If we use our PC to play games or edit videos, any performance loss may ruin our experience or involve longer processing time during editing and subsequent export. This virtualization function, although it is focused on the enterprise world, ordinary users can also turn it on and off at will, as long as we need to use it.
But is it really worth it to continually turn it on and off as needed? Virtualization is a function focused on improving our security, by creating an isolated environment independent of the operating system. When it comes to virtualization via hardware in combination with software, there is a process overhead which, on some computers, can pose a significant performance problem; resources are already dedicated to this process that could be used to run a game or application.
However, the most modern equipment, are designed at the hardware level taking this feature into account, the difference in performance on a computer with this feature enabled and disabled is therefore noticeable, but not enough to represent a performance issue that requires us to enable and disable this feature.
Each PC can be completely different from the others, especially when we talk about desktop computers, so, if we really want to dispel doubts and carry out the tests ourselves, with virtualization enabled and disabled, we can use the application 3DMark with the Time Spy test.
This test is used to know the performance of specific hardware when playing video games and will show us different scores by independently analyzing the processor and graphics of our computer in combination with the resolution of our monitor to show us the maximum number of FPS that we can achieve, which is particularly useful if our monitor offers a high frame rate per second.
How to disable the virtualization feature
The Windows virtualization function works in conjunction with the TPM chip, one of the requirements of Windows 11. If we have installed this version of Windows on an officially non-compatible PC, this is not necessary, this function can never be activated, so there is no need to disable it.
The easiest method to disable this feature, enabled by default in Windows 11, is to use the Windows command line via PowerShell, an application that we need to run with administrator permissions by right-clicking the Start menu button. To carry out this process, simply use the following command.
becedit /disable hypervisor launch type
As it is a change that affects the operation of the operating system, for the changes to be made to the system it is necessary restart it. If we want to re-enable this function, we must perform the same process, using PowerShell with administrator permissions with the command:
becedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto
Is it worth disabling Windows virtualization?
It is advisable to always leave VBS activated in Windows, since it offers us a series of additional security benefits that far exceed the performance problems that it can generate on the most modern computers.
But if our computer is short on resources and we use it mainly to enjoy online multiplayer video games, where we have to take advantage of the smallest resource of our hardware, it is advisable to deactivate it.
If we use the computer for both work and play, it is not advisable to turn it off unless the difference in performance is so great that it prevents us from enjoying our fun times.
