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Ever since I got my Surface Book 2 (15 inch), Windows UI performance was quite sluggish. Windows framerate drops noticeably when opening Task View even with only one or two windows open, and switching desktop also experiences stutter.
I tried to diagnose the issue myself, by installing latest drivers for UHD 620 graphics from both Microsoft and Intel. I tried reinstalling / uninstalling drivers for GTX 1060. None of these worked, and I have reinstalled Windows several times but nothing has changed.
However, one "solution" to this problem was to decrease the screen resolution to 1620*1080 @ 100% scaling, which mitigated the issue significantly. The usage of UHD 620 graphics is much lower (shown under graph labelled "3D") with lower resolution and animation became much smoother. Upon research I discovered that this issue is not specific to my device. Many other laptops with high resolution displays were experiencing the same problem.
Here are some links to thread discussing seemingly similar issue:
4k laptop lag in Windows 10 UI animations
Laggy animations and effects at 4K resolution (running Windows 10)
Is it that the Integrated Graphics Card in these laptops are not powerful enough to drive such a high resolution display? If so, the solution is not to lower the resolution as I did - that is just a poor excuse. Even my MacBook Pro Retina from 2012 performs better on MacOS than my Surface Book 2 does on Windows.
OR it is very likely that Windows 10 optimization on high-resolution laptops is just poor. It is ridiculous that such a high-end laptop experiences lag within its native OS only with few windows open; if Apple can do well with their animation on MacOS, there is no reason for Microsoft not to be able to do it.
Please look into this issue and fix it, Microsoft.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
All,
I installed the Windows 10 update yesterday and so far the results are encouraging. All of my performance issues appear to be mitigated including the Surface Dock constant disconnect/reconnect issues. Seems like Microsoft got this one right! Here's my winver information after the update:
OK, so what I did was not a fix. All kinds of bugs have returned. I'm just so fed up with Microsoft's quality control.
I've worked with Windows since Windows 3.11. With enough effort, there was almost *always* a fix to a problem...a new driver, PC rebuild, patch, etc. The core OS generally worked OK. Heck, even Windows 8 worked fine, even if it was a different interface that what I was used to. With Windows 10, I'm using entirely Microsoft's sh*t and there are persistent bugs. There's NOTHING I can do to fix them. All drivers are up to date, hardware is practically brand new, system is rebuilt and patched. I *could* engage with some low-level support person who will ask me important questions like "have you tried rebooting" or "have you tried unplugging and plugging back in the external hardware"...the entire process would frustrate me more then dealing with the persistent bugs. I throw my hands up.
I'd try the "visual effects" suggestions I made earlier in the thread. It should improve things quite a bit.
Still frustrating as hell to have these issues on Microsoft's flagship computer running its own OS. If the graphics card isn't adequate, how come Microsoft put this card in their Surface Book? If it's software, how come they can't put out a version of Windows 10 that's able to handle high resolution displays? I've had Office issues too. IMO, in the last two years Microsoft has become a **** show. I'd love to dump it, but I need native W10 tools for work, Office, and I also use tax software that's only available under Windows. I could go dual boot or run a VM in Linux I suppose, but I'm not sure that would be less stressful.
For now, my machine is working fine. Until the next Microsoft "upgrade" that is, when it will get hosed yet again.
The SB2 generaly has some graphics handling issues. I was also getting terrible lag in apps like photoshop but the gpu usage wouldn’t go over 20%, and it was a completely new out of the box device. Whole Windows UI was sluggish and in the end I’ve returned it, it’s just stupid how **** the software experience is on these Surface devices, there’s always a firmware problem and you can never sit down and do something without some troubleshooting. God forbid that something works out of the box! For something that I have paid 3000€ is just ridiculous...
Just did too, and it's still really sluggish compared to the desktop I have nearby, which is less powerfull than the SB2 ...
