bcdedit "tweaks" on Windows 10, need opinions

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce Drivers Section' started by Smough, Jul 22, 2020.

  1. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    So, a lot of Windows tweaking guides at Youtube mention this change for a "benefit". They call the uneven timer a "synthetic" timer and the even timer, after doing this, a "correct" timer. Does anybody really know any good benefit of doing this? I actually have done it and so far, it seems to make games stutter more, but I am not sure if could be a "prejudice" against the change I am having or it it's simply not a good change for Windows.

    The "tweak" in question are 2 cmd commands: bcdedit /set useplatformtick yes and bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes; the first one makes the timer resolution go from 0.9996 ms to 1.0 ms and if you set it to 0.4992 with TimerTool, then it becomes 0.5 ms, the second one is apparently a "laptop power saving feature".I've googled around this, but haven't found much, only some dude at some forum that says the commands screwed a lot of things on his Windows, which isn't helpeful one bit, because I can do and undo the command and I can't say I am seeing a change and my mouse feels the same.

    I believe this Fr33thy guy started this trend or at least, he made it popular, the thing is that people do it without even questioning anything about it. He simply said "it makes your timer resolution a nice, even number". What does that even mean?

    I've just decided that I am going to make changes in my O.S, they have to make some sense, if no one really knows that these commands really change isn't it better to leave them alone?

    BTW, if you use bcdedit /set useplatformtick MSI Afterburner frametime graph readings go nuts in the program reportings, showing giantic spikes, even if they aren't being reflected in the games themselves, So it seems like bcdedit /set useplatformtick yes is messing up some timers or clocks within Windows.

    Any ideas?

    Also Latencymon readings seem to spike a bit more with both commands active, if I use one or the other separately, the latency gets much worse, without any bcdedit changes, Latencymon reports are pretty low after 5 minutes of just letting the program give the driver reportings.
     
  2. Caesar

    Caesar Ancient Guru

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    useplatform tick YES = input lags most of the time
     
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  3. Cyberdyne

    Cyberdyne Guest

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    https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/another-look-at-hpet-high-precision-event-timer.368604/page-80

    That topic has managed to make it to page two of the Geforce Driver Section. Please don't do this...
    You're obsessed, but also skeptical. You tried the settings, it made things worse. You speculate other people only use it because certain youtube channels promote placebo pills (Fr33thy for example makes money off of selling these placebo pills).
    Seems to me you have already figured it out. Confirmation bias assures that for those who dig deep and long enough, will find a difference in anything. If anything, topics like these signal boost misinformation.
     
  4. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    Except that thread was about HPET, which is different from this topic (bcdedit useplatformtick yes IS NOT bcdedit useplatformclock yes, they are very different commands and I don't ever mess with HPET on Windows or the motherboard, as I am well aware HPET is authomatic in the O.S anyway, it uses it at will); even if they spoke about these other 2 cmd changes, not much info was seen out of that thread either; some say its "good" and others have no idea. I am just gonna assume if MS does not say much about it, then messing with this is a bad idea. I am not obsessed; just curious and yes, any of these "tweaks" lately make me skeptical. Some do benefit or seem to do so, like MSI mode, but then again, that idea and change was suggest from a well-known member from these forums and someone who can actually explain what this does. I am all for performance, the more you can get, the better, specially considering Windows 10 bloatware and background stuff.

    I am not trying to missinform anybody, but ok dude, suit yourself lol. If someone is missinforming, that's Fr33thy with his videos where he literally says "do this, just because". Also, no idea why are you so defensive about this, if you dislike this topic or talking about it, just move on.
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2020
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  5. AsiJu

    AsiJu Ancient Guru

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    deleted...
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2020
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  6. enkoo1

    enkoo1 Member

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    Really, are you sure? Can you post a link to that claim?
     
  7. Cyberdyne

    Cyberdyne Guest

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    Those tweaks were covered in that topic. Many times, along with Fr33thy. Dead horse is dead, the witch hunt is over. I understand your good intentions, I'm not trying to be defensive, just honest.
     
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  8. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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  9. Martigen

    Martigen Master Guru

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    Yegads. This topic has been done to death in numerous threads -- including linked above -- and keeps popping up like some zombie plague that just won't die.

    The plague is misinformation.

    Here's how you optimise the Windows 10 timers using bcdedit:

    1) Install Windows 10
    2) Do not touch bcdedit

    That's it. That's the magic solution. After hundreds of pages of threads of people researching and testing this, this is the conclusion that somehow keeps being forgotten.

    There's this weird hubris that people think they know better than Microsoft developers who work directly with the hardware. They think -- somehow -- the Microsoft developers have it wrong, and they know better. And that they can improve system performance by changing the defaults Windows selects for your particular system.

    *epic facepalm*

    Many years ago -- we're talking decades -- Windows had its faults. Sometimes, you could maybe squeeze some performance by making changes specific to your system. Those days are long, long, long, gone. Today Windows is actually decent, and especially when it comes to timers it knows *exactly* the best configuration for your system. You do not. Anything else you read online is snake oil.

    Please, PLEASE let these threads die. Please, PLEASE tell anyone who thinks otherwise to get their heads out of asses and reflect on the decades of development that Windows now represents and its close integration with modern hardware and understand this: the defaults are best. There is nothing to tweak. Nothing to change. Install Windows 10 -- bam! optimal Windows. Yes, it's really that easy. Mind blown.

    Close the thead.
     
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  10. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    When feature is introduced into OS then user who understands it correctly (and does not need it) can toy with it. Dynamic tick and tickless kernel were introduced to save the energy, so any user who does not need to save energy can disable it.

    One thing - features which improve something in the OS, like utilizing new HW, optimizing the mechanics. And another thing - features invented by people in company thinking they know better than me how to use OS (and computer overall).
    PS Do you remember reaction to Windows 8?

    PPS Problem is when people believe other people without testing for themselves. If you know how to estimate the impact of given OS feature (on your rig) then you can decide for yourself.
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2020
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  11. Cyberdyne

    Cyberdyne Guest

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    This is true. It's fun to test things. And Microsoft breaks things all the time, and this community has fixed those issues more than once. But with these tweaks, we've already been there. I'm not in favor of pushing placebo settings promoted by people with a financial motivation.
    This is equivalent to those tech support scams were they remote to your computer, open event viewer and say "look at all these viruses".
     
  12. GREGIX

    GREGIX Master Guru

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    Best thing is:
    DO NOT TOUCH bcdedit
    I turned it on, because wanted to try HWBot h265 benchmark, that req HPET on.
    I lost 10% performance at once after restarting. Then stutter appeared, services were lagging my system at boot. More reboots, more crap. I tried to turn it off(CMD), and had freez at restart. Then boot problems appeared. Then I almost completely lost my win10 installation. Managed to get it back, undo all crap I did, now it behaves normal. Almost...
    So
    Do not touch...
     
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  13. CPC_RedDawn

    CPC_RedDawn Ancient Guru

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    I remember going down this rabbit hole a while ago and for older hardware with the whole forcing 0.5ms timers, forcing HPET, etc. And it did work for some older hardware that didn't already have built in timers and gave better minimum fps results but nothing that makes it a must. Most newer CPU's have many onboard timers and its best to just let the CPU do what it wants, it's seriously not worth it. Going down this rabbit hole is what leads to a broken OS install and needing to do a fresh one.
     
  14. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    Forcing timers to 0.5ms or 1ms with useplatformtick isn't the same thing as forcing HPET as you can leave HPET alone and try an "even" timer; different things. But I guess what you are saying makes sense. Never heard of anyone needing to do a fresh install due to experimenting with bcdedit tho.
     
  15. AsiJu

    AsiJu Ancient Guru

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    @mbk1969

    Can you elaborate on this? Isn't useplatformclock inferior to the most advanced timer used by default?
     

  16. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    * sigh *

    @enkoo1

    "useplatformclock" is about choosing the high precision counter to use in API functions QueryPerformanceCounter and QueryPerformanceFrequency - HPET, TSC or another platform counter.
    Note the word "counter" - that`s how HPET and TSC are used: they allow to measure the time span between two calls of QueryPerformanceCounter with high precision. Both HPET and TSC start to increment from zero (or decrement from maximum value) at the system start. In that context (of "useplatformclock") they are not used to trigger an alarm at specified moment in future or to maintain real time.

    "useplatformtick" is about the system timer in Windows - the timer which raises periodic interrupts called a "tick". The period of that system timer is called "system timer resolution" and has a range 0.5 through 15.6 milliseconds.

    We do not know what timer is used as a system one in absence of "useplatformtick" in newest builds of Windows 10. Previous versions all use Real Time Clock chip (somewhere in motherboard). Newest versions of Windows 10 use something new for that.

    PS OP has not mentioned "useplatformclock" at all...

    PPS Posting this link again, since there is a paragraph about system timer
    https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/windows-timer-processing.377790/
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2020
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  17. CPC_RedDawn

    CPC_RedDawn Ancient Guru

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    I never said they were the same just that most people seem to enable both. Also I never said it would make people have to do a fresh install, what I meant was once you go down the rabbit hole of searching for tweaks and performance increases by editing value, installing software, etc, etc people end up down the line breaking their windows install and then finding the problem is a lost cause because they changed so many things. Ive seen it a lot.
     
  18. EnthusiastX

    EnthusiastX Active Member

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    BCDEdit /Debug Off
    BCDEdit /DeleteValue UsePlatformClock
    BCDEDIT /set {current} NX AlwaysOff
    BCDEDIT /set NUMPROC X (where "X" is the total number of your CPU threads)
    BCDEdit -set LoadOptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
    BCDEdit -set NoIntegrityChecks On
    BCDEdit -set TestSigning On (set to "Off" for some games like Rainbow Six: Siege and The Division 2)
    BCDEdit -set BootLog No

    - Commands above disable protection known as DEP
    - Use Universal Watermark Disabler (1.0.0.6 works on all Windows 10 versions) to get rid of the watermark - https://winaero.com/download.php?view.1794
     
  19. kurtextrem

    kurtextrem Master Guru

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    How much higher perf are we talking about?
     
  20. aufkrawall2

    aufkrawall2 Ancient Guru

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    ~Nothing.
     
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