• OfficerBribe@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    ·
    edit-2
    24 days ago

    While it sounds ridiculous, there is a reasoning for this even nowadays:

    Any periodic activity with a rate faster than one minute incurs the scrutiny of the Windows performance team, because periodic activity prevents the CPU from entering a low-power state. Updating the seconds in the taskbar clock is not essential to the user interface, unlike telling the user where their typing is going to go, or making sure a video plays smoothly. And the recommendation is that inessential periodic timers have a minimum period of one minute, and they should enable timer coalescing to minimize system wake-ups.

    Found 1 test that seems to confirm battery life is slightly worse (2%) with seconds enabled. But this is true only when nothing is going on on screen. If you would actually work on PC, I imagine difference would be practically nonexistent.

    All that said, I use seconds on my private and work PC. Was pissed when MS initially removed this as an option.

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      23 days ago

      The moment I heard about the option was the moment I literally searched on how to enable/install this single KB-Update just so I can use it :P

      Regarding the battery: That would be like leaving the desktop on at all times and just doing something else. This could be appropriate for an e-ink display. Maybe a PC should embed what form-factor it is in the bios like android phones do (e.g. phone, tablet, phablet) and the display report what type of panel it is (e.g. e-ink, TN, IPS, VA, QLED/OLED hybrid).
      You can actually see those specs with AIDA64 on a phone. Very neat