Windows 10’s May 2019 Update features an all-new game bar experience. It’s not just for capturing videos anymore. It’s now an overlay packed with useful tools, including quick panels for adjusting application volume, seeing resource usage, and playing Spotify music.
How to Open the Game Bar
To open the game bar, press Windows+G. It will appear as an overlay over the game you’re playing. It will also appear over your desktop or any other application you’re using, but it’s most useful when you’re playing a game. Press Windows+G again to close it.
While Microsoft still calls this the “game bar,” that’s a misleading name at this point. It’s a proper overlay with multiple panels now, not just a single bar. If you see a smaller bar, you haven’t installed Windows 10’s May 2019 Update yet.
While the Game Bar is visible, you can click the “Home” icon on the top panel—it looks like a menu button—to choose which panels are visible in the overlay environment.
If Windows+G doesn’t do anything, make sure the game bar is enabled. Head to Settings > Gaming > Game Bar, ensure the “Record game clips, screenshots, and broadcast using Game bar” option is enabled, and check that you haven’t changed the shortcut from Win+G to anything else. If you set a custom shortcut, use that instead of Win+G.
Adjust Application Volume
This feature is useful even if you’re not a gamer! You can press Windows+G anywhere within Windows (including while playing a game) and use the Audio panel to adjust the volume of any running applications.
Monitor System Performance
The game bar also offers a Performance panel that provides information about your current CPU, GPU, and RAM usage. You’ll see current resource usage and a graph of the usage over the last 60 seconds. Just press Windows+G while playing a game to see this information—no Alt+Tabbing necessary.
Even if you aren’t playing a game, pressing Windows+G to see this can be faster than opening the Task Manager.
Of course, this information is now found inthe Task Manager, too. Windows 10’s Task Manager can now show your system’s overall GPU usage and the GPU usage of individual processes, too.
RELATED:Â How to Monitor GPU Usage in the Windows Task Manager
Make Any Panel Always on Top
For this or any other panel, you can click the “Pin” icon to make the panel appear always-on-top while you use your system. If you pin the volume panel, it will appear always on top of whatever you’re doing, offering quick access to application volume settings.
You can drag the title bars in the overlay to move the panels (or widgets, as Microsoft calls them) around on your screen, too.
Play Music From Spotify
The game bar now features Spotify integration—click the menu button and select “Spotify” to pull it up. You can sign into your Spotify account and use the Spotify widget to play music and control playback. This should be more convenient than Alt+Tabbing out of any full-screen games.
Remember when Gabe Newell said Steam was working on Spotify integration back in 2014? That never happened for some reason, but this is nearly as convenient—and it works in games that don’t support the Steam overlay, too.
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