Now you can spend less time tweaking and more time playing
Nvidia launched a new application into beta called GeForce Experience. This handy tool will scan your computer for installed games, including stuff from services like Steam, and optimize the graphics settings for you. These optimized settings are grabbed from Nvidia’s servers and are based on your monitor resolution, CPU, and GPU.
Nvidia knows that people don’t want to spend an eternity fiddling around with things like ambient occlusion, anisotropic filtering, tessellation, and all kinds of other things that use made-up words that only game designers and enthusiasts understand. And I for one don’t want to waste an afternoon reading about the difference of FXAA and MSAA anti-aliasing.
I downloaded the tool to check it out, and while the games supported right now are limited, I’m impressed with what’s in the beta. I tested it out with Skyrim and it showed me what the optimal settings would be. These weren’t too different from what I had, but it did suggest to turn some options up while lowering other settings. I clicked the big green optimize button and it fixed my in-game settings. I didn’t have to launch the game or anything. It somehow just did it for me. Skyrim ran smoothly and it looked awesome.
These optimal settings will rely on game performance data collected by the program. This means that over time, it will be better at recommending settings for more hardware configurations. The target goal for performance is 40 frames per second, but if your machine can’t handle that, it will try and get it as high as it can.
The other major thing this software does is check to see if you have the latest Nvidia drivers installed. It’s possible to download and update the driver right from inside the app, and it will even give you a desktop notification when one becomes available.