Microsoft is enabling a Windows 11 security feature that can hurt gaming performance

Microsoft is getting ready to roll out its memory integrity security feature of Windows 11 to more devices next month. The kernel-level protection feature is designed to stop malicious code or drivers running on a Windows 11 machine, but Microsoft previously warned it can also impact PC gaming performance.

“Windows quality updates will begin enabling memory integrity protection on eligible devices,” says Peter Waxman, group program manager at Microsoft. “If not already enabled, these updates will also enable Virtualization-based Security (VBS), helping make additional security capabilities available and reflecting our commitment to making Windows secure by design and secure by default.”

While memory integrity only allows trusted kernel-mode code and drivers to run on a Windows 11 system, it also impacts PC game performance on certain hardware. There’s less of an impact if you have a more modern CPU, but you might notice more of a framerate drop in select games on older processors. Microsoft won’t automatically enable memory integrity again next month if you’ve already previously disabled the feature.

If you want to check whether memory integrity is enabled on your Windows 11 PC, you can type ‘Core Isolation’ into Windows search and then open the result and toggle memory integrity on or off in the Windows security app. If you decide to disable this security feature in favor of more PC gaming performance, Microsoft’s recommendation is to re-enable memory integrity after you’ve finished playing a game.