11 Before 11

I made the jump last night. I am now on Windows 11. I got the upgrade option a couple of days ago and I was a little apprehensive about doing it after reading about some potential gaming performance hindrance. Though the reports of massive issues seemed overblown, which is typical whenever there is a Windows upgrade, after looking at the test results from a variety of sources that showed the plus and minus fluctuations depending on the games and security settings, I concluded that it was indeed safe for me to proceed.

The new theme is cute but isn't it time to make animated ones a standard?

You won't see detailed numbers and frame counting here, but on the surface level, 11 seems like it is just a user interface change. My upgraded system kept all the settings from 10 while all of my files are fully intact and functional. The metro start menu tiles are now gone. I have been so used to the metro tiles and I have organized all of my essential programs neatly on them so the fact that they were gone so suddenly did make for an awkward first impression. You can still pretty much pin things to the start menu but since the panel for that is no longer customizable, it feels like a step backwards. I suppose they just want people to drop shortcuts onto the desktop again. Other than that, everything else about 11 feels smooth and responsive. Windows boots up faster and apps open up quicker sometimes even though they still carry the same old quirks: Windows-based games like the ACA Neo Geo series still require you to open them up twice before they even run, just like in 10. Even Steam seems to be running better where pages are loading faster than before but I saw that it was updating during the initial launch so maybe that had something to do with it than anything else. The games that I have tested on 11 are working fine as I didn't notice any performance degradations. I haven't tested the auto-HDR thing yet because when you enable this, HDR will also be enabled for the desktop. Isn't the whole point of automating HDR is so that it would only kick in when there is actual HDR content? HDR on standard signal is nothing but a washed out mess splashed with incorrect colors. Overall, I am happy that I upgraded. I look at 11 as a slightly enhanced 10. This upgrade is for my gaming PC and the fear that it would drastically nerf such a rig is definitely unfounded.

Update Note: 11/04/2021 - It looks like auto-HDR actually adjusts non-HDR video signals in games so that they look comparable to their original level so if you have this on, non-HDR games don't look washed out while your display is in HDR mode, only your desktop looks messed-up. I suppose one has to use this mode for quite a while and then switch back to see if the auto-HDR adjustment actually enhances the looks of non-HDR games because right now, I don't the difference compared to the fidelity you get with actual HDR games. Since I do a lot of work on the desktop outside of gaming, I will have this off for now but I will update this article if I have done more testing on this in the future.