NVIDIA App Aims To Bring A Modern-Look To The Control Panel, GeForce Experience & Additional Features Under One Roof

GeForce gamers have been requesting a modernized control panel for a long time now and it looks like NVIDIA has listened to them and while doing so, it is offering a new App that houses the control panel and several other aspects such as GeForce Experience, Graphics settings & more under one roof.

The NVIDIA Control Panel has been around for decades and the design still reeks back to the XP days. While the design is outdated, the control panel still works great and the quote "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies very well here. However, the control panel layout being outdated can feel very cluttered and simply adding more functions to the application isn't going to be sustainable in the long run.

In addition to NVIDIA's Control Panel, the company offers a range of GeForce-specific apps & tools such as GeForce Experience and other apps such as Broadcast, Omniverse, Canvas, ICAT, Frame-View and more to be added later. Having a separate app for each of these features isn't the way to go. But NVIDIA is now making things simpler and easier for everyone, Meet the NVIDIA App.

NVIDIA announced that its new App is going to be a centralized hub for all that's GeForce & even more. The aim is simple, to incorporate everything under one roof so that users don't have to go here and there to find the right tool or feature that they want to utilize for their hardware. The first step is to replace GeForce Experience entirely and the App is now going to be its true replacement.

Starting from scratch, we have the homepage of the NVIDIA App which is where you will get the latest GeForce Updates, Your Games Library, and a Discover tab which offers you a range of apps to choose from. These apps don't come pre-loaded in the app package which makes the installation size smaller. You can install or uninstall the apps based on your preferences and you can receive updates from within the NVIDIA app rather than getting them manually.

The next tab is the Drivers panel where you will know which driver you have installed and what's the latest one available for your hardware. You can search and download/install the latest Game Ready or Studio Drivers the best part is that you will get specific information about the new drivers such as What's New and What's Fixed. So if you happen to have an issue with a game, the driver panel will let you know if NVIDIA has a fix for that. The Driver also updates users about the latest features that the driver brings, and its game-ready support, and also lets you know when new "optimal settings" profiles are added within the package.

One of the most significant portions of the NVIDIA Control Panel that has been brought over to the NVIDIA App is the Graphics Settings panel which lets you optimize:

You will get a list of the game's in-game settings in two values, a current value which is the ones you are using in the game, and a preview value which is the NVIDIA suggested settings for the game based on your hardware. Then there are the driver-specific settings which let you adjust the:

The same settings can be applied in the "Global Settings" and will be applied across all apps. You can still change the driver-level values from the "Program Settings".

Other features of GeForce Experience are still there such as the Redeem panel which will list the latest GeForce Awards and also let you redeem coupons for in-game awards or games. It will also list your awards history.

Lastly, we have the Settings panel which gives you a basic overview of your hardware, lets you enable certain features such as NVIDIA overlay (Alt+Z), Game filters, and photo mode, lets you scan games automatically or manually, and finally, lets you open up the Control Panel. You can also disable or enable notifications for Driver Updates, Available Rewards, and more. There's also the About page where you can opt into the Early Access mode and adjust privacy settings such as data collection, etc.

Now while the NVIDIA Control Panel will still be a separate app for now, the company is planning to bring all of its feature set under the same NVIDIA App. We will see features of the Control Panel migrate over to the App in future updates as the App continues through its BETA phase. Users will be able to log in to their accounts but it isn't mandatory.

The result of the NVIDIA App is a single, modern client that is 50% more responsive, uses 17% less disk space and gives you all the GeForce goodies under one roof and more in the future.

Now I'd like to talk a bit about the new overall interface too. It is not only simpler and faster but provides some cool features. First of all, the options of Recording, Instant Replay, taking a screenshot, Photo Mode, Highlights, and Game Filter are all there and have shortcuts that you can adjust manually to your liking. These work in the same way as they did before and each frame or video you capture will be saved within the Gallery. The Gallery will let you see all your captures and manage them (delete/save / etc).

At the bottom of the overlay menu, you will also find the new Statistics panel which lets you toggle the heads-up display and configure it. You have the option to view the statistics through various modes with "Basic" set by default. You can also log statistics and save the log to a custom locations.

If you go into the configuration menu, you can find more options to tune the heads-up display. You can set its position, layout, and visibility. Plus, there are also options to adjust the status indicators such as Record, Instant Replay, Highlights, Microphone, and Statistics Logging. This will let you know if these features are being used in the background.

For the overlay itself, you can enable various real-time statistics which include GPU (utilization, clock, voltage, fan-speed, etc), CPU (Utilization), Latency, and most important, FPS.

As a recap, you get:

The NVIDIA App open-beta kicks off today in the "preview" stage and users can try it out right now by downloading it through this link.