Playing Diablo 3 Hardcore with Windows 10 Automatic Update
I almost exclusively play hardcore mode, and I much prefer it. The only downside, as I see it, is that lagging out or disconnecting may kill you (I'm fine with any other kind of death).
Now, I recently updated to Windows 10, and with that comes the fact that you cannot disable automatic updates. Now, I could totally see a situation where a download suddenly starts and causes me to lag in-game. This could apply to other online games as well.
Is there anything built into Windows 10 that prevents this from happening with online games? I could imagine they would want to disrupt the user experience as little as possible. If no, is this something I should realistically worry about, and what (if anything) can be done about it?
(I'm not interested in answers suggesting switching from Windows 10)
Edit: As said in comments, online games have different needs from other types of media, such as being more dependent on latency than bandwidth. This question was specifically intended to ask how gaming is affected by the changes presented in Windows 10, and for this particular question I'm only interested in facts about the operating system as a gaming platform, and how it directly affects my gaming experience.
Best Answer
Windows Update uses BITS (Background Internet Transfer Service). This service is designed with several goals in mind, one of which is minimizing impact to other network applications.
Background transfers are optimal in that BITS uses idle network bandwidth to transfer the files and will increase or decrease the rate at which files are transferred based on the amount of idle network bandwidth available. If a network application begins to consume more bandwidth, BITS decreases its transfer rate to preserve the user's interactive experience.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa362708(v=vs.85).aspx
The landing page for BITS provides the link to its usage in Windows Update:
Note: BITS is most commonly used by Windows to download updates to your local system.
All that said, Windows 10 should not impact your network gaming experience.
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Answer 2
If you are a bit more technically savvy then you can block inbound/outbound connections to the actual update websites:
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com
http://*.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
https://*.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
http://*.update.microsoft.com
https://*.update.microsoft.com
http://*.windowsupdate.com
http://download.windowsupdate.com
http://*.download.windowsupdate.com
http://ntservicepack.microsoft.com
You should be able to configure this within your OS but if not then the router-level would work just as well or maybe better.
Answer 3
I had the same problem. If BITS is designed not to cut into existing bandwidth, it sucks at it: I've upgraded two machines to Windows 10, and in each case Windows Update would crush the network connection (about 3 Mbps).
In the end I decided to throttle BITS using the Group Policy editor, which you can access by typing 'Edit group policy' from the Start menu. Set it to something reasonable during your typical work/gaming hours; no more problems and you still get updates.
Answer 4
This answer covers QoS (Quality of Service) settings that most routers have. Some don't, so check if your router support QoS.
3 articles covering QoS :
These settings will vary from routers to routers, so read your router manual to use QoS in a way that will provide you with the best gaming experience.
I recommend only setting the games you want as highest priority and let the router manage the rest. From there, your router will make sure the packets the games you set as highest priority will be treated before any other packets. This should let your games' latency be low even if Windows decide to update.
You could set windows update as a lower priority so that you further control the download speed of the updates but that would slow it down whenever something else use bandwidth, not just when you're gaming.
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Jessica West, EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA, RODNAE Productions, Ketut Subiyanto