Nvidia performance. Setting up an Nvidia graphics card for gaming

Hello to all! Today is a very interesting article about fine-tuning a video card for high performance in computer games. Friends will agree that after installing the video card driver, you once opened the “Nvidia Control Panel” and saw unfamiliar words there: DSR, shaders, CUDA, sync pulse, SSAA, FXAA and so on, decided not to climb there anymore. But nevertheless, it is possible and even necessary to understand all this, because performance directly depends on these settings. There is an erroneous opinion that everything in this tricky panel is set up correctly by default, unfortunately this is far from the case and experiments show that the correct setting is rewarded with a significant increaseframe rate.So get ready, we will understand streaming optimization, anisotropic filtering and triple buffering. As a result, you will not regret it and you will be rewarded in the form ofincrease FPS in games.

Setting up an Nvidia graphics card for gaming

The pace of development of game production is gaining more and more momentum every day, however, like the exchange rate of the main monetary unit in Russia, and therefore the relevance of optimizing the operation of hardware, software and the operating system has increased dramatically. It is not always possible to keep your steel stallion in good shape due to constant financial injections, so today we will talk about increasing the speed of a video card due to its detailed settings. In my articles, I have repeatedly written about the importance of installing a video driver, so I think it can be skipped. I'm sure all of you know perfectly well how to do this, and all of you have already installed it for a long time.

So, in order to get to the video driver control menu, right-click anywhere on the desktop and select "Nvidia Control Panel" from the menu that opens.

Then, in the window that opens, go to the "Manage 3D settings" tab.

Here we are with you and we will configure various parameters that affect the display of 3D images in games. It's not hard to understand that to get the best performance from your graphics card, you'll have to cut the image a lot in terms of quality, so be prepared for that.

So the first paragraph CUDA - GPUs". Here is a list of video processors, one of which you can choose and it will be used by CUDA applications. CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a parallel computing architecture used by all modern GPUs to increase computing performance.

The next paragraph " DSR - Smoothness” we skip because it is part of the setting of the “DSR - Degree” item, and in turn it needs to be turned off and now I will explain why.

DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution)- a technology that allows you to calculate a picture in games in a higher resolution, and then scales the result to the resolution of your monitor. In order for you to understand why this technology was invented at all and why we do not need it to get maximum performance, I will try to give an example. Surely you often noticed in games that small details, such as grass and foliage, very often flicker or ripple when moving. This is due to the fact that the lower the resolution, the smaller the number of sampling points for displaying fine details. DSR technology corrects this by increasing the number of points (the greater the resolution, the greater the number of sampling points). I hope this will be clear. In conditions of maximum performance, this technology is not interesting to us because it consumes quite a lot of system resources. Well, with DSR technology disabled, smoothness adjustment, which I wrote about a little higher, becomes impossible. In general, we turn off and move on.

Next comes anisotropic filtering. Anisotropic filtering is a computer graphics algorithm designed to improve the quality of textures that are tilted relative to the camera. That is, when using this technology, the textures in games become clearer. If we compare antiisotropic filtering with its predecessors, namely with bilinear and trilinear filtering, then anisotropic filtering is the most voracious in terms of video card memory consumption. This item has only one setting - the choice of filtration coefficient. It is not difficult to guess that this function must be disabled.

The next item is vertical sync pulse. This is the synchronization of the image with the monitor's refresh rate. If you enable this option, you can achieve the smoothest gameplay (tearing is removed when the camera turns sharply), but frame drops often occur below the monitor's refresh rate. To get the maximum number of frames per second, this option is best disabled.

Pre-prepared virtual reality footage. We are not interested in the function for virtual reality glasses, since VR is still far from the everyday use of ordinary gamers. We leave the default - use the 3D application setting.

Background lighting shading. Makes scenes more realistic by softening the intensity of ambient lighting on surfaces that are obscured by nearby objects. The function does not work in all games and is very demanding on resources. Therefore, we take it down to the digital mother.

Shader caching. When enabled, the CPU saves shaders compiled for the GPU to disk. If this shader is needed again, the GPU will take it directly from disk without forcing the CPU to recompile this shader. It is not difficult to guess that if you disable this option, the performance will drop.

Maximum number of pre-trained frames. The number of frames that the CPU can prepare before they are processed by the GPU. The higher the value, the better.

Multi-frame anti-aliasing (MFAA). One of the anti-aliasing technologies used to eliminate "jaggies" at the edges of images. Any anti-aliasing technology (SSAA, FXAA) is very demanding on the GPU (the only question is the degree of gluttony). Turn it off.

Stream optimization. By enabling this feature, an application can use multiple CPUs at once. In case the old application does not work correctly, try to set the "Auto" mode or disable this feature altogether.

Power management mode. There are two options - adaptive mode and maximum performance mode. During adaptive mode, power consumption depends directly on the degree of GPU utilization. This mode is mainly needed to reduce power consumption. During the maximum performance mode, as you might guess, the highest possible level of performance and power consumption is maintained, regardless of the degree of GPU load. We put the second one.

Antialiasing - FXAA, Antialiasing - gamma correction, Antialiasing - options, Antialiasing - transparency, Antialiasing - mode. I already wrote about smoothing a little higher. We turn everything off.

Triple buffering. A kind of double buffering; an image output method that avoids or reduces artifacts (image distortion). In simple words, it increases productivity. BUT! This thing works only in tandem with vertical sync, which, as you remember, we turned off before. Therefore, we also disable this parameter, it is useless for us.

Today we will talk about increasing the speed of a video card due to its detailed settings.

So, in order to get to the video driver control menu, right-click anywhere on the desktop and select "Nvidia Control Panel" from the menu that opens.

Then, in the window that opens, go to the tab "Manage 3D settings"

So the first point CUDA - GPUs. Here is a list of video processors, one of which you can choose and it will be used by CUDA applications. CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a parallel computing architecture used by all modern GPUs to increase computing performance.

Next item DSR - Smoothness we skip it, because it is part of the setting of the "DSR - Degree" item, and it, in turn, needs to be turned off and now I will explain why

Next comes anti-isotropic filtering. Antiisotropic filtering- a computer graphics algorithm designed to improve the quality of textures that are tilted relative to the camera. That is, when using this technology, the textures in games become clearer. If we compare anti-isotropic filtering with its predecessors, namely with bilinear and trilinear filtering, then anti-isotropic filtering is the most voracious in terms of video card memory consumption. This item has only one setting - the choice of filtration coefficient. It is not difficult to guess that this function must be disabled.

The next item is Vertical sync pulse. This is the synchronization of the image with the monitor's refresh rate. If you enable this option, you can achieve the smoothest gameplay (tearing is removed when the camera turns sharply), but frame drops often occur below the monitor's refresh rate. To get the maximum number of frames per second, it is better to disable this option.

Pre-prepared virtual reality footage. We are not interested in the function for virtual reality glasses, since VR is still far from the everyday use of ordinary gamers. We leave the default - use the 3D application setting.

Background lighting shading. Makes scenes more realistic by softening the intensity of ambient lighting on surfaces that are obscured by nearby objects. The function does not work in all games and is very demanding on resources. Therefore, we take it down to the digital mother.

Shader caching. When enabled, the CPU saves shaders compiled for the GPU to disk. If this shader is needed again, the GPU will take it directly from disk without forcing the CPU to recompile this shader. It is not difficult to guess that if you disable this option, the performance will drop.

Maximum number of pre-trained frames. The number of frames that the CPU can prepare before they are processed by the GPU. The higher the value, the better.

Stream optimization. By enabling this feature, an application can use multiple CPUs at once. In case the old application does not work correctly, try to set the "Auto" mode or disable this feature altogether.

Power management mode. There are two options - adaptive mode and maximum performance mode. During adaptive mode, power consumption depends directly on the degree of GPU utilization. This mode is mainly needed to reduce power consumption. During the maximum performance mode, as you might guess, the highest possible level of performance and power consumption is maintained, regardless of the degree of GPU load. We put the second one.

Antialiasing - FXAA, Antialiasing - gamma correction, Antialiasing - parameters, Antialiasing - transparency, Antialiasing - mode. I already wrote about smoothing a little higher. We turn everything off.

Triple buffering. A kind of double buffering; an image output method that avoids or reduces artifacts (image distortion). In simple words, it increases productivity. BUT! This thing works only in tandem with vertical sync, which, as you remember, we turned off before. Therefore, we also disable this parameter, it is useless for us.

Multi-Display/Mixed GPU Acceleration. The setting defines additional options for OpenGL when using multiple displays and multiple graphics cards. Single display - single display performance mode respectively. Two or more - multi-display performance (or compatibility mode in case of incorrect operation of applications). Two or more video cards - compatibility mode

Texture Filtering - Antiisotropic Filtering Optimization. Enabling the option will lead to a slight deterioration in the picture and an increase in performance, which is exactly what we need.

Texture Filtering - Quality. Allows you to control the Intellisample technology. This technology is designed to improve the quality of smoothing scenes with partially transparent textures. We twist it to a minimum, that is, we set the high performance mode.

Texture filtering - negative detail level deviation. A technology that allows you to display textures in applications with more contrast.

Texture Filtering - Trilinear Optimization. Enabling this option allows the driver to reduce the quality of trilinear filtering to improve performance.

This completes the performance tuning of the Nvidia video driver. After all the operations done, the increase in frames per second will greatly please you. I deliberately did not attach the tests, because the effectiveness of the settings directly depends on the model of the video card. For someone, the setting will bring those missing 10-15 FPS, and for someone 30-40. On this I say goodbye to you and wish you the conquest of all virtual peaks!

Owners of personal computers and laptops with graphics solutions from Nvidia are very lucky: a convenient control panel has been developed especially for them, which allows you to fine-tune the operation of the video card as you wish. Want the best graphics quality? You are welcome! On the contrary, do you need performance on a weak computer? Just press a few buttons and you'll have a working machine. This article covers the Nvidia setup for games.

Why tune a graphics card?

First you need to decide what effect you want to achieve by adjusting the video card settings. If you want to improve the image quality in games and video playback, you are sure that your video card has enough power, then you can do it in a couple of clicks. Conversely, if your computer is weak for modern games, you can turn all the parameters towards performance and get a significant boost. Some modern games provide too narrow a choice of graphics settings through the menu. Even if you reset the quality to a minimum, it is sometimes difficult to achieve an acceptable amount of FPS. This is where setting up the Nvidia Control Panel for Gaming comes in handy. Let's take a look at its functionality.

How to find the panel?

First of all, you must install the latest driver update from the official Nvidia website. Along with the driver, the installer for the control panel and GeForce Experience will be downloaded to the computer. The software is installed automatically: you just need to select a directory on your hard drive. It is advisable to select the system partition. Before installation, be sure to uninstall the old version of the driver, if one was installed. Open Setting up for games starts by launching the application. You can find the program through the Start menu or in the tray by clicking on the company logo.

Description of functionality

The program has many settings for the quality of graphics, images on the desktop, color reproduction and much more. Since we are interested in setting up the Nvidia control panel for games, we immediately cut off the following sections: video and display. We need the "3D Settings" section.

preview images

The first subsection is a simplified option for setting parameters. In it, you just need to move the slider to one of the positions - performance, quality, or balanced. Above the slider is a visual animation that changes depending on the position. By choosing performance, you will get an increase, but the picture quality will be worse than at the lowest in-game settings. All edges will be jagged. By moving the slider to the "Quality" mode, you will get smooth edges, a nice picture, and other delights that suit powerful video cards. The default is balanced mode.

It is worth noting that here you can choose one of three tuning modes: the described mode "quality-performance", "tune by application" or "go to advanced settings". Let's look at the last point.

Setting up the Nvidia control panel for gaming on a laptop

If you have a weak laptop at your disposal, but you still want to play, then you will need the advanced settings mode. The item "Manage 3D settings" contains a complete list of detailed settings for the video card.

When you do, you can disable graphics quality control from the application and adjust everything manually.

Global Options Tab

Here is a complete list of all settings. In the "Anisotropic filtering" column, set the minimum multiplier or disable it altogether. We also disable multiple anti-aliasing, shading. Be sure to leave the "shader caching" and "threading optimization" items enabled. For best performance, it is recommended to turn off all anti-aliasing related options. Next on the list are texture filtering options. We do the same with them - turn them off. Now the setup of the Nvidia control panel for gaming on the laptop is complete. It remains to click "Apply".

Program Settings Tab

Here you can produce separately for each game. This allows you to keep the default settings mode when working with the operating system and optimized applications. When you start a particular demanding game, the mode will automatically switch to the one you created. For example, the setting of the Nvidia control panel for games for "Armata" was disassembled. In the "Select a program to configure" tab, we find the item with the installed "Armored Warfare: Project Armata". In the window, you can either set individual values, or set global parameters from the previous tab. Now you know everything about setting up the control panel and will be able to choose the best settings for your computer and preferences.

The first glance at the control panel sometimes frightens the user with its unusual terms and apparent complexity. Many prefer not to mess with this clever set of unfamiliar words. Understand what is video card settingNvidiafor games and it's really easy to do what you need to do.

Do not give in to illusions about the correctness of all parameters. In practice, it has been proven more than once that only a certain effort on your part will help to get a significant improvement in frame rate. Do not be afraid of such unfamiliar words as triple buffering or streaming optimization. The result in the form of increased FPS is a good reward for the time spent on setup.

Clicking the right mouse button in any area of the desktop is required to enter the video driver control menu.

The next step is to go to "3D Management" in the window that appears.

It is in it that the main setting of the most important parameters when displaying 3D images takes place. Do not be afraid that the process of obtaining the performance itself is associated with large changes in the image in terms of its quality.

Video processors are presented in the first paragraph - "CUDA - GPUs". You can choose to use applications with this name - Compute United Device Architecture. Almost every graphic type uses a similar computing architecture to improve its performance.

Due to the fact that "DSR-Smoothness" is included in the list of "Degree" components, we skip it. And now let's look at the reasons for the need to disable the "DSR-Degree".

This technology is the main tool for calculating the parameters of pictures in games with high resolution. The result is reproduced in the desired scale. In our case, its use is not required, which is easy to prove by the following example.

Each of us is familiar with the situation with flickering when moving elements or ripples of small details during the game. This is caused by not enough sample points at the minimum resolution. Increasing the number of sample points is the main function of DSR technology. But for us it does not play any role in the presence of the highest productivity. And with it turned off, it is impossible to adjust the smoothness. So we move on by performing a shutdown.

Now let's deal with an algorithm called anti-isotropic filtering. It is necessary to improve the quality of those textures that are located at a certain angle relative to the camera. This method allows you to create clearer game textures.

Compared to trilinear and bilinear options, the new filtering technology is very expensive in terms of memory usage. There is only one setting in this paragraph - the choice of coefficient. You need to disable this feature.

Performing image synchronization while adjusting the refresh rate on the monitor is the next step. It is possible to eliminate tearing in the overall picture when the camera pans too sharply, but frames often drop below the nominal refresh rate. It is best to turn off to ensure that you have the required number of frames per second.

The tool for using virtual reality glasses is not of particular interest to us until VR has become an element for the constant use of gamers. Here we do not touch anything in the settings.

Realistic will help to make the visual perception of the process of "Shading". But this function is not compatible with a large number of games. Better turn it off.

Preservation of compiled shaders for the CPU is a working feature called "Shader Caching". If it is necessary to reuse the GPU takes the required component from the disk. Disabling this option is bound to have a negative impact on performance.

Next comes the item on the choice of the CPU number of frames to process their GPU. Here, the highest value remains optimal.

Multi-frame adjustment technology to remove a kind of break at the edges of the working image. All tools of this type are very gluttonous in relation to the processor. The conclusion is clear - turn it off.

The streaming optimization feature helps to use multiple CPUs at the same time. In case of incorrect operation, disable it or set the automatic option.

There are two power management modes. We put the first maximum because of its immunity to loading.

In the interval from "Smoothing" to "Smoothing - mode", turn off all the items.

The next item works in conjunction with a function that has already been deactivated. We perform the same action for the parameter in question.

When using multiple graphics cards, more displays are accelerated.

The texture filtering option will help achieve the result we want - to increase performance.

The technology of changing the level of detail with a negative value contributes to .

Three-line optimization must be enabled to reduce the parameters of the filtering of the same name.

After completing these operations, we will complete the settings.

In this review, we will consider ways to increase the performance and speed of Nvidia video cards. The setup will be done using the official software - Nvidia drivers. How to determine the model of your card and where to download drivers from the official website of the manufacturer is written in this article.

A modern video card is a very complex device, comparable to a single PC. It has a multi-core processor, fast RAM memory, powerful cooling system. A video card can be overclocked just like a computer, i.e. increase the frequency of the processor. The advantage of this solution is an increase in the speed of the card, an increase in the frame rate, the elimination of "slowdown" in games and 3D editors. But there is a side effect. This is an increase in the operating temperature of the processor, the risk of overheating and failure. Therefore, the manufacturer does not recommend overclocking the video card, this can void the buyer's warranty for the product and, accordingly, lead to loss of time and money.

But the manufacturer made it possible for the consumer to adjust the performance of the video card within certain reasonable, warranty limits. This is done using standard programs - drivers. The latest versions of which can be downloaded from the official website of the manufacturer Nvidia

How to download the latest version of the Nvidia Control Panel.

On this site, in order to find the necessary drivers, you need to know the name of your video card. It can be determined in the following way.

How to find out the model of the installed video card on a Windows PC.

There are many ways to find out the model of an Nvidia video card. Let's consider several options.

Through the desktop.

In windows 7, right-click on the desktop screen and select Screen resolution.

Click Extra options.

In the window that appears, there should be all the information about the video device.

Click tab Adapter and there you will find the name of your video card.

Through the START button.

The path to open this tab through the START button will be as follows.

for Windows 7: Start -> Control Panel -> Display -> Screen Resolution.

for Windows 10: Start -> Settings -> System -> Advanced display settings -> Graphics adapter properties.

Through Device Manager.

Right click on the icon "My computer" and choose a team Properties. Here we select the item Device Manager.

on Windows 7: Start -> Control Panel -> System.

on Windows 10: Start -> Settings -> System -> About System -> Device Manager.

Using the command line.

First, we call the command line panel. To do this, press both Win + R buttons at the same time. In the window that appears, write the command dxdiag. A new window will open with information about the video card. For Win 10, click OK and select the Screen tab.

How convenient is this method. Firstly, you can very quickly call up the menu. And you will have complete information about the current video mode, incl. how much video memory is installed and the version of the video accelerator driver.

Video: How to find out your video card on Windows 7.

Using Aida.

Even more complete information about the installed video device and all devices on the computer can be found using the well-known program Aida. This program has worked well for many years. It has the most complete hardware base and without any problems determines the configuration of any PC. You can download Aida from the official site: www.aida64.com.

Setting up an Nvidia graphics card

After the model of the video card has been determined, the latest drivers have been downloaded and installed, you can proceed directly to tuning the performance of the video system.

Open "Nvidia Control Panel". This can be done through the desktop by right-clicking on it and selecting the item "Nvidia Control Panel". You can also go through the Nvidia tray icon by double-clicking on it.

After opening the program, press "Manage 3D settings". You should see a window with the following settings.

Anisotropic filtering, optimal value 16x. Anisotropic filtering allows you to change the filter coefficient. The following values are available: 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x. The higher the number, the clearer and more natural the textures of objects look.

Triple buffering, must be in position Off Triple buffering avoids or reduces artifacts.

Texture Filtering/Sampling Anisotropic Optimization. This setting allows you to save system resources by concentrating them on one object at the expense of others. This setting affects the clarity of the display of the nearest object relative to other objects or the background of the game. Here you need to set the value to position Application-controlled, i.e. Application control. So we give the setting of this parameter to the game or 3D application, which will automatically select the desired anisotropic filtering mode at a certain point in time. For each application, this parameter can also be configured separately, in the program settings tab, this is written at the end of the article. By enabling texture filtering through anisotropic optimization, you can get higher quality without any noticeable performance loss. Switching to a manual, forced filtering control mode makes sense if the 3D program does not work correctly.

Texture Filtering/Negative UD Deviation, correct value Binding. This setting makes the background more contrast and blur on moving objects. This item affects the performance of the system, with no noticeable effect on image quality. Therefore, it is recommended to choose positive, not negative values for this parameter.

Texture filtering/quality, here we put the point performance. This will give us rendering speed, at the expense of a slight loss in object quality.

Texture filtering/trilinear optimization, put the position Off Enabling trilinear filtering improves the performance of the video accelerator, at the expense of a significant loss in quality. This algorithm calculates the average point color over the nearest 8. Therefore, it makes sense to include this item only for very outdated or low-power video cards trying to produce a modern game.

Texture Filtering/Anisotropic Filtering Optimization off position This filtering does not significantly affect the image rendering quality and performance. In the On position productivity increases, quality deteriorates. But due to the fact that all this is not significant, we set it to Off.

Multiple display acceleration, here clearly Single display performance mode. There is no need to scatter video system resources on two monitors.

Vertical sync pulse, put Adaptive, i.e. at the discretion of the system. The vertical sync can be forced on in order to achieve 100 fps with a 120 GHz capable monitor. But from practice, it has been noticed that Fps_max does not rise above 100 unless develover "1" is turned on, and this parameter greatly reduces performance.

Stream optimization, correct position On Thread optimization controls the number of GPU cores used in games and 3D applications.

physix, put CPU That is, we send the calculations with the PhysX module to the main processor of the computer.

anti-aliasing-transparency, position Off Because we need performance, not anti-aliasing and transparency.

Power management mode, here we set the maximum performance. We will spend all the energy on productivity, we will not save.

Maximum number of pre-trained frames, our value is 1 . If more frames are created in advance, then more resources will be required from processors and memory. As a result, the system will slow down. And we don't need it.

Video: Setting up the Nvidia control panel for games, increasing FPS.

It should be noted that progress does not stand still and over time new algorithms for the operation of NVidia video cards appear. This means that the settings can change in new drivers, be different, be called differently.

After setting the correct settings, do not forget to press the button "Apply".

Do not forget that it is possible to evaluate the performance of the video accelerator before changing the settings and after the change. This can be done using well-known programs that evaluate system performance. For example, using the application 3DMark.

Individual performance tuning for specific games and 3D applications.

The NVidia control panel allows you to apply the changed performance and graphics quality settings to all programs at once or to one or more of the user's choice. In order to configure each game or application separately, you need to select the desired game in the drop-down list and make a new optimization, change the set of properties and settings. In this case, the general settings for all programs will remain unchanged. And this particular game will fall into exceptions and will work according to individual settings.