It is not unusual for Windows 10 and Windows 11 to have bugs and usually, Microsoft will eventually catch them or be told about them before issuing a fix. It is rare for a problem on Windows to persist for a long time, but that is what is happening with flaws in MPO display compatibility on Windows. Amazingly, the principal software players seem to be missing this issue.
In a report, Neowin explains that Multiplane Overlay (MPO) has been consistently broken since it was originally launched with Windows 8.1.
If you’re unfamiliar with MPO, it is part of the Windows Display Driver Module (WDDM) 1.3 and it is designed to reduce CPU and GPU load when executing multiple frame buffers. Interestingly, the feature has had problems almost since the day it was launched and Microsoft has previously sent out fixes to address those issues.
However, since Windows 11 and amid ongoing issues with MPO, the company has ignored the problems, while hardware vendors AMD and Nvidia have also not bothered to fix it.
No Fix
Nvidia has said users can disable MPO through the registry, but no permanent fix is available from any of the companies. Symptoms of this problem include black screen, stuttering, flickering, and other general display problems.
However, it is tricky to diagnose these issues as related to MPO simply because there are numerous other flaws that cause similar display problems. One way to know is to disable MPO and see if the symptoms persist.
You can do that by heading to the Display Windows Manager (DWM) registry on Windows 11 and place the value
“OverlayTestMode” DWORD value 00000005.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Dwm
“OverlayTestMode”=dword:00000005
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