibration App
One of the big new features of Windows 11 compared to Windows 10 was the addition of Auto HDR, which allowed Windows to enable a certain degree of HDR support in various games that weren’t designed to support HDR out of the box. With this update, you will be able to use Auto HDR in more games.
As HDR monitors become more popular for gaming, the Windows 11 2022 Update also includes a new HDR calibration app, which can help improve the HDR experience on a wider range of monitors. With the HDR Calibration app, you can ensure that brightness and color levels are tailored to your specific screen, and that they remain the most consistent across different games, so you can get the best possible HDR experience.
Framed game improvements and more
The Windows 11 2022 Update also comes with significant improvements to games that run in windowed mode, specifically titles that still rely on DirectX 10 or 11. Now, Windows 11 can enable features such as variable refresh rate, low latency, and automatic HDR for titles that are on Run in windowed mode, including borderless windows. Previously, this was only available for exclusive full-screen games, which means if you want to take advantage of these improvements, you can’t overlay apps on top of the game you were playing, but that’s no longer the case.
If the game was based on DirectX 12, it could already take advantage of these windowing mode improvements, but this was not the case for titles based on older versions of DirectX. Many popular titles still use DirectX 10 or 11, so this feature should come in handy for many games.
On that note, the Windows 11 2022 Update comes with DirectX 12 Ultimate support, and it also includes DirectStorage support. This is a new storage API that takes advantage of the full power of modern GPUs, specifically enabling hardware-based decompression of game assets. Previously, decompressing assets was a task that had to be moved through the CPU, which led to a lot of overhead. Now, decompressing assets can be much faster, which means load times can be much shorter and high-quality assets can be loaded quickly without affecting performance. This isn’t a completely new feature, but it’s now built into Windows 11. It’s also part of the Xbox Series X and S consoles, which is why load times on these systems can be so short.
Microsoft focuses on gaming a lot with both Windows and Microsoft Edge, recently releasing features like a dedicated gaming home page for the browser, as well as Clarity Boost if you’re using Xbox Cloud Gaming with Edge. For Windows Insiders registered with the Dev channel, there’s also a new Game Pass widget currently in testing, making it easier to find new games to play.
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