dont disable game bar

[Shade7]

I always had to add games manually there.

Mine usually automatically show up in that menu.

[RealNC]

"remember this is a game" checkbox

Does have an add gameXYZ.exe under system>display>graphics
and set gpu preference to high performance and maybe set optimization for windowed games On, same result?

Basically is it the same thing?

I don't think so. Haven't tested though. To check if game mode is enabled for a game or not, I use Special K, which shows "Game Mode" as the active power mode. If it says something like "Balanced" or "High Performance" (which is the active Windows power profile,) then game mode is not active.

As a side-note, the most recent versions of SK will automatically add the game's exe to the game mode list in the Windows registry if it's not already there. Does the same thing as using the game bar for this.

Note that there is no need to uninstall game bar. When you simply disable it in Windows Settings, the game bar background processes will not start anymore (you can check in task manager.)

[Shade7]

"remember this is a game" checkbox

Does have an add gameXYZ.exe under system>display>graphics
and set gpu preference to high performance and maybe set optimization for windowed games On, same result?

Basically is it the same thing?

I don't think so. Haven't tested though. To check if game mode is enabled for a game or not, I use Special K, which shows "Game Mode" as the active power mode. If it says something like "Balanced" or "High Performance" (which is the active Windows power profile,) then game mode is not active.

As a side-note, the most recent versions of SK will automatically add the game's exe to the game mode list in the Windows registry if it's not already there. Does the same thing as using the game bar for this.

Note that there is no need to uninstall game bar. When you simply disable it in Windows Settings, the game bar background processes will not start anymore (you can check in task manager.)

How do you manually add games to the game mode list via the game bar in Windows 11? I can't seem to find the option in the game bar overlay (Win+G). I remember there used to be something like "remember this is a game" or something along those lines, but I'm not seeing it now.

I would try the Special-K method, but I wanted to do this for a game with an anti-cheat, so I don't think launching with Special-K would be feasible.

[RealNC]

How do you manually add games to the game mode list via the game bar in Windows 11? I can't seem to find the option in the game bar overlay (Win+G). I remember there used to be something like "remember this is a game" or something along those lines, but I'm not seeing it now.

The option is not there for games already whitelisted by MS. You can use Special K to check if game mode is active,

[Shade7]

How do you manually add games to the game mode list via the game bar in Windows 11? I can't seem to find the option in the game bar overlay (Win+G). I remember there used to be something like "remember this is a game" or something along those lines, but I'm not seeing it now.

The option is not there for games already whitelisted by MS. You can use Special K to check if game mode is active,

Would I have to launch the game through Special-K to check that? Just wondering, because I want to try for a game with an anticheat- so launching probably isn't an option.

[RealNC]

Would I have to launch the game through Special-K to check that? Just wondering, because I want to try for a game with an anticheat- so launching probably isn't an option.

I don't know of any other way to see the current status of game mode. For your game, I would simply trust that if the option "remember this is a game" is missing in game bar, then it means game mode is always enabled for this game because Windows already knows about it. Big, well known games usually are. The only cases where game mode was not enabled for me were smaller, older, niche or indie games. Or most emulators. PCSX2 for example should show the "remember this is a game" setting.