Solved Disable DWM on Windows 11 (27898)

If you have installed the full official AMD Adrenaline driver from AMD, not from Windows Update, you should have AMD Control Panel. From the monitor section you should be able to set the scaling to GPU, not rely on the monitor. This means the GPU will upscale the lower resolution to the native resolution of the monitor and give perfect image, while the default (monitor scaling) is to send the lower resolution to the monitor and let it fill the screen. Monitor scaling and especially that of a TV is usually inferior to GPU scaling. In the same section make sure you change the image to "stretch" or "full screen" (default is "keep aspect ratio").

shoober420 said:

i honestly dont mind my machine looking like a 1970s mainframe system with just a terminal.

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Same, I have disabled all effects, even simple effects can bring $1000 worth i9 to a crawl, 11 just is not optimized.
I do not care, what my desktop looks like, I spend 90% looking at the browser and the rest of the time in games.

People literally spend hundreds of dollars just to look at a nice desktop, that is insane. But then again, they can afford it, they use iPhones.

Having a minimal GUI (Graphics User Interface) is much different to not having a GUI and do everything from CLI (Command Line Interface). Even servers that want to minimize CPU impact, sometimes need a GUI. Besides, if you disable all visual effects, the CPU impact is too small to notice for an OLD Core-i3 (such my former 3rd generation Core-i3 3220) or higher CPU, let alone a more recent (8th generation or newer) CPU. I see no benefit doing it. Unless you are using an Atom class CPU and every ounce of performance counts.

PS: The motto "Real men do it with the keyboard" is largely outdated. Still used by hardcore Unix and Linux users since they don't have any better explanation why on Earth these OSes still rely heavily on CLI in 2025 while they should have evolved to GUI only. Yes, CLI can automate things, but this is for ITs. The standard PC user in 2025 should NEVER need to use the CLI, unless he wants to experiment and learn a few commands. NEVER forced to do so. Please don't try to convince me CLI has more capabilities than GUI, like I said this concerns ITs only. The simple home or work PC user doesn't even care. He wants to use the PC as easy as possible to do work or whatever. He doesn't like to type commands, let alone memorizing them. Find a better excuse why he should mess with CLI in 2025.

its much easier and faster to make a script with all the commands than set up manually through GUI, especially if youre on rolling canary. after every canary build update the system returns alot of settings to default.

this is one of the main reason i went in the route of making the scripts, so i wouldnt have to manually change all settings after every update within the GUI, which would take a long time. and given my linux background prior to using windows again, it helped me apply all i learned from using both OS

its not so much that CLI has more capabilities, but that it makes changing settings more efficient and faster. on top of that, nothing makes me feel more euphoric than sitting infront of a matrix inspired green terminal

heres part 2 of testing win11 with no DWM

I insist, if you disable all visual effects the CPU impact from the GUI and is too small to notice even on a up to 10 years old PC. If you have a discrete graphics card you don't even have to disable visual effects.

Shoober's github is gone but the scripts are still on gitlab:
shoober420 / gammadion · GitLab

I used this tool (GitHub - kurtis2221/win10_dwm_tool: Simplified tool to enable and disable DWM in Windows 10 20H2+) to disable DWM while gaming, and I can feel a noticeable improvement in smoothness. However, the game still freezes for 1-3 seconds every 4-6 minutes.

I don't think that Windows desktop composition consumes too many resources that you would see any difference in performance when you stop it. Especially with a mid range or high end graphics card. Something else is your culprit. I recently realized Windows Update had replaced my nVidia drivers and caused incompatibilities. Once I downloaded latest official driver directly from nVidia, everything was back to normal. So I suggest you try the official Game Ready driver first and if you have issues switch to the Studio version which is more stable.