Most PC gamers may not always care about playing with people on Xbox, but with so many games these days being available on both platforms, you probably have friends playing the same games you do but on Xbox. And playing together and chatting with those friends is also very nice.
Thankfully, the Xbox app adds some widgets to the Game Bar interface that make this a lot easier. You can see your online friends, shoot them a message, and invite them for play sessions together, all without having to close your game. Platforms like Steam also have this, but if you know a friend with an Xbox console, this is the way to go.
It’s Lightweight
When it first showed up, Game Bar developed a bit of a reputation for hitting your computer’s performance fairly hard while gaming, but if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that Microsoft has since improved things significantly, and Game Bar is actually pretty light on resources now. Even while the overlay is open, CPU and RAM usage is pretty minimal, so you won’t see any major impact in your games because of it.
Plus, Game Bar is already there, so you can just use it without any additional fuss. You don’t need to go out of your way to install programs that do things Game Bar already does just to take up more space on your drive.
Improve Your Controller Experience
PC gaming is often associated with a mouse and keyboard, but some games just work better with a controller, and for many people (including yours truly), controllers are just much easier to use. But Windows 11 has notoriously been terrible to navigate with a controller — so in comes Game Bar to save the day.
One of the recent features of the Game Bar is the Controller Bar, which opens automatically when you open Game Bar using an Xbox controller. The Controller Bar gives you quick shortcuts to your recently played games, plus game storefronts like Xbox and Steam, so you can open anything else. This way, you can bypass the awkward navigation of Windows 11 and go straight into a UI that works much better with a controller.
Keep an Eye on Your PC’s Resources
One of the cool features in Game Bar is that it can give you an idea of your performance metrics at any given time, and it’s actually very useful. The performance widget lets you see the current CPU, GPU, VRAM, and RAM usage, along with your current framerate. If you want more info, you can also look at a graph showing the past 60 seconds to see how performance is doing overall. There are other tools that can do this, but why get them when you already have this one out of the box?
Plus, there’s another widget called resource monitor, and that lets you see what’s taking up resources on your PC that could be slowing down your game. You can even enable a more detailed view to see just how much CPU and RAM those processes might be using. It’s a really nice tool to have available at a moment’s notice.
A Handy Volume Mixer
Games tend to take up the entire screen once you open them, so if you have music playing in the background, you don’t have a good way to balance the audio of your game and music without closing or minimizing the game. Game Bar addresses this, too, with a built-in volume mixer that lets you easily change the volume for all your apps so you can hear the game or a person you’re talking to much more clearly.
This widget also lets you change your settings for voice chats, like the microphone and speakers you should use, so overall, there are a few great tools here.
Automatic Game Recording
Game recording is a fairly demanding task that takes up a lot of space on your PC if you’re constantly recording. That’s why most of us don’t record the entirety of our play sessions. But how often have you run into a cool moment...
