Nvidia Inspector introduction and Guide

Does anyone know why the profile inspector wouldn't start? I can run inspector but not profile inspector. I've tried every build i could get my hands on. Are there any known conflicts?

 

Hello,

why is the profiles list of programs (for 3D parameters) in my Nvidia Control panel (version 8.1.940.0 / the check box about programs found is unchecked) not the same as the list in the Nvidia Profile inspector (version 2.1.3.20) ? Some programs appear in the first and not in the second. Others in the second and not in the first...

My configuration : GPU GTX 1050 / Driver GeForce 391.35 (23.21.13.9135)

Someone has an explanation ?

Thanks to all

 

Hi,

Can anyone please point me in how to make UWP games be detected by nVidia Profiles?

I'm trying to force some configurations in the game Recore, but even the driver having a profile built in, it simple do not work. Is like the APP runs camouflaged by some other process or something, even ProcessLasso can't detect the game in the active process list, only the windows task manager can show it.

 

I have spent the last few weeks driving myself crazy, spending hours each day googling the settings in Inspector and trying to figure out what everything does, how they work with each other, and what I should set them to. I'm not even halfway down the list and one 404 away from becoming a clocktower sniper.

My life would be so much easier if someone could please direct me to someplace where I can find the ideal settings for nVidia Profile Inspector when running Skyrim Special Edition. That's all I want, I don't really care much about other games right now, I just want to tweak my Skyrim SE!

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

@Taffer_42

There are none. The recommended settings for Skyrim SE can be done in the NVidia Control Panel and in the game's ini file:

• Disable vsync in the ini file.
• Enable vsync in NVCP.
• Set "max pre-rendered frames" to 1.

That's it. If you want even lower input lag, use RTSS to cap your FPS using this guide.

 

Just so I'm clear, I just go to the nVidia control panel, select my game (Skyrim Special Edition), turn vsync on, set max pre-rendered frames to 1, disable vsync in game....and that's it?

If that's it, what good is Inspector? There's a ton of settings in there, and they're useless for this game?

(I'm not trying to start something here, I am very new to tweaking my game at this level, and to find out weeks of work was useless is frustrating.)

 

Yes.

It's faster than the nvidia panel and gives access to settings like 1/2 vsync, anti-aliasing bits and anti-aliasing settings (like SGSSAA) for games that support that, and other more obscure settings that are virtually never used for anything.

I'm not aware of any settings that can only be done through Inspector and would improve anything in Skyrim SE.

Edit:
If you have an SLI setup, then Inspector does provide some ways to tweak SLI settings that are not possible through the NVCP though. I'm not using SLI so sometimes I tend to forget that

 

Okay, thanks for your time, and all the info!

 

I'm going to take a shot and ask another question here, about downsampling. I've seen a lot of information on this, but a lot of it is 5+ years old or so. I just want to make sure I'm not breaking anything.

As I understand it, all I have to do to get this working is:
1) In nVidia control panel, under DSR Factors, put a check in the "oversized" options I want available (in my case, 4.0x).
2) Once that's done, in the game, set the game's resolution to the new oversized one (in my case, 3840 x 2160).

...and that's it? If I'm understanding, this will force the game to render in 3840x2160, but since my SCREEN resolution is still 1920x1080, the image will be downsized (downsampled?).

And this avoids mucking about with creating custom resolutions sized and such.

Am I right? (I've also no clue about DSR Smoothness.)

 

yes, thats right..
just set dsr and then ingame the resolution wich will then via dsr, downsampled to your native monitor resolution..

dunno what DSR is using to downsample, prolly some lanczos filter?
theres another tool that can do it and might also do this job and has better filters..
--> GeDoSaTo.. is the name of the tool..

Also, most of teh tweaks and stuff are made in the INI of the game, in this case.
You can also go to teh SkyrimNexus and have a look there, you will find a lot of infos and stuff for tweaking even further..

--> https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/

 

Yep. That's about it.

The smoothness option is there for ratios lower than 4x. Downscaling from 4K (which is 3840x2160) to 1080p gives perfect results, because the pixel count of each dimension is exactly doubled. 1920 * 2 = 3840, and 1080 * 2 = 2160 (which gives a 4x total pixel increase.) This avoids any distortions that would otherwise need to be smoothed out. So smoothness can be set to 0%, giving you a sharp image.

But with ratios lower than 4x, you don't get this nice 2:1 pixel ratio for each dimension. That means you get a slightly distorted image, and that distortion can be somewhat hidden with smoothing. This blurs the image though.

Long story short, the best image quality is achieved with a 4x ratio and 0% smoothing. You can still use smoothing of course, if you actually like the blur it gives (some people do.)

If you alt+tab from the game to the NVCP, you can actually change the blur amount, hit apply, and alt+tab back to the game and it should apply immediately without having to restart the game. Test it by switching from 0% to 100% for example. It should be immediately obvious. (This only works if you didn't also switch the desktop to use a DSR resoltion.)

 

I dont know about the perfect results using DSR for 4k on 1080p monitor cause text still look blurry and uneven darkness to the text no mater smoothness and clear type used in some places

 

What if you use GeDoSaTo instead of DSR?

 

dont even know what that is, I can say this though IF i do 4K on 4k TV text looks fine comparison to DSR 4k * this is in desktop website usages*

Games look fine good no mater DSR used

 

DSR is for games, not the desktop. The desktop should always be ran at the display's native resolution.

 

yah that is the thing I dont like having to switch resolutions, and seeing DSR in game also changes the desktop resolution for me, I never used it cause then UI scaling was constantly screwed up

Its also why my 4k TV is doing 1080p and not 4k

 

I'm going to bug you again for another setting question...again, Skyrim Special Edition, I'm running BethINI to get my .ini file settings set up.

I am using RTSS to limit my frame rate. BethINI give me three settings to fiddle with when it comes to my frame rate. "Lock Frame Rate", "FPS" (setting what the lock is, I imagine), and "Clamped" (clamps the game's speed to the fps).

Since I'm locking the FPS with RTSS, I'm not sure if I should lock it here, unlock it here, or if it will matter. Also not sure about that "clamped" thing.

I appreciate your willingness to help this complete newbie, and thank you for your patience.

 

I'm not aware of the game itself having an FPS limiter. I suspect the FPS setting is for specifying your target FPS so the correct ini value is used to fix the physics going crazy (it's the fMaxTime setting.) However, the recommended way to do that is to use a mod which sets fMaxTime dynamically, according to your current FPS, and it's only needed if you're targeting a frame rate higher than 60. If you play at 60FPS, you don't need any of that.

If you are using a high refresh monitor however, and want to run it at more than 60FPS, then you need to install this mod:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/18160

It's an SKSE64 mod, so you need SKSE64 installed:

http://skse.silverlock.org

That one is not recommended. It ties the physics tickrate to your FPS, meaning if the game drops below your target FPS, it will run at slow motion.

 

You guys are really awesome, thank you so much! I'm going to beg your indulgence one last time. (If I am asking too much, please forgive me. As I've mentioned, I'm a complete newbie at this level, and spent weeks working/researching for little benefit.)

Here are the settings (via nVidia Settings) I am using for Skyrim SE. Are these all right, or have I done something I shouldn't have? Or, have I missed something that I should do to improve the look / playability of the game?

My rig: Intel Core i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz (4 cores, 8 threads), 32 gigs of RAM (DDR4), Windows 10 64-bit, MSI nVidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti video card (11 gigs), 27" LG LED monitor (1080p, 1920x1080 native, 60 Hz), Thermal Take 750-watt power supply. Game is running on an SSD, using RTSS for 60 fps cap and GeDoSaTo for downscaling, and the game is using TAA for antialiasing. I am in the process of adding mods to the game.

Ambient Occlusion: Not supported for this application.
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Antialiasing - FXAA: Use global setting (Off)
Antialiasing - Gamma correction: Use global setting (On)
Antialiasing - Mode: Use global setting (Application-controlled)
Antialiasing - Setting: Use global setting (Application-controlled)
Antialiasing - Transparency: Use global setting (off)
CUDA - GPUs: Use global setting (all)
Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames: 1
Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA): Use global settings (off)
OpenGL Rendering GPU: Use global settings (auto-select)
Power Management Mode: Adaptive
Shader Cache: On
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization: Off
Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias: Clamp
Texture Filtering - Quality: High quality
Texture Filtering - Trilinear optimization: On
Threaded Optimization: Use global setting (Auto)
Triple Buffering: Use global setting (off)
Vertical Sync: On
Virtual Reality Pre-Rendered Frames: Use global setting (1)

It seems if I ever want to switch from GeDoSaTo to use the built-in downscaling, I have to set it globally, as there are no settings for it in individual program settings.


My Thoughts:
Antialiasing - FXAA: I've read you can use more than one type of antialiasing together. Is this a good idea to turn this on?
Antialiasing - Mode: Has an option for "Enhance the application setting", which sounds good. If I use it (and I'm not sure I should...confused!...do I turn FXAA on, or just use Antialiasing - Setting, which gives me options of 2x, 4x, and 8x)?
Antialiasing - Transparency: Seems like a good one to turn on (8x supersample), but I'm not sure.
Texture Filtering - Trilinear Optimization: States to turn this on for higher performance, off for best image quality; but when I changed Texture Filtering - Quality to high quality, it turned this on automatically. (Confused)
Threaded Optimization: Should probably turn this on.
Triple Buffering: I thought about turning triple buffering on, especially when I read it improves performance when vertical sync is turned on, but I think I read somewhere that it only works with OpenGL games.

I think that's everything. Once again, thanks for all your help!

 

@Taffer_42

They're fine. Note however that in Skyrim, forcing anisotropic filtering in the driver results in a larger than normal performance impact. There is a bug somewhere (driver or game, no idea) that will apply the filtering not only to textures, but also to shadows, which is completely useless, but can give you an FPS drop. So for this game, I normally suggest not forcing AF in the driver and just setting it to 16x in the game's settings.

In other games, forcing AF in the driver is usually fine without any perf hit.

I'm not sure that matters. DSR is not something that is forced globally. It just adds a new resolution that you can choose to select in whatever game you want. Just because you enable DSR in the nvidia panel doesn't mean it's going to be actually used automatically. It's only used when you manually choose that new resolution.