Microsoft says this Windows 11 taskbar setting can worsen your battery life, is it true?

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Earlier this week, Microsoft released the Windows 11 "Moment 3" update with a few quality-of-life improvements and new features (check out our full review here). One of the most notable changes in the release is the ability to enable seconds for the system clock. However, Microsoft warns that enabling the feature will result in higher power consumption and lower battery life. I decided to conduct a small (and limited) experiment to see if the claim is true, and if it is true, see how significant is the battery life impact.

In conclusion

Yes, turning on seconds on the taskbar clock indeed makes your tablet or laptop consume more battery. Should you worry about it? Probably not, since the difference is negligible. Besides, Windows 10 shows the same difference in power consumption, so if it were not bothering you when running Windows 10, it would not bother you after upgrading to Windows 11. Too many extra things affect your battery life during daily use, so you are extremely unlikely to spot a 2% difference.

Microsoft says this Windows 11 taskbar setting can worsen your battery life, is it true?

The recently released Moment 3 update for Windows 11 brings a long-requested taskbar feature. However, Microsoft says enabling it results in higher energy consumption. Let's test this claim.

www.neowin.net

 

[TairikuOkami]

Yes, yet transparency and shadows are perfectly fine, bringing even i9 to it's knees in 2023.
I have recently disabled hardware acceleration in browsers, the amount of energy it saves is crazy.

 

[SeriousHoax]

I have recently disabled hardware acceleration in browsers, the amount of energy it saves is crazy.

How come? Without hardware acceleration, tasks that are performed by the GPU will be done by the CPU like video decoding and CPUs are far more power hungry than GPUs for tasks like this. Shouldn't the opposite happen?

 

[brambedkar59]

I have recently disabled hardware acceleration in browsers, the amount of energy it saves is crazy.

Tested on 11400H in my TUF laptop. I used HWinfo for measuring avg. CPU package power . Try playing a YT video w/ hardware acceleration enabled vs disabled.

1. Playing 4K@24 video encoded with AV1.

w/ HW acc enabled: 8 W
w/ HW acc disabled: 16 W

2. Playing 4K@60 video encoded with VP9 the results are even more conclusive:

w/ HW acc enabled: 10.3 W
w/ HW acc disabled: 32.2 W

Edit 3: In theory it should be even worse in case of 4k@60 videos encoded with AV1 cause it is more complex codec for CPU to decode compared to 4K@60 videos encoded with VP9.

Edit4: edited to make it more tidy.
Edit 5: I forgot to mention I used Edge for testing.

 

[blackice]

I just get terrible stuttering on my 170hz 1440p monitor with hardware acceleration on.

 

[brambedkar59]

I just get terrible stuttering on my 170hz 1440p monitor with hardware acceleration on.

In every browser? Do you have Nvidia GPU?

 

[blackice]

In every browser? Do you have Nvidia GPU?

Yes. Pretty much only YouTube (about 5-10% of frames dropped with hardware acceleration enabled). It happens with both the RTX 3070 I had and the RX 7900 XT that replaced it. So both red and green. Kind of like the chile where I’m from. This is on a desktop though. No battery to worry about.

 

[brambedkar59]

Yes. Pretty much only YouTube (about 5-10% of frames dropped with hardware acceleration enabled). It happens with both the RTX 3070 I had and the RX 7900 XT that replaced it. So both red and green. Kind of like the chile where I’m from. This is on a desktop though. No battery to worry about.

If it's happening in every browser and with both GPUs (Nvidia & AMD) than something else is broken in your system, I am not sure what. Create a new thread in here and I am sure MT members will be able to solve this riddle.

 

[blackice]

If it's happening in every browser and with both GPUs (Nvidia & AMD) than something else is broken in your system, I am not sure what. Create a new thread in here and I am sure MT members will be able to solve this riddle.

It’s pretty common. Nvidia boards are flooded with questions about YouTube dropping frames. If I set the refresh rate to 60hz all is well with hardware acceleration on or off.

 

[brambedkar59]

It’s pretty common. Nvidia boards are flooded with questions about YouTube dropping frames. If I set the refresh rate to 60hz all is well with hardware acceleration on or off.

Yeah, their last few drivers releases were pretty bad. Last known good driver that I know is v528.49 (also using it rn). But you are seeing same issue with AMD card right? So it might not be Nvidia driver issue. Wouldn't hurt to try installing that version though.

 

[blackice]

Yeah I think it has something to do with YouTube and high refresh rates. I am on AMD. It might not be an issue on Firefox come to think of it, so maybe a chromium issue. Either way, I have had hardware acceleration off for years.

 

[blackice]

Yeah I think it has something to do with YouTube and high refresh rates. I am on AMD. It might not be an issue on Firefox come to think of it, so maybe a chromium issue. Either way, I have had hardware acceleration off for years.

I tried re-enabling Hardware Acceleration in all my browsers. I am no longer having these drops on YouTube. So for AMD at least the issue seems to be rectified.

 

[SeriousHoax]

I tried re-enabling Hardware Acceleration in all my browsers. I am no longer having these drops on YouTube. So for AMD at least the issue seems to be rectified.

Can you try playing the same YouTube video in both Chromium and Firefox in a resolution different from your native monitor resolution of 1440P.
Eg: Play a video in 1080p or in 4K. Do the video quality in terms of clarity and sharpness looks the same in both browsers? HW acceleration should be on.

 

[blackice]

Can you try playing the same YouTube video in both Chromium and Firefox in a resolution different from your native monitor resolution of 1440P.
Eg: Play a video in 1080p or in 4K. Do the video quality in terms of clarity and sharpness looks the same in both browsers? HW acceleration should be on.

Firefox seems a touch softer...maybe...playing in 1080p fullscreen on my 1440p monitor. It's pretty close.

 

[SeriousHoax]

Firefox seems a touch softer...maybe...playing in 1080p fullscreen on my 1440p monitor. It's pretty close.

Softer
Which one looks better in your eyes? Which one you prefer? Try checking the theater mode view.

 

[blackice]

Softer
Which one looks better in your eyes? Which one you prefer? Try checking the theater mode view.

Honestly they are very close. I would say Chrome, but could be just the one video. I can play around with it and see.

I actually use theater mode half the time which auto loads at 1080. I think Chrome looks slightly sharper.

 

[blackice]

Softer
Which one looks better in your eyes? Which one you prefer? Try checking the theater mode view.

Which do you prefer?

 

[SeriousHoax]

Which do you prefer?

I have a smaller monitor and on my PC if the YouTube video resolution is anything different than my native monitor resolution then it appears a bit blurry in all Chromium browsers. A Chromium dev told me after checking the Chromium code that he found nothing wrong in their code so it must a bug of the AMD driver. I have this issue since 2020. The solution provided by the dev is to add this into the Target filed of browser shortcut,

--disable_direct_composition_video_overlays=1

The flag was slightly different in Chromium versions prior to 113.
I thought AMD APU products are only affected by it but in my Chrome bug another guy also commented last year who had a better GPU and monitor, so I thought it's true for all AMD GPUs but looks like it is not based on your testing.
No issue on Firefox.

 

[blackice]

I have a smaller monitor and on my PC if the YouTube video resolution is anything different than my native monitor resolution then it appears a bit blurry in all Chromium browsers. A Chromium dev told me after checking the Chromium code that he found nothing wrong in their code so it must a bug of the AMD driver. I have this issue since 2020. The solution provided by the dev is to add this into the Target filed of browser shortcut,

--disable_direct_composition_video_overlays=1

The flag was slightly different in Chromium versions prior to 113.
I thought AMD APU products are only affected by it but in my Chrome bug another guy also commented last year who had a better GPU and monitor, so I thought it's true for all AMD GPUs but looks like it is not based on your testing.
No issue on Firefox.

or my eyes deceive me