Nvidia’s desktop software situation has felt disjointed for a while. There’s the Nvidia Control Panel that controls many basic display settings, but is separate from the GeForce Experience that requires an Nvidia account to download driver updates and automatically optimize game settings for performance targets.
Starting today, all of that changes with the brand-new Nvidia app, which merges the Control Panel and GeForce Experience into one, along with connections to other Nvidia apps and features. The user interface looks like it got a complete redesign, and perhaps most importantly, you’ll no longer need to log into an Nvidia account just to get driver updates through the app. Nvidia says the login is optional now, meant for users who want to redeem bundles and rewards.
The most interesting part is a unified GPU control center in this new Nvidia app. It essentially integrates the GeForce Experience optimal game settings and Nvidia’s separate controls games through its Control Panel app. That means you can now modify game settings and driver settings in a single location, or set a global profile for all games and apps.
Nvidia says it will eventually integrate all features from the Nvidia Control Panel into this new app, including display and video settings. “Additionally, we’ll be adding several attributes from GeForce Experience and RTX Experience, such as GPU overclocking and driver roll-back,” says Nvidia.
Not all features will be transitioned across, though. Nvidia is removing Broadcast to Twitch and YouTube, Share Images and Video to Facebook and YouTube, and Photo Mode 360 & Stereo captures.
The GeForce Experience performance overlay has changed, too. The statistics overlay shown in the screenshot below not only tracks various rendering metrics, but also both render latency of a game and overall PC latency. Nvidia previously tracked some of these metrics in the GeForce Experience overlay, but they appear to be fully customizable now, so you can show the exact stats you want to see — much like third-party framerate apps.
Users can download other Nvidia apps from within the Nvidia app, like Nvidia Broadcast, Nvidia Omniverse, and GeForce Now. Additionally, as long as you have an RTX graphics card, you can mess around with AI-powered, Nvidia Freestyle game-enhancing filters, like the RTX Dynamic Vibrance feature that has also moved over from the old Nvidia Control Panel.
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