Windows 11 is Microsoft’s most secure operating system for PCs yet, with elements like virtualisation-based security (VBS) being key features. However, reports suggest that VBS could decline the performance of your system, especially if you’re a gamer.

Windows 11 for gamers

A report by PC Gamer, gamers could see a decline in the performance of about 25 percent, which is more than enough to affect your frame rates. However, this will likely be a concern on newer, pre-built PCs shipping with Windows 11. Older PCs upgrading from Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro could have VBS disabled by default.

“While we are not requiring VBS when upgrading to Windows 11, we believe the security benefits it offers are so important that we wanted the minimum system requirements to ensure that every PC running Windows 11 can meet the same security the DoD relies on,” Microsoft said in an earlier post explaining the TPM 2.0 requirement for Windows 11.

“In partnership with our OEM and silicon partners, we will be enabling VBS and HVCI on most new PCs over this next year. And we will continue to seek opportunities to expand VBS across more systems over time,” the post added.

What if I don’t play games?

Even if you don’t play games, remember that Windows 11 offers a lot of nice-to-have features and visual updates over Windows 10 but there may not be many crucial new features for the average consumer.

If your PC is smoothly running Windows 10 right now, you may not have a good reason to rush to an upgrade. Windows 10 is feature-packed and also supported by Security Updates all the way till 2025, giving you a lot of time to switch to Windows 11.

Besides, major software updates often come with some bugs in those early weeks, the primary reason why the free upgrade to Windows 11 will take place in batches. It may even be months before you actually get a free Windows 11 update, and the wait is not a bad thing at all. You’d probably be running a much more stable version of the OS than build releasing on October 5.

How to upgrade to Windows 11?

If you’ve considered the positives and negatives and are willing to go forward with the Windows 11 update, you can check if you have an update option available after October 5 by navigating to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and click Check for Updates. If an update is available for you, you will see a Feature update to Windows 11 option that you can download and install.

If an option to update is not available, you may also want to check if your PC is actually eligible to run Windows 11. Here’s how you can do that.