Nvidia Control Panel Vs. Geforce Experience

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Volkey

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Alright guys, looking for a bit a tech help here..

Yesterday I picked up a new EVGA gtx 980 (love it) and am trying to fine tune some/most of the different setting for things like AA, MFAA, DSR and things of that sort.. I'm noticing there are per game setting adjustments for thise selections plus more in the Geforce Experience application as well as the "1 click optimization" feature to basically let the software choose the best settings for you based on your PC and the game.

Next, all these setting plus waaaay more are located in Nvidia's control panel under the 3-D setting tab.

And finally, these settings are ALSO located in each game's individual options>display settings..

SO... My question is, which software/path is the most effective place/way to apply these adjustments, what ones would you suggest I tweak, and which ones should I just leave alone.?
 
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I have not kept Geforce Experience on my PC for long the two times I have tried it. It's nice to have an application that can optimize settings for you, but I found that it tended to underestimate my preference for quality over performance. I have always gone to the Nvidia Control Panel and set an aggressive Global Settings tab, and then tweak each game individually under the Program Settings tab. I have a GTX 780 Ti, so I have found aggressive settings to work just fine. Here's my recommendations.

Global Settings
Ambient Occlusion: Quality
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x or Application-controlled (your choice)
Antialiasing-FXAA: On
Antialiasing-Gamma Correction: On
Antialiasing-Mode: Application-controlled...
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Rapajez

Rapajez

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I would not touch the NVIDIA Control Pannel 3D settings defaults, as they can overide the in-game settings. (GeForce Experience and In-Game settings). The only exception being, if you are directed to do so, for troubleshooting, etc, and even then, you can set it per-game.

I've found GeForce Experience generally does a pretty good job. Occasionally, I might want a specific feature, and I'll lower AA (hardest hitting) or "shadow quality" to get it. I'd start with the Experience and then tweak to your liking.

Bare minimum, you want to be playing at your monitors native (maximum) resolution, and refresh rate (usually 60 FPS, 30 minimum). If you're not getting that, lower the settings.



 
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Volkey

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Right on, the reply is much appreciated. I will set everything in the control panel back to "application controlled" and do as you said and have GFE take control of optimization. The Super Down Sampling of these new 900 series cards is pretty damn intensive when you run it along with a high AA setting it gobbles up a lot of the juice.
 
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Rapajez

Rapajez

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NP. I'd select "set defaults" to hit everything at once. I forgot about the "SDS" in the 900 series. I suppose you can give that a shot if you're already maxed out and well above 60 FPS in a specific game. (You can select per-game settings from the drop-down in the control panel, unless it changed for SDS).
 
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Volkey

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GFE actually has the integrated SDS settings integrated into the "one click optimization" function for the 900 series cards now so its pretty user friendly on setting it up.
 
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I have not kept Geforce Experience on my PC for long the two times I have tried it. It's nice to have an application that can optimize settings for you, but I found that it tended to underestimate my preference for quality over performance. I have always gone to the Nvidia Control Panel and set an aggressive Global Settings tab, and then tweak each game individually under the Program Settings tab. I have a GTX 780 Ti, so I have found aggressive settings to work just fine. Here's my recommendations.

Global Settings
Ambient Occlusion: Quality
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x or Application-controlled (your choice)
Antialiasing-FXAA: On
Antialiasing-Gamma Correction: On
Antialiasing-Mode: Application-controlled
Antialiasing-Transparency: Off
CUDA-GPUs: All
Maximum pre-rendered frames: Use the 3D application setting
Multi-display/mixed GPU acceleration: Single display performance mode
Power management mode: Adaptive
Shader Cache: On
Texture filtering-Negative LOD bias: Clamp
Texture filtering-Quality: High Quality (this will gray out several other options)
Threaded optimization: Auto
Triple buffering: Off
Vertical sync: Use the 3D application setting (or Adaptive, your choice)
Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames (new setting): Use the 3D application setting

For your Program Settings, several notes:
- Ambient Occlusion isn't always an option and may be grayed out. If you keep it on 'Quality', it will actually force HBAO+.
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-geforce-331-40-beta-drivers-released
- Antialiasing-FXAA: There's a small subset of situations where you may find this blurs your image. I've never detected that, but if you do, try turning FXAA off.
- Usually games will include various levels of Antialiasing, and I usually just let the game decide. If you want to play around with the various Antialiasing options in the NV Control Panel, select "Override any application setting".
- Antialiasing-Transparency is your most tweakable option. We start with "Off" and then add TrSSA to enhance the image quality. This is the one that can really impact your framerates, so it becomes the big variable I tweak for increasing/reducing performance and image quality.
- Triple buffering only works on OpenGL games when Adaptive VSync is turned On. You may leave this enabled in the Global Settings if you wish, but it's not really necessary if you use Adaptive VSync.
- Vertical Sync (VSync): If your game is using VSync, be sure to force Adaptive VSync here under Program Settings. You may also just enable it in the Global Settings, but a true gamer is going to default to the maximum possible performance and add VSync as a remedy, rather than a first line approach. If you do use VSync, ALWAYS AND ONLY use Adaptive VSync. The old regular VSync is now obsolete for Nvidia users and should never be used under any circumstances. I hope I made myself clear on that one.

The rest of the settings should pretty much be left alone. Overall, my settings focus on image quality and more of a default setup. With a GTX 980, you'll have no problems maintaining high framerates if you copy my strategy.
 
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17seconds

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As a word of advice, you might want to wait more than 20 minutes before selecting a Best Answer from the first person who responds. I put in about 20 minutes writing out my response alone. The point is that once you select a Best Answer, your thread becomes a lot less attractive to others browsing the forum who might also have some good advice to impart.
 
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Volkey

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Apologies, I just assumed no one else would post after what he had stated. I'm sorry if you feel you wasted your time but just know your post helped me out tremendously, so thank you very much for that.

So if i understand correctly, the settings you make in the "application specific" tab of the Control Panel (FXAA for example) will override any setting you made in the "Global" settings tab if the option you set in Application Specific is HIGHER than that you set in Global?
 
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Whether higher or lower than the Global Settings, the Program Settings will override them. They will also, in most cases, override your in-game settings. Some games are stubborn and don't allow you to mess with the in-game settings without editing the .ini file.

(By the way, I accidentally unselected and then reselected a Best Answer when I went to hit Reply to your post. Don't get confused.)
 
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Rapajez

Rapajez

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When's the last you've tried it? The most recent update finally added the super sampling, surround resolutions, and they've had a slider to slide between quality and performance for each game.

Granted, you'll always get better results if you fine tune each application in the control panel, GE will get the job done for most.

 
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It's been a while, maybe I'll give it a try. Thanks for the update!
 
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Nick Frankin

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The other thing I didn't see mentioned here, is that if you have a 980 you should turn on MFAA in global settings of the Nvidia control panel.

It will then take effect for games that support it, when you select MSAA in the in-game settings. You can have 4xMSAA at half the performance.
 
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