New 'Nvidia App' unifies GeForce Experience and ancient Control Panel — currently in beta, but for how long?

Nvidia has slapped a fresh coat of paint on its software suite with a brand new utility called the 'Nvidia App' that unifies the ancient Nvidia Control Panel and newer GeForce Experience applications. The new app will merge all of Nvidia's outgoing applications into one unified interface for easier navigation. The app is available in beta form and can be downloaded now.

This update has been a long time coming, as Nvidia hasn't updated its core driver interface in a long time. Nvidia's Control Panel has looked nearly the same today as it did during the Windows XP era. Sometimes the lack of change can be beneficial — everything is right where you remember — but I still remember pulling up the same Nvidia control panel we have today on my Pentium 4 rig way back in the late 2000s featuring a Nvidia GeForce 8400GS.

The lack of any UI updates makes ye olde Control Panel a familiar place, with settings still in the same location after all these years. Its age also improves reliability — no major changes means no new bugs. Nonetheless, Nvidia was bound to finally scrap the old interface for something more modern, and that day has finally come. Or at least, there's a beta of where things are headed.

The Nvidia App overhauls how gamers and prosumers interact with Nvidia GPU features and drivers. It sports a sleek yet simple interface with a sidebar featuring access to different functions, including a home screen, driver area, graphics area, and settings menu.

The Nvidia App in its present form exists alongside the Nvidia Control Panel, though it replaces GeForce Experience — and will kindly import your user account and settings from GFE if you're already logged in. And no, it's not getting rid of the log in option, though you can at least use most of the app features without doing so. The app also comes with brand-new features such as AI-powered Freestyle Filters, RTX HDR for games (which we've already seen in modded form), and RTX Dynamic Vibrance.

Nvidia has also reworked its gaming overlay that was present in GeForce Experience. The new overlay features more simplistic HUD elements that take up less space on the screen. There's far more customization with the overlay, enabling users to pick and choose which areas of their system they want to monitor.

Given the number of other applications Nvidia already offers — Nvidia Broadcast, Nvidia Chat With RTX, FrameView, PCAT, and more — it's possible the end goal is to offer an extensible and centralized interface to all your Nvidia needs. Certainly, there are loads of AI-powered tasks that are now available, and requiring users to manually install separate apps for each quickly starts to become cumbersome.

For now, the Nvidia App feels familiar to anyone who has previously used GeForce Experience, and it offers access to many but not all of the features that are in the Control Panel. As a beta that you install separately from the core Nvidia drivers, obviously this isn't a full replacement in the present form.

What's the long-term plan? We asked Nvidia's Brian Burke, Global PR Principal. "We wanted to resolve user feedback on Nvidia Control Panel updates, and unify features from GeForce Experience into one single application. The Nvidia App beta is a first step in our journey to modernize and unify the Nvidia Control Panel, GeForce Experience, and RTX Experience apps into one application. Once we fully migrate features to the Nvidia App, we will end-of-life Nvidia Control Panel and GeForce Experience for GeForce customers."

The new app launches today alongside Nvidia's latest Game Ready driver and can be downloaded today. Being a beta, you can expect some bugs and teething pains, though probably not much worse than what we get from graphics drivers in general.