In 2017, Microsoft introduced a "performance boosting" Game Mode in the Creators update to Windows 10. Now, three years later, an increasing number of users are experiencing performance issues with Game Mode enabled, but not boosted.

As noted by Guru3D (via TechRadar), according to various complaints, this has affected several games, including Call of Duty: Warzone and League of Legends. Game freezes and stuttering seem to be the main symptoms of whatever is happening.

Some users believe this may be the root cause of problems previously attributed to AMD's Radeon RX 5000 series GPU drivers.

"I built a new PC last year and have been brutalized by the 5700 XT driver ever since; it seems Windows added "game mode" in some update and it was on by default. In my testing, the crazy intermittent stutters are totally gone. I don't know if this is an established fix and many people have tried it, but I thought I'd write about it for those who don't know yet," one user wrote on Reddit.

Other users have experienced similar problems and commented that disabling game mode solved the problem. Additionally, AMD engineers stated that they plan to investigate the situation.

Complaints are not limited to AMD hardware, let alone the Radeon 5000 series. Older Radeon cards and some Nvidia GPUs also appear to be affected.

It is possible that the problem was exacerbated by a recent Windows update, which suddenly caused more people to have the problem (the Reddit thread is only 4 days old). However, if this is the actual culprit of the black screen and other problems with the Radeon RX 5000 card, and it has been going on for several months, then it is probably not a recent update. Or it could be a combination of multiple causes.

In any case, if you are at a loss to figure out why your game is stuttering, freezing, or even crashing, it is worth trying to disable game mode and see if that helps. To do so, go to Settings > Games, click on "Game Mode" in the left-hand column, and toggle the "Game Mode" toggle to "Off."