As laptop computer efficiency improves over time, you could be excited to find that the PC you reserved solely for Excel and Zoom calls now can function a gaming PC, too. But beware: Leaving a recreation retailer app just like the Epic Games Store open might considerably slice into your laptop computer’s battery life.
Consider Intel’s newest Tiger Lake H35 announcement. The new CPUs allow a category of ultraportable laptops that wield workplace apps and Zoom calls by day, then play Destiny 2 or Valorant by night time. The downside is that when you purchase a recreation through, say, the Epic Game Store, the EGS app should be working whilst you play the sport. The app stays energetic when you stop the sport, too. As we discovered, merely leaving the shop app in place whenever you’re not gaming can cut back your battery life by as a lot as 20 %, slicing hours off of your laptop computer’s longevity off AC.
What we discovered seems to be particular to the Epic Games Store and Intel’s Tiger Lake platform, although the time required for battery rundown assessments and the accessible gear we had readily available restricted our assessments. We can say the battery hit that our Tiger Lake platform skilled at the side of the Epic Games Store didn’t prolong as considerably to Steam, and we couldn’t reproduce it as extensively on a laptop computer powered by AMD’s Ryzen processor.
Mark Hachman / PCWorldNormally, these taskbar icons are hidden on the Windows 10 Taskbar, they usually’re simple to overlook. What we wished to know was whether or not the Epic Games Store, even whereas hidden, was the offender behind our decrease battery life. It was.
How this all happened
Our discovery was a by-product of testing the Microsoft Surface Pro 7+ pill, which makes use of a tablet-class Intel “Tiger Lake” Core processor inside. Who video games on a pill? Good query. As processor and GPU efficiency will increase, an increasing number of platforms have gotten hybrid productiveness and gaming machines. Tablets are merely an excessive instance.
Because of the unbelievable leap in graphics efficiency engendered by Intel’s new Iris Xe GPU, we wished to check its capabilities in just a few video games. But we bumped into an odd anomaly whereas testing: The battery life assessments we ran didn’t ship constant outcomes.
To be clear, the first two outcomes had been constant. PCWorld has historically used a video rundown take a look at, the place we loop a video time and again till the battery expires. In the case of the Surface Pro 7+, the primary two take a look at runs supplied constant outcomes; the third didn’t.
So we ran one other. And one other. And one other, every requiring hours at a time. Somewhat exasperated at this level, we reset the PC—and our battery take a look at lastly once more generated a rating per our earlier outcomes.
What had modified? None of our benchmark software program, and even the video games, ran within the background when not in use. But the Epic Games Store, the service by which we downloaded our video games and the service these video games required to run, had remained hidden within the taskbar your entire time. Could which have made a distinction? As we found, sure.
We carried out a extra restricted suite of assessments with this laptop computer, discovering that battery life dipped once more with the Epic Games Store, and in no way with Steam. (The equivalent battery-life estimates are a coincidence.)
Mark Hachman / IDGBattery life additionally dropped whereas the Epic Games Store app was loaded and minimized on the Ryzen platform, although by not almost as a lot—about eight %, by our estimates.
We contacted Epic with our findings and supplied them with the small print of our take a look at. “In general, we are actively working to improve the performance and reduce the power consumption of our launcher,” an Epic consultant replied through e mail. “The power consumption varies based on whether the launcher’s window is open.”
Accurately measuring battery life has grow to be extra of a problem over the previous few years, as a result of the variety of variables has elevated. Display brightness, whether or not Wi-Fi is on, and even the Windows efficiency…
