Microsoft Offers Up Windows 10 Creators Update Gaming Features Walkthrough Guide

Of all the new gaming features found in the Creators Update, it's the Beam game recording and streamer that Microsoft is putting most of its weight behind - and it makes sense, as it needs to justify that acquisition cost. While Microsoft is undoubtedly going up against difficult competition, one of its features does offer something to its advantage: extremely low-latency. Whereas competing solutions may experience a 10-30 second delay to get a picture to the stream, Microsoft claims Beam's delay is "less than a second", making it feel like more of a real-time feature.

Thanks to the fact that the streaming is nearly real-time, it means that responses from the streamer will seem far more natural. To help spice up their streams, gamers can inject sounds and animations at will, and to keep up on chat, an overlay is provided.

Another notable feature is Game Mode, which essentially prioritizes resources to a game as much as possible so as to improve its performance. For those who run their systems with minimal software pecking away in the background (or have high-end systems), the gains for you won't be great. However, for those who have their (presumably lower-end) system loaded to the brim with apps and services, it might prove a little more useful. Just don't expect miracles. In some cases, Game Mode might not agree with a certain game, so for that reason it's nice to see that it is opt-in, on a per-game basis.

It's easy to discredit Microsoft's attempts at replicating the features of competing apps you're already familiar with, but the company overall seems to have done an amazing job on integrating Beam and its entire Game Bar into the OS, so it wouldn't hurt to give the new features a try and see what you think. At the very least, hit-up the "Settings" control center and explore the many different options found inside of the "Gaming" section. You just might be impressed.