Performance Impact of Spectre and Meltdown Mitigations on Windows Systems(cloudblogs.microsoft.com) |
Performance Impact of Spectre and Meltdown Mitigations on Windows Systems(cloudblogs.microsoft.com) |
Wow. I have to admit, that number larger than I would have guessed. (I probably would have said 20.) But ultimately not too surprising.
When I want freedom to do what I want with my computer, I run Linux, but for my Apple devices I want auto updates.
This whole episode of CPU bugs and fixes that cause performance problems (most notably on older hardware) is exactly what the tech industry needed to stimulate consumers into refreshing their old hardware that was previously running fine.
It's almost like planned obsolescence. Msybe it was orchestrated.
(I don't think this actually likely, but it's interesting that it could be rather beneficial in the end for some)
Since 1995? 23 years seems a long time to wait
Also new processors won't actually get better performance as a result of fixes. The problems arose in the first place because of a preference of performance over security.
Then, I guess, I am glad I upgraded to 8700k and won't return it. I was upgrading from a 4770, but it seems that one is going to be even slower now.
https://reverse.put.as/2018/01/07/measuring-osx-meltdown-pat...
With Windows 8 and Windows 7 on older silicon (2015-era PCs with Haswell or older CPU), we expect most users to notice a decrease in system performance.
That’s random end users. Not workstations and not servers. Wow.
edit: Oh, though it seems there's another thread discussing how the mitigations have slowed down "Haswell and older CPUs significantly".
edit edit: like an idiot, i didn't include the link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16113289
Or just do them yourself, like others did:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/7ohbfi/i5_2500k_m... http://www.guru3d.com/articles-summary/windows-vulnerability...
All the complaints about Windows 10 forcing users to update are exactly related to Microsoft trying to narrow the forest of possibilities of patch/update/upgrade combinations in the wild.
All the complaints from companies that Windows 10 major update versions now only have 18-month support terms (as opposed to say nearly 10-years like XP), is again, Microsoft trying to shrink the forest to focus on fewer, more important trees.
As a user, I want Microsoft to force more updates if it means better support and faster fixes, and it disappoints me how every time Windows 10 is brought up here on HN, or over on The Verge or Ars Technica, a half dozen people come out of the woodwork to loudly complain about Windows 10 updates.
I heard once in a Windows Update talk (probably a BUILD talk I watched on Channel 9?) that the Windows kernel needs far fewer restarts than people assume; Microsoft just doesn't trust most application software in user space to continue to work if they silently swapped kernel components out from under it. Too much software does dumb things with system state or makes wrong assumptions about system calls (despite stacks of manuals telling them otherwise).
The UWP application lifecycle model is built to support the kernel asking an app to pause, save what state it can, and restart at some point later with just a hint of its previous state. So many programmers seem to hate it (and get it wrong) because it means they have to think about state management more than they ever had to before.
That API was informed by the need to restart individual applications without rebooting the entire system. If more apps followed the UWP application lifecycle well, Windows would need fewer reboots.
(Compare to the Xbox One where developers were not given a choice to opt-out of the UWP application lifecycle, and it having mostly just two forced restarts a year. Also note how many game developers and app developers get the UWP application lifecycle wrong and you find games/apps in broken states when you get back to them, requiring a force quit.)
The easiest thing to change is your habits as a user and make sure that reboots aren't a problem to you. Windows 10 gives a lot of warning (more so now than at launch, of course) when reboots are coming up, including not-subtle things like system notifications, and subtle places like wording changes in the Shutdown menus as updates approach (first "Restart" becomes "Update and Restart", then as the deadline looms closer, "Shutdown" becomes "Update and Shutdown"). Find software that saves more state between restarts; encourage applications to move to the UWP application lifecycle (and use it correctly); checkpoint your work more often; speed up your startup and eliminate everything you can from the critical path (sorry, Slack, you can wait a few minutes after I've finished booting; I don't need my Windows Service that performs backups to run Automatic, it's fine to be Automatic (Delayed) delay started by Windows). Those are all things you can do proactively instead of being angry at Windows needing to restart because it is overly-worried your applications will break in mysterious ways if it doesn't.