When it comes to graphics cards for computers, NVIDIA is the current industry leader. They are the creator of some of the most powerful graphics cards for both consumers as well as enterprise solutions. If you own a PC with an NVIDIA graphics card, then you likely already have GeForce Experience installed. It is an incredibly powerful tool that allows you to get the most out of your NVIDIA graphics card.
What is NVIDIA GeForce Experience?
GeForce Experience is an official companion tool developed by NVIDIA. It gives the user the ability to use their NVIDIA graphics card to its full potential. One of the most important features that this piece of software offers to the user is a one-click button to update the graphics card driver, so the users don’t have to go through the hassle of downloading and then installing the graphics driver manually.
You can also use this tool to change different graphics-related settings on your PC. You can either save the changes globally or change settings for individual games. This is quite useful for those who are facing performance issues while playing certain games. Nowadays most of the modern games support GeForce Experience optimization, so you don’t even have to open the game to change the graphics quality.
For content creators, GeForce Experience is an incredibly powerful tool. Apart from optimizing games and updating the graphics drivers, it also allows gamers to take screenshots, record high-quality gameplays, and stream live on popular platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook. The best part of streaming games from the app is the minimal impact on system performance, because of NVIDIA’s highly efficient NVENC encoder.
Now, if you are wondering how to download NVIDIA GeForce Experience and use the features of the app, continue reading this article as we have a guide to help you out.
How To Download GeForce Experience
When you install your graphics card driver from the NVIDIA Driver Downloads page, GeForce Experience gets installed automatically alongside the driver. But if you can’t find it on your PC, you can download it manually. Here’s how to download GeForce Experience:
- First, go to https://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience/ using any web browser.
- Click on ‘Download Now’ to start downloading the latest version of GeForce Experience.
Downloading GeForce Experience - Once it’s done, open the Downloads folder, locate the executable file (.exe) and run the file to start the installation process.
- After a successful installation, you can launch the app. To start using GeForce Experience, you will need an NVIDIA account. If you don’t have one, you can create it from there. Though you can also sign in with either Google or Facebook to save time.
How To Use GeForce Experience
- Update Graphics Drivers
- Optimize games with GeForce Experience
- Take Screenshots, Record And Stream Gameplay with GeForce Experience Overlay
Update Graphics Drivers
As previously mentioned, updating your graphics drivers with GeForce Experience is simple and easy. With every AAA game release, NVIDIA pushes out new graphics drivers containing driver-level performance optimizations for the games. Here’s how you can check for the latest graphics drivers and install it:
- First, launch GeForce Experience from your desktop. You can also launch it from the taskbar icon menu. Right-click on the NVIDIA icon and then click on NVIDIA GeForce Experience.
- Now, click on the Drivers tab on the top. From here, you can search for the latest graphics drivers by clicking on ‘CHECK FOR UPDATES’. If you have the latest driver installed, you’ll see a message at the top that says, “You have the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver.”
- If you see a ‘Download’ button as soon as you check for updates, then click on it to start downloading the latest graphics driver for your GPU.
- Once it is downloaded, you’ll see two options: Express Installation and Custom Installation. If you want the driver to install automatically, proceed with Express Installation.
- The driver will start installing, which might take several minutes depending on what hardware you have in your PC. Don’t turn off your PC while it is installing, otherwise, your PC will malfunction or even boot loop.
- In case you use creative apps such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or 3D graphics modeling apps like Blender, Cinema 4D or Autodesk Maya, you can install the NVIDIA Studio driver instead of the regular Game Ready driver. The Studio driver is optimized to handle heavier workloads on creative applications we just mentioned. To install this driver, click on the three-dot icon on the right side of the ‘Check For Updates’ option, and then select Studio Driver from the drop-down menu. Finally, you can download and install the driver by clicking on the green ‘Download’ button.
Drivers section in GeForce Experience
Note: If you want driver updates to download automatically, click on the cogwheel icon near your profile to open GeForce Experience settings. Now from the General tab, search for the Downloads section and enable ‘Automatically download driver updates and let me choose when to install’.
Optimize games with GeForce Experience
If you are facing performance issues while playing games, with GeForce Experience you can optimize the graphics quality of the game based on NVIDIA’s recommendation. This gives you the flexibility to choose between performance and visual quality without wasting your time on changing every in-game graphics option.
When you install GeForce Experience, it will automatically scan for installed games on your PC, and add them to the library. To squeeze out more frames from your graphics card, here’s how to optimize your games:
- In the Home tab, move your mouse cursor to the game you want to optimize. You will see two options: PLAY and DETAILS. Click on Details to proceed.
- You will see all the in-game settings and their current values. You will also see the recommended values for each setting. To apply those values, click on Optimize to make changes to the game settings.
- If you prefer eye-candy visuals over framerates, click on the wrench icon at the right side of the Optimize button. From here, you get the options to change resolution, display mode, and a slider between performance and quality.
- To optimize all of your games, click on the three-dot icon in the top right corner of the games library, and select Optimize all games. If you want to revert graphics settings for a specific game, go to Details and click on the Revert button.
Take Screenshots, Record And Stream Gameplay with GeForce Experience Overlay
With GeForce Experience overlay, you can easily take screenshots in-game, record and broadcast your gameplay (NVIDIA ShadowPlay) with a single click of a button. To enable the overlay, launch the app, open Settings (Cogwheel icon ⚙️) > General and toggle on In-game Overlay. When you are in-game, hit Alt+Z on your keyboard to bring up the overlay. Here you will see all the options you need. To access all of your saved screenshots and gameplay recording, click on Gallery in the overlay.
GeForce Experience Overlay
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Taking Screenshots
To take a simple screenshot, open the overlay and click on Screenshot. If you want to do it quickly, press Alt+F1.
NVIDIA Ansel technology takes things to the next level. In Ansel-compatible games, you can use the ‘Photo Mode’ to adjust the camera, tweak a plethora of photo-related settings, add filters and take a super high-resolution screenshot up to a staggering 63,360 x 35,640 resolution.
Note: A super-resolution screenshot can take a lot of time to process.
Photo Mode with NVIDIA Ansel
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Recording Gameplay
In case you want to record your gameplay, open the overlay and click on the Record > Start option to start recording. If you want to change the resolution, frame rate, and bitrate, you can do it from Record > Settings in the overlay. Press Alt+F9 to start recording without using the overlay.
In the overlay, you will notice an option called Instant Replay. When enabled, ShadowPlay will continuously record your screen. When you hit a specific hotkey (Alt+F10 by default), a clip of the last several minutes of your gameplay will be saved to your PC. If you want to change the Instant Replay length, you can do it by opening the overlay, clicking on Instant Replay > Settings and adjust the slider to your preference.
Note: Using Instant Replay can affect your in-game and system performance as it continuously records your screen and temporarily stores it to your GPU’s video memory (VRAM).
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Streaming Gameplay
Streaming gameplay on your favorite streaming platform can be easily done with GeForce Experience. The customization settings are very limited when compared to OBS or XSplit Broadcaster, but it gets the job done. Here’s how to do it:
- First, open the overlay and click on the cogwheel icon to open the settings menu.
- Now, go to Connect and log into your preferred streaming platform (YouTube, Twitch & Facebook).
- Go back and click on Broadcast LIVE > Settings, where you can adjust the resolution, frame rate and bitrate of the stream for different platforms. You can also put custom stream overlays with the Custom overlays option.
- To start streaming, open the overlay and click on Broadcast Live. Now select your preferred streaming platform, put title and description of the stream and start streaming your gameplay. The hotkey for this feature is Alt+F8 by default.
Extra features
These are some extra useful features available in GeForce Experience:
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FPS Counter:
With GeForce Experience, you can monitor your in-game FPS by opening the Overlay > Settings (Cogwheel icon ⚙️) > HUD layout > FPS Counter, where you can select the position of the counter.
FPS Counter Settings
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Keyboard Shortcuts:
To modify the default hotkeys for toggling features, open the Overlay > Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts, where all possible hotkeys can be modified to your preference.
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Game Filter:
With NVIDIA Freestyle, you can choose 15 different filters and 38 different image settings that you can apply over your game. To use this, open the overlay and click on the Game filter. You can check this list of games supported by NVIDIA Freestyle.
Metro Exodus with NVIDIA Freestyle
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NVIDIA Highlights:
NVIDIA Highlights automatically captures your key moments, killstreaks and match-winning plays and saves it to your drive. Once it is captured, you can share it on social platforms or create an animated GIF of the clip. To enable this, open Overlay > Settings > Highlights and toggle on Capture. These are the games supported by NVIDIA Highlights.
Conclusion
Whether you want to capture a screenshot, record your gameplay or install the latest graphics driver, NVIDIA GeForce Experience bundles all the features in one software, which you can use for free. Because of how many features NVIDIA is offering to its users, following this guide will definitely help you familiarize yourself with all the little things in GeForce Experience.
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Talha Ali is your tech generalist, covering a wide spectrum of topics within the ever-evolving world of technology. With a curiosity for the latest innovations, industry trends, and breakthroughs. Whether it’s hardware, software, emerging technologies, or the intersection of tech with daily life, Talha’s articles provide readers with a well-rounded perspective on the dynamic landscape of the tech industry.
