Windows 11 users are experiencing issues with the update KB5031455, with some systems not installing the update, others encountering installation problems and some seeing error messages as well as gaming issues if the update does install successfully.
According to Windows Latest, several users have complained to the site about the Windows 11 update, stating the installation would “run and fail, then reboot, run and fail again.”
Another user commented on problems with gaming performance after the update, saying that the build “broke a few games.” According to the user, some games available from Epic Games Store, such as Fortnite and Horizon Zero Dawn, crashed and refused to start. More comments like these have been left on the Windows Latest site.
This is not the first time a string of issues has been presented due to preview updates. KB5030310, a preview update for those using Windows 11 22H2, caused issues with File Explorer that led to buggy behaviour and slower run times.
If you’ve yet to install the KB5031455 update, we recommend you hold off a bit longer until these issues are addressed by Microsoft. But, if you’re feeling brave and want to go ahead anyway, you’ll need to go to Settings, then to Windows Update, and select ‘Check for Updates’. Once your device finds the new optional update, click the ‘Download and install’ button.
It’s worth bearing in mind that Windows Latest has tested the update on its own machines and noted the same problems listed above, so once again, we recommend you proceed with caution if you plan to install the update.
Windows 11’s latest cumulative update has been triggering a whole heap of problems going by a bunch of online reports, including causing havoc for PC gamers in some cases.
This is KB5030219, the compulsory update for September that was released last week and piped to Windows 11 22H2 systems.
Windows Latest spotted a catalog of reported gremlins in the works with KB5030219, and that includes the update causing Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) crashes.
On top of that, readers have reported instances of system slowdown to Windows Latest following the installation of KB5030219, and network connection problems, with internet access apparently failing for some post-installation.
There are also reports of PCs failing to start entirely after the update, which is very worrying of course – there’s nothing worse than your system failing to boot after applying an ‘upgrade.’
Another report on Reddit, on the official thread introducing KB5030219, complains about a problem where the Start menu (and search functionality) fails to work for some folks.
That Reddit thread contains quite a number of other issues, including various performance problems (like a very slow right-click menu) and tabs in File Explorer disappearing due to KB5030219, as well as some weird audio glitches. Oh, and installation failures, with the update failing to complete in some cases (a continued problem with Windows 11 cumulative updates for some folks).
And on top of that, as mentioned, PC gamers have been hit here. Windows Latest highlights some apparent performance glitches with Starfield, and a post on Microsoft’s own Feedback Hub claims the Game Pass version of Starfield is experiencing TDR (timeout detection and recovery) errors and crashes.
“After removing the update, the Starfield game ran normally,” the affected gamer observes.
However, Windows Latest further notes that it’s not sure if these Starfield performance issues could be related to Nvidia’s most recent GeForce driver, or to this Windows 11 cumulative update.
One Redditor certainly lays the blame at Microsoft’s door, saying: “It’s definitely a Windows update issue for me because I didn’t update my GeForce driver (I use the studio driver that is still at v536.99) but stupid me did the Windows update and now my PC is exhibiting all kinds of intermittent internet connection problems, lags, slow application startups, etc.”
Another Redditor claims: “Yes! I thought it was the new Nvidia driver I had installed at first, but then rolled it back and [the] issue [performance problem in Starfield] was still present. I then uninstalled update KB5030219 and issue was completely gone. Reinstalled the latest Nvidia driver again and it was fine. Not sure what they broke with that Windows update, but I won’t be reinstalling it until it has been addressed.”
Other reports from PC gamers include Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart misfiring with crashes and freezes.
(Image credit: Bethesda Softworks)
Analysis: Return of the timeouts (sadly)
This is a surprisingly lengthy laundry list of serious issues across the board, really. We expect some rockiness to be experienced with any new patch, true, but this kind of level of apparent chaos is a poor show from Microsoft. The range of the glitches, and the performance hits in many cases – for gaming, and operation within the Windows 11 environment in general – make for a truly worrying state of affairs.
What doesn’t help is there’s no admission from Microsoft that there’s anything amiss here, at least not yet. In the supporting bumph for KB5030219, Microsoft simply states that it is “not currently aware of any issues with this update” and leaves it at that.
What’s extra disappointing for us here is that TDR errors were resolved in July, with the cumulative update for that month – so to see them apparently making a return already is a bit of a blow, to say the least.
Hopefully, Microsoft will be investigating the many outlined issues here, because clearly, something has gone awry with KB5030219 – to see this much disgruntled chatter around an update, and such a wide-ranging set of apparent problems, is definitely concerning.
Windows 11’s Moment 3 update has arrived, albeit only in preview form right now, and as well as new features, it comes with a whole lot of bug squashing – including the fix for a glitch that has been driving some gamers round the bend.
Namely Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) errors which crash the game and can lock up the PC. These have been around for a long time, and you can trace troubleshooting efforts all the way back to Windows Vista on Nvidia’s support forum.
Microsoft’s release notes for the Moment 3 preview (KB5027303) state that: “This update addresses an issue that might affect your computer when you are playing a game. Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) errors might occur.”
There are some thumbs-ups for this move on Reddit, though no reports that gamers who have been experiencing TDR crashes of late are no longer getting them – not yet, anyway. But we’ll take Microsoft at its word, of course, and this is an important step forward.
One user on Reddit did observe: “Funnily enough, Spider Man Remastered no longer crashes since I have installed this update. I never had TDR issues though.”
So maybe there are some overall stability fixes in the background here for PC games, as well as the TDR remedy? Perhaps.
Another useful facet of this update for gamers is that it improves performance with high polling rate mice (as seen before in testing), reducing levels of stutter with these peripherals (such as the models found in our best gaming mouse roundup).
Analysis: Bug fix bonanza
There are a bunch of other bug fixes delivered by KB5027303, too, including a solution for an issue that stops File Explorer working (that’s a big one, as File Explorer is the central part of the Windows interface which displays your folders and files).
There’s also a cure for flickering video in some apps, the virtual on-screen keyboard failing to open (after coming back from the lock screen), and some earbuds not working (for playing streaming music). That’s quite a bit of problem solving from Microsoft.
Remember, however, this is a preview update, meaning it’s an optional one. If you’ve been frustrated by those TDR errors crashing games, or another of the mentioned gremlins, then you might well feel this update is worth installing. Any risks of still undiscovered bugs in preview likely pale into insignificance compared to the problem you’re facing, anyway.
Otherwise, folks may want to wait for this update to get its full release, which will happen next month (on July 11 to be precise, so that’s not all that much of a wait).
As ever with optional updates, the choice is yours. Windows 10 gamers, however, are a bit miffed that the TDR fix is here for Windows 11, but not for the older OS – so they don’t have a choice, and are forced to live with any game crashing antics. With any luck, Microsoft has this resolution inbound for Windows 10 and it’ll be coming soon enough, fingers crossed.
Although Apple’s WWDC 2023 showcase did highlight VR gaming experiences as a core part of the Vision Pro’s capabilities, new information reported by Mixed has revealed that there might be some design choices within the visionOS software that could seriously impact the VR gaming experience.
Recently-released Apple documentation explains that “the system defines an invisible zone that extends 1.5 meters from the initial position of the wearer’s head”, during ‘immersive experiences’ in VR. It goes on to say that “if their head moves outside of that zone, the experience automatically stops and passthrough returns to help people avoid colliding with objects in their physical surroundings.”
This sort of safety feature is commonplace in the best VR headsets, like the Meta Quest 2. However, Meta’s system allows users to define a set space around themselves for the purposes of spatial safety; while it looks like standard VR apps on the Vision Pro – as opposed to Apple’s ‘immersive experiences’ – will switch to transparent mode if you move just a meter from your starting point.
Locked in a (virtual) box
While the Vision Pro does boast a lot of great features, a one-meter limit could prove problematic for some VR apps – especially games. I own a VR headset (the excellent HP Reverb G2) which I use for gaming, and I definitely move my head more than a meter while playing most games, like dodging an oncoming slow-motion bullet in Superhot VR.
Immersion is king when it comes to gaming in VR; you don’t want to be pulled out of the experience, and the Reverb G2’s system – similar to the Meta Quest series – allows me to ‘draw’ the exact boundaries of my space, which is much larger than a meter. If I get too close to a physical object, the entire game doesn’t become transparent. Instead, I see a blueish outline of the closest objects that bleeds into the game to warn me I might be moving too much.
However, with just a single meter of space to move around before your in-game surroundings become transparent, it’s not hard to see how in-game immersion could easily be interrupted.
The Vision Pro also relies on hand gesture controls rather than the physical handsets used by most VR headsets, which could prove to be a significant barrier to developers porting their VR games to Apple’s product. Obviously, neither of these stumbling blocks is a concern for playing non-VR titles, where the Vision Pro simply 'projects' a gameplay screen in front of you.
I can only hope that this is merely the default setting and that Apple will allow Vision Pro users to tweak the boundaries of their ‘safe zone’ for VR gaming. All reports do point towards this being the greatest VR device ever made, and it would be a real shame to see Apple drop the ball here – especially since the tech giant seems to finally be getting serious about gaming.
Microsoft has just powered up the Xbox App for Windows in a new update that brings in a lot of useful changes, on the accessibility front for starters, and also with game cards, better filtering for your games library to find what you want, and more.
Windows Central reports that the May update for the Xbox App on PC is now out, reworking accessibility settings to make them more, well, accessible, bringing all these options together in a new menu.
(Image credit: Microsoft)
Essentially, this acts as a one-stop-shop hub where you can access accessibility settings for the Xbox app – for example, disabling animations or background images (those are actually two new features designed to remove what might be unnecessary distractions for some folks). Also, the menu offers convenient shortcuts to other accessibility options (for Windows in general, for instance, or the Xbox Game Bar).
Another significant change has been introduced for game cards, which offer up more info. So you can now see at a glance how long a game takes to finish (typically), details on pricing, and relevant info on when the title is coming to Game Pass (or indeed being dropped).
(Image credit: Microsoft)
There are also new options to filter your game library, so for example, it’s possible to look for games you can beat in a few hours (under five) if you just want a quick fix for your next venture into PC gaming. It’s also possible to sort games via accessibility features, too.
Microsoft has implemented tweaks on the social side for the Xbox App, too, allowing you to pop out your friends list (or a chat) into a separate window. If you have two desktops going, you can have a game running full-screen in one, and your social stuff popped onto the other.
(Image credit: Microsoft)
Analysis: Impressive steps forward
There’s some very useful stuff added here, with the extra details on game cards, and additional filter options likely to prove very handy (especially the idea of looking for quick fix games, or indeed the opposite end of the spectrum – games that will consume your life for the next month or three, perhaps). Note that the estimations of game lengths are drawn from a website (HowLongToBeat.com).
Furthermore, Microsoft continues to put its best foot forward with further efforts on the accessibility front. We’ve seen a lot of such work in Windows 11 at a broader level – with lots of progress with Voice Access in particular of late (courtesy of the Moment 3 update) – and it’s great to see this happening on the gaming side of the equation in the OS, too.
As a final note, one thing PC gamers might have missed is that Windows 11’s live captions work in games, too – and the feature does a pretty good job for those titles which don’t have native captions.
Windows 11 gamers could get some really beefy benefits from DirectStorage tech, which was recently announced to have arrived on Microsoft’s newest OS – but it’ll be some time yet before developers incorporate it into games.
However, there’s been an eye-opening revelation concerning exactly how much difference this will make when it comes to relieving the pressure on the PC’s processor.
As TweakTown reports, Cooper Partin, a senior software engineer at Microsoft, explained that the DirectStorage implementation for PC is specifically designed for Windows.
Partin noted: “DirectStorage is designed for modern gaming systems. It handles smaller reads more efficiently, and you can batch multiple requests together. When fully integrated with your title, DirectStorage, with an NVMe SSD on Windows 11, reduces the CPU overhead in a game by 20-40%.
“This is attributed to the advancements made in the file IO stack on Windows 11 and the improvements on that platform in general.”
Analysis: CPU resources freed which will make a major difference elsewhere
A 40% reduction is a huge difference in terms of lightening the load on the CPU, although that is a best-case scenario – but even 20% is a big step forward for freeing up processor resources.
Those resources can then be used elsewhere to help big open world games run more smoothly – as we’ve seen before, DirectStorage isn’t simply about making games load more quickly . There’s much more to it than that, and now we’re getting some exciting glimpses of exactly how much difference this Microsoft tech could make to PC games.
Of course, while the public SDK (software development kit) has been released, it’s still up to game developers to bake in this tech when they’re coding, and it’ll be quite some time before we see DirectStorage appearing in many games.
The first game which uses DirectStorage is Forspoken, and we got a glimpse of that at GDC, where it was shown to load up in a single second. Forspoken is scheduled to arrive in October 2022.
Windows 11 gamers could get some really beefy benefits from DirectStorage tech, which was recently announced to have arrived on Microsoft’s newest OS – but it’ll be some time yet before developers incorporate it into games.
However, there’s been an eye-opening revelation concerning exactly how much difference this will make when it comes to relieving the pressure on the PC’s processor.
As TweakTown reports, Cooper Partin, a senior software engineer at Microsoft, explained that the DirectStorage implementation for PC is specifically designed for Windows.
Partin noted: “DirectStorage is designed for modern gaming systems. It handles smaller reads more efficiently, and you can batch multiple requests together. When fully integrated with your title, DirectStorage, with an NVMe SSD on Windows 11, reduces the CPU overhead in a game by 20-40%.
“This is attributed to the advancements made in the file IO stack on Windows 11 and the improvements on that platform in general.”
Analysis: CPU resources freed which will make a major difference elsewhere
A 40% reduction is a huge difference in terms of lightening the load on the CPU, although that is a best-case scenario – but even 20% is a big step forward for freeing up processor resources.
Those resources can then be used elsewhere to help big open world games run more smoothly – as we’ve seen before, DirectStorage isn’t simply about making games load more quickly . There’s much more to it than that, and now we’re getting some exciting glimpses of exactly how much difference this Microsoft tech could make to PC games.
Of course, while the public SDK (software development kit) has been released, it’s still up to game developers to bake in this tech when they’re coding, and it’ll be quite some time before we see DirectStorage appearing in many games.
The first game which uses DirectStorage is Forspoken, and we got a glimpse of that at GDC, where it was shown to load up in a single second. Forspoken is scheduled to arrive in October 2022.
The overall number of attacks on mobile users is down, but they’re getting slicker, both in terms of malware functionality and vectors, researchers say. Threatpost
If you prefer to play certain games in a window, rather than full screen on your PC, then you might want to check out the latest Windows 11 Insider update.
The Windows Insider Dev update of build 22545 and above – which allows you to sign up to features in testing that are not ready for a final release – is showcasing a feature called 'Optimizations for windowed games'. Enabling this in Settings will allegedly improve latency, and showcase Auto HDR and Variable Refresh Rates (VRR) for the games that support these two features.
There are some games that should be played in full-screen mode, especially if you've bought an expensive monitor to showcase God of War or Sonic Adventure. But windowed games make it easier to multitask between emails, social media, and watching video side-by-side.
Improvements to this only prove further that Microsoft is looking at all aspects of Windows 11 in this upcoming feature update to make this OS its best yet. Seeing Microsoft focus on something like windowed gaming would have been completely unimaginable back in the days of Windows Vista.
Analysis: windowed gaming gets its due
If you're running build 22545 and above, you can go to Settings > System > Display > Graphics > Default Graphics Settings to turn this feature on.
But you can also enable this for certain games by going to Settings > System > Display > Graphics and selecting which games you want to benefit from this feature.
It's another welcome move by Microsoft to look at aspects of the operating system that's been left by the wayside. There are plenty of users out there with one monitor, where they like to easily switch between a game and a web browser, or have them side by side.
Especially for games that work well for a keyboard and not a controller, you can seamlessly switch windows using Alt+Tab to jump back and forth between the game and whatever else you have open.
However, this also looks to be laying the groundwork for better compatibility for games that you can buy on a storefront, such as Steam, Epic Games, and Microsoft's own Xbox app. Having better ways to play a game in windowed mode is only a positive move by the company, and if this display type is getting attention, it makes us wonder what else Microsoft is focusing on for Windows 11 in the coming months and years.
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