IT Home February 22 news, according to Windows Latest reported that on any version of Windows, you will find a small number of processes running in the background, even in the idle state will be active use of system resources. Users can use Task Manager to monitor active processes or programs, and if the process drags down the system, they can use the End Task feature to terminate it.
Task Manager, to control performance, can show how many resources are consumed by background processes. These system resources include CPU, memory, GPU, or even network bandwidth.
In The Preview of Windows 11 Build 22557, Microsoft is trying to implement a feature that allows users to limit "resource allocation on a per-app process basis." The difference is that the "end task" feature kills processes and can lead to bad problems, while efficiency mode throttles processes and minimizes disruption to the foreground experience.
The efficiency mode of Windows 11 Task Manager minimizes the basic priority of the process and sets the QoS mode to EcoQoS.
To use this new feature, you need to right-click on any process and select the option as shown in the screenshot below.
How windows 11's efficiency mode optimizes processes
On Windows, threads can be run based on scheduling priority. According to microsoft's updated documentation, all threads have an assigned scheduling priority, which ranges from zero (lowest priority) to 31 (highest priority).
Efficiency mode sets the base priority to THREAD_PRIORITY_LOWEST to ensure that they [processes] can be preempted if necessary. According to the official documentation, this is an effort for "background threads, especially those that are processor intensive".
When you set multiple processes to consume fewer resources, Windows automatically allocates idle resources to higher priority processes, depending on the situation.
"Low priority ensures that the process does not interfere with the high priority process that the user is actively using," Microsoft noted.
The role of EcoQoS in Windows 11 CPU optimization
The second step in the Effiecienly pattern is to call EcoQoS. The term "EcoQoS" is a standard for the Ecological Quality of Service (QoS) level, which was first introduced in 2021 as an optional feature for developers who want to effectively run certain processes of their applications to reduce power consumption.
When used properly, EcoQoS can extend battery life, result in better energy efficiency, reduced fan noise and improved thermal throttling.
"This new QoS level is valuable for workloads that don't have significant performance or latency requirements, making them always run in an energy-efficient way," Microsoft explained in a document published last year.
When you enable efficiency mode for a process, Task Manager also triggers EcoQoS to ensure that the process executes in the most power-efficient manner. As a result, the processor will be able to operate at lower frequencies to conserve power, improve UI responsiveness, and the thermal whereabouts of the CPU.
Efficiency mode guarantees UI responsiveness
Microsoft has been testing efficiency mode for a year, and the company says this feature can also benefit applications or start menu startups on typical "busy" systems.
As you can see in the chart above, Microsoft has been able to improve the responsiveness of Windows 11 by 14%-76%.
Based on these documents, here are the main benefits of integrating Efficiency Mode and EcoQoS into Task Manager:
Allow users to manually enable Efficiency Mode (EcoQoS) instead of relying on application developers. Currently, a handful of applications such as Microsoft Edge include built-in support for these improvements.
Provides up to 90% reduction in CPU power consumption.
Reduce heat and fan noise.
Improve performance for concurrent workloads.
Reduces overtemperature and frequency reduction protection.
Focus on energy sustainability.
For now, Microsoft is focused on CPU optimization because it only wants to reduce power consumption. In the upcoming version of Windows 11, you can expect similar technologies for other system resources, such as memory and even GPU graphics.
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