Are NVIDIA Optimal Settings Good? (3-minute Read)

When You get your NVIDIA graphics card and you install all the drivers you will have the option to use the GeForce experience to optimize your game settings for you, is this a good idea?

NVIDIA Optimal Settings are good for beginners that feel overcome by the number of graphics options available in games, this option gives the user a good gaming experience at the push of a button, for the more techy gamers the best results will be achieved if they tweak the video settings themselves.

In this article, I will tell you the most important things you need to know about NVIDIA GeForce’s Optimal Settings so you can decide if you are going to use them or not. So keep reading!

What Are NVIDIA GeForce’s Optimal Settings?

NVIDIA GeForce’s Optimal Settings are a feature of GeForce Experience that will automatically set up your game’s options to what NVIDIA considers to be the optimal options for that game, this allows PC gamers to have the same plug-and-play experience as console gamers have.

For a long time, the biggest selling point of a console was that it is plug and play and you don’t have to tweak your game settings to achieve the best gaming experience.

NVIDIA is trying to give this PC gamer the same quality of life improvement by automatically setting up installed games to what they consider to be the optimal settings based on the user’s PC hardware configuration.

Are NVIDIA Optimal Settings Realy Optimal?

NVIDIA Optimal Settings are the optimal settings for a beginner that doesn’t have an in-depth understanding of all the graphics settings that the newer games have, a newbie can easily activate a resource-hungry setting that can reduce its FPS below the enjoyable threshold.

So if you aren’t a technical person and if you just want an easy and convenient way to enjoin games on PC, I highly recommend going with the NVIDIA Optimal Settings.

Keep in mind that these are the settings that NVIDIA thinks are optimal for the vast majority of people, they may not be the optimal settings for you if you are a more experienced gamer and you have a very good understanding of your gaming needs.

NVIDIA Optimal Settings will try to find a balance between FPS and graphical quality, I noticed that they prioritize making shadows better if the FPS is above the enjoyable threshold, so if you like having more FPS and you don’t mind losing some graphics realism you need to do some tweaks.

There are many types of games and NVIDIA Optimal Settings will not always optimize for high FPS but for graphics fidelity, some games are meant to be played at lower frame rates by the developers, and the action is slowed down to be enjoyable on lower than 60 FPS.

Usually, this is the case with console games ported to PC or cross-platform games.

Does NVIDIA Optimal Settings Consider CPU?

NVIDIA Optimal Settings is considering your CPU and GPU when it determines what are the optimal settings for your PC, this is because these two components are the main ones that will determine the maximum level of detail and if the game will run smoothly or not.

Not taking into consideration your CPU would make NVIDIA Optimal Settings useless and most games will be unplayable with these settings.

How Do I Change Optimal Settings On GeForce Experience?

If you want to change the Optimal Settings on Geforce Experience go to the games window, hover your mouse over the desired game, and click on ‘DETAILS’, click on the ‘CUSTOM SETTINGS’ icon and now you can move the cursor more towards performance or quality.

If you slide the cursor toward performance GeForce Experience will tweak the settings to give you more FPS but you will lose graphical quality and it is the other way around if you move the cursor toward quality.

One of the best features of GeForce Experience is that in this window you can select a graphical option and it will show you a picture with the exact changes affected by it, more than this you will get an explanation of the setting.

This is super useful for games that don’t have an explanation of what every setting means in the game menu.

Does NVIDIA Optimal Settings Aim To Achieve The Maximum FPSs?

NVIDIA Optimal Settings aims to offer a good framerate combined with high visual details, to achieve maximum FPS you need to compromise a lot of visual details and this is not desirable for most average gamers, so these settings aren’t designed to give you the maximum FPS’s possible.

If you want, you can change the Optimal Settings On GeForce Experience to increase FPSs by choosing performance over quality. But still, if you desire the maximum number of FPSs possible you need to change the game’s settings manually.

If you have a high-end graphics card NVIDIA Optimal Settings will give you more than enough FPS on the more renowned online shooters like PUB G, Overwatch, etc.

Use The NVIDIA Optimal Settings or Do It Yourself?

If you are a more experienced gamer and you have some hours of tweaking game graphics settings under your belt then it is definitely better to do the changes manually, most surely what NVIDIA considers optimal will not be optimal for you.

But if you find all the settings for graphics offered by games intimidating then you will have a better gaming experience with the NVIDIA Optimal Settings.

There are many settings that affect only some areas of the game and you may choose the more demanding settings when you encounter these areas then the game loses frames and you end up having a bad experience.

An example will be details and effects on fog, water, and snow. When you change the settings you may be in a game area without water or snow and when you encounter an area that has these elements the game slows down considerably.

So if you want an experience comparable to the console experience then you can go with The NVIDIA Optimal Settings, otherwise, you can do the setting yourself.

Can I Stop Geforce Experience From Optimizing My Games?

You can disable the game setting optimization from the Geforce Experience by going to Settings->Games & Apps and unchecking the ‘Automatically optimize newly added games and applications‘ box. Now your games will have the default settings after installation.

The good part about Geforce Experience is that you can use it for its other features like driver updates, shadowplay, etc. if you don’t want to let it optimize your game settings.

Conclusion

Optimal Settings On GeForce Experience is designed to remove all the headaches of finding the optimal settings for your games but most surely isn’t for everyone.

I love the part when I get geeky and spend too much time tweaking game settings just to achieve visual perfection. And there is a special kind of satisfaction when you do things yourself.

But if you want the console experience on PC then go with the NVIDIA Optimal Settings!