What is Disable Task Offload do exactly?

Dell SupportAssist, as part of its optimization, the network optimization in particular, it says Optimization Done / Disable Task Offload: 1

What does that do exactly and how does disabling it supposed to improve things a per this tool?

My question was more to get a basic understanding layman's terms and also why this Dell SupportTool is disabling it, as in, how is disabling it better since it seems to be doing this to enhance performance which I don't get.

 

If anything I’d assume offloading network tasks like checksum etc from the CPU to the ethernet card would be better unless you have a terrible Realtek controller/adapter where it’s pretty bad at that due to buggy drivers/hardware in which case it’s better to let the CPU just handle it.

Since this is likely a laptop I’m guessing probably Realtek or the likes so it makes sense... the Intel controllers on the other hand do offloading just fine.

This MS link may be more helpful:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/network/task-offload

Some of the offloads are mentioned throughout the page on this tweak site:
https://www.speedguide.net/articles/gaming-tweaks-5812/p-1/

 

Well my LAN is the Killer E3000 and the WLAN is the Killer 1650X which is basically the Intel AX200

 

Oh my bad I thought you were speaking of the Ethernet only, for some reason I forgot WiFi exists lol...

For Intel AX200/1650 only tweaks for gaming I’d probably do are disable packet aggregation (because when enabled it increases througput but at cost of latency) , then possibly set BG scanning to only on low signal and put roaming to low. Last two being more dependent on your environment.

Take a look at the second link above that site has better explanations, I personally didn’t need to go that far but if you feel you need to and it benefits you, you can tinker with some of the other settings mentioned there including offload related stuff. Just a tip keep it simple unless you have issues or you may ironically end up creating issues where non existed.


Lastly I usually do a fresh format on a new laptop and avoid any laptop manufacturer/vendor related software including Dell assistant.. Last time they included some Bigfoot Networks (Killer) QoS app by default and that garbage caused latency and buffering in videos and reduced throughput...

 

oh the latency issues was only on Ethernet which I was *thinking* would be better and was always connected via Ethernet. I did remember at times that when I only connected to WiFi webpages loaded instantly but I thought that was just in my head but now it all makes sense.

Where to disable this packet aggregation from? I have an ASUS RT-AX88U router.

 

Oh the three settings above are actually on the Intel AX200’s advanced settings page in Windows network settings. Sorry should have clarified earlier. Don’t worry about the router.

EDIT: I’m a fool packet aggregation is labeled as “Packet Coalescing” in the Intel settings, sorry about that.