

Make sure to check out the "Performance" option if "Quality" proves too taxing for your GPU.Īnisotropic Filtering: Texture filtering is critical to image quality, so bump this setting up to the maximum 16X value for best results. Ambient Occlusion improves shadow detail and lighting effects noticeably, but can cause a significant drop in framerate especially with older hardware. The difference ambient occlusion can make.Īmbient Occlusion: This option is right at the top and our first item of interest. You can read about graphics settings in more detail in PC graphics options explained. Any settings not mentioned here should be left at default values.Īnother important thing to note: there are two tabs for "Global settings" and "Program settings." If you want to make changes to an individual game, you can select its executable on the Program settings tab and, for example, override its anti-aliasing settings, but leave your global settings untouched.Īlmost every setting on the list can have a big effect on speed, quality, or both, but the following are the most important. Referring to these will help you pick the sweet spot for your rig and style of game. Do take screenshots and notes of all your settings changes and their effects, however. If you get in over your head, Nvidia has provided a handy "Restore" button to return the values to their defaults, so don't worry about experimenting. This panel is overflowing with options, and you can scroll through the box to see them all. Most of Nvidia's releases these days are WHQL certified. Two versions of drivers are provided to users, a beta version that includes all the latest speed tweaks, and a certified WHQL version that's based on older code but is more stable and better tested. If you're worried about conflicts, you can uninstall the previous drivers beforehand, or select clean installation when updating with the newer version. Despite the large driver package, installation is swift and usually painless. Nvidia keeps it easy with a single download page for all drivers, regardless of graphics card model. Where to startīefore exploring the Nvidia Control Panel, make sure you're using the latest version. But what those settings do and where to find them can be confusing, so it pays to know which parts of the Control Panel to pay attention to.

You can tune anti-aliasing and other specific settings for individual games or use the global settings to affect everything you play. You can configure Nvidia's G-Sync to work in games and on your desktop. With a few simple tweaks, you can make games look dramatically better, run smoother, and more.
