Windows 11 is being deployed, but don’t update your Shadow Cloud PC

Windows 11 is now available, gradually making its way to Windows 10 users as an optional free update. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s latest operating system doesn’t have the most promising beginnings: In addition to flagship gaming features like DirectStorage that aren’t yet technically usable, the Shadow cloud gaming platform is actively discouraging users from gaming. update their systems.

If you’re not familiar, Shadow works differently from most cloud gaming services in that rather than paying to access a game library, you effectively get a full cloud-based PC, with the desktop. Windows 10 and the ability to install other programs or tweak Windows settings. That extends to installing Windows 11 on your cloud PC, although Shadow – who survived bankruptcy earlier this year – would really prefer you didn’t.

In an email to subscribers, Shadow anticipated technical issues with the operating system and explained that they are still working on optimizing the service for it. The message reads: “Today, Microsoft will officially launch Windows 11. It will be phased in, with potential bugs and issues early on. With this in mind, we will monitor the initial performance of Windows 11 before taking action. This will allow us to ensure good performance and a high overall quality of service during the eventual transition to Windows 11. Please do not update your Shadow to Windows 11 until further notice.

“In the meantime, our teams continue to perform testing and development to ensure that Shadow is fully optimized for Windows 11. You will be notified by email when Windows 11 is ready to deploy to Shadow.”

Nothing actually prevents Shadow users from updating to Windows 11, and in fact, it was also possible to install the preview version of the Windows Insider program. I’m still waiting for Microsoft to roll out the update to my benchmark, so I can’t personally attest to the number of bugs, although that’s obviously far from an endorsement from Shadow. They developed more in a Windows 11 FAQ.

In all fairness, there are plenty of signs that Windows 11 may not be as gaming friendly as Microsoft has suggested, at least these early days. Even if you meet the somewhat obscure system requirements of Windows 11, the operating system launches without any usable in-game support for DirectStorage, one of its larger gaming-centric upgrades. , which is said to reduce game load times, is apparently good for Windows 11, but also requires games to support the DirectStorage SDK. No games currently do this, and while the developers are likely considering adding this support, you currently can’t take advantage of it.

PC Gamer has also discovered a troubling Windows 11 quirk, whereby its new Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) feature can actually reduce gaming performance by up to 28%. VBS should be disabled by default when upgrading from Windows 10, except on enterprise versions, but it could potentially be enabled on Windows 11 pre-releases and laptops.

I’ll take a closer look at Windows 11 as soon as possible, although barring AutoHDR’s miraculous performance, it seems increasingly unlikely that the latest version from Microsoft will become a must-have upgrade for PC gaming. Shadow can be on to something suggesting that we hold the fire.