Microsoft has been working on a number of nifty features to
make Windows 11 a better alternative to other operating
systems. As part of Sun Valley 2, otherwise known as version
22H2, Microsoft will be introducing a new Task Manager feature
to suspend apps that are using too many system resources.
This functionality is called “Efficiency mode” or “Eco mode”
and it can combat battery drain with laptops. At the same time,
it will also improve overall performance by suspending
resources usage of processes selected by the user manually.
This can be done by highlighting a particular process in Task
Manager, and then selecting “Efficiency mode”.
Right now, when you launch Task Manager – it gives you an
overview of activities and processes. It allows you to monitor
CPU, memory, disk, and network usage for running processes.
If an app or process is slowing down the system, you will
probably right-click on the entry and select “End task” to
close the process. As part of its effort to simplify resources
management, Microsoft is introducing support
for Efficiency mode” or “Eco mode to limit a process’
consumption so that the system gives priority to other apps.
The difference between “End task” and Efficiency mode
Unlike the “End task” option, which kills the process
instantly, Windows 11’s new Efficiency mode reduces the
priority of the process to ‘low’, but it doesn’t kill the
process.
When the priority is set to low, the rest of the apps will be
getting access to the system resources and Microsoft’s new
technology ensures that the process is executed in the most
efficient manner.
Microsoft has been testing the Efficiency mode for a year now
and it has observed up to four times performance improvements
(76% reduction in resources usage) on CPU-intensive systems.
This resulted in better UI responsiveness and it also improved
the speed of the Task Manager itself.
If used properly, Efficiency mode could benefit all types of
apps. In one case whereby the Eco mode was applied to the
CPU-intensive processes, apps like Microsoft Word launched two
times faster and other apps like Edge saw considerable benefits
too.
Efficiency mode could be a big deal for some configurations and
it also promises better battery backup for laptops which is
obviously more than welcome.
By default, Eco mode is applied to Microsoft Edge or Chrome as
both browsers have support for lowering base priority using
power efficiency APIs. For the rest of the apps, you need to
trigger the mode manually.
This feature is currently live in
Windows 11 Build 22557 and it will be rolling out to the
general public later this year.
