Next Windows 10 release will reduce performance impact of Spectre v2 mitigation

Posted on Friday, October 19 2018 @ 15:27 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck

Microsoft Windows/Azure Kernel Team developer Mehmet Iyigun confirms on Twitter that the next major update to Windows 10 will adopt "Retpoline" to reduce the performance impact of the mitigation for the Spectre v2 CPU vulnerabilities. Retpoline is a mitigation technique that was developed by Google engineers, Linux already got this update in January 2018.

Combined with something Microsoft calls "import optimization", the performance impact should drop to a level that's negligible for most workloads:

Yes, we have enabled retpoline by default in our 19H1 flights along with what we call "import optimization" to further reduce perf impact due to indirect calls in kernel-mode. Combined, these reduce the perf impact of Spectre v2 mitigations to noise-level for most scenarios. https://t.co/CPlYeryV9K
— Mehmet Iyigun (@mamyun) October 18, 2018

H/T: TPU

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Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.

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