The Game Bar in Windows 10 is a nifty little tool that gamers can use to capture their gaming prowess and share it with others. However, it’s not always wanted and can get in the way of your experience, so we’re going to show you how to disable the Game Bar in Windows 10.
What some people don’t know is that the Game Bar features additional processes that are notorious for hogging system resources – namely Game DVR and Xbox Game Monitoring. We’ll show you how to disable those too.
If you want to make sure your Windows is running as fast possible then take a look at our guide.
How to disable the Game Bar in Windows 10
When playing a game on Windows you can press Windows key + G on your keyboard or hit the Xbox Button on your gamepad to bring up the Game Bar. If you want to disable this feature then follow the steps below:
- Right click on the Start Button at the bottom left of your screen.
- Go into Settings, and then Gaming.
- Select the Game Bar on the left.
- Hit the switch below Record game clips, Screenshots, and Broadcast using Game Bar so that they are now Off.
How to disable Game DVR
Game DVR is a part of the Game Bar which records your gameplay in the background, allowing you to quickly save a moment from your gaming session at will. While this is useful for capturing those surprise moments that make gaming so fun, it also takes up a fair amount of your system’s resources, so if you’re having performance trouble then disabling this feature can help.
- Once again, right click on your Start Button.
- Head into Settings and then gaming.
- Click on Game DVR.
- Hit the switch below Record in the background while I’m playing a game so that shows as Off.
How to disable Xbox Game Monitoring
This particular process is a little harder to turn off. Xbox Game Monitoring, unsurprisingly, monitors what game you’re currently playing, but there have been claims from PC gamers that it clashes with services such as Steam and causes performance drops.
Disabling this process is a little bit more involved than the others as you’ll have to head into the Registry.
Before you do anything in your Registry, we recommend that you back up your registry files in case something goes wrong. The registry is very much ‘under the hood’ of your machine, giving you intimate access to its inner workings so you can do real damage if you delete the wrong key or entry.
However, as long as you follow these steps closely then you will be fine.
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- Press your Windows Key + R, and type regedit and hit Enter.
- Double-click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
- Double click SYSTEM.
- Double click CurrentControlSet.
- Double click Services.
- Click xbgm. You may have to scroll down a ways.
- Right click Start REG_DWORD on the right side of the window.
- Hit Modify.
- Change the default value of 3 to 4.
- Hit OK.
The Xbox Game Monitoring Service has now been disabled. If you wish to enable it again, you’ll just need to change the 4 back to a 3.
