GeForce Experience is officially retired - welcome the new Nvidia app! Starting today, Nvidia is releasing version 1.0 of the Nvidia app, marking its exit from beta. Nvidia says version 1.0 is fully ready to replace GeForce Experience, with every feature now moved over to the new app. It is the first step toward a single, unified app that will replace both GeForce Experience and the Nvidia Control Panel.
If you own a GeForce GPU and haven't switched to the Nvidia app yet, now is a good time. The new app is a big improvement over GeForce Experience and Nvidia's old Control Panel, although not every Control Panel feature is available just yet. It is faster, easier to navigate, brings together features that used to be split between two apps, and best of all, it doesn't require you to log in.
For now, to get the Nvidia app you need to download the beta version, which will replace GeForce Experience on your system. Some Control Panel features are already in the Nvidia app, but not all of them, so for the moment the Nvidia app and the Control Panel will continue to coexist. Future updates will add more Control Panel settings, with the goal of making the Nvidia app the one place for all Nvidia GPU settings. That will mark the end of the separate GeForce Experience app once all of its features have been carried over.
Technically, GeForce Experience isn't completely gone yet. It won't be removed from existing systems automatically, but it will no longer receive any updates and will move into a "legacy state." Going forward, Nvidia will use the Nvidia app instead, so upcoming drivers will ship with this app rather than GeForce Experience. According to the company's announcement, that change is coming "soon," and it will be an optional part of the installation process.
This means GeForce owners can now keep their drivers up to date easily, without going through an annoying and unnecessary login process. We have been using the beta version of the app since it launched in February, and besides its speed, this is the main reason we like using it. Installing and reinstalling drivers is now simple, with no need to log in on every new system or after every driver reinstall, a factor that turned some users away from GeForce Experience. With the Nvidia app, you just install it and update your drivers, with no login hassle. Driver updates sit on the first tab in the app, it is easy to navigate and use, and all the important driver information is right there.
You can still log in to the Nvidia app if you really want to; there is a login button in the top right corner. So far, though, we haven't seen a reason to. Nvidia notes that redeeming or accessing bundled games that come with a GeForce GPU purchase requires a login, but we never felt the need to do it, apart from accessing a bundled game from a GPU purchase.
The second reason to switch to the Nvidia app is performance. Getting to key features is quicker and easier, with a more modern interface than the outdated Control Panel. There is no excuse for the Control Panel being this sluggish in 2024 on this hardware, and it is a significant problem that Nvidia has addressed with the Nvidia app.
One criticism we got in our earlier coverage of the Nvidia app was that some people didn't like Nvidia taking a very simple app (the Nvidia Control Panel) and making it more complicated and harder to navigate through the Nvidia app's "modern" interface. That feedback no longer holds up given how the app works now, with many of the Control Panel's features integrated.
Some users may still prefer the old Control Panel because it is what they are used to, but here is an example of why the app's new interface is better: display settings. In the Control Panel, display settings are scattered across several pages - resolution and refresh rate on one page, G-Sync settings on another, and rotation on yet another. Adjusting these parameters across multiple displays means slowly clicking through many pages.
In the Nvidia app, these settings are consolidated on a single page, so there is no need to load a series of different pages. The G-Sync settings are at the top, with each display listed along with its settings, such as resolution, refresh rate, and orientation, all grouped together. Information about connection ports and display capabilities is still easy to reach, and the larger font size makes it easier to read on high-resolution displays.
Not every setting in the Control Panel has moved to the Nvidia app, so some features are still missing, such as adjusting the display color format and custom resolutions. You will still need the Control Panel for these settings, along with video color settings and multi-display configurations such as Nvidia Surround. Nvidia says, however, that it is prioritizing the most commonly used settings first, with more features coming in later updates. An interface that gathers all the display settings into one quick-access page is a major improvement, and we have already seen Nvidia heading in that direction with the current app.
Game Settings Management: Before / After
The game settings interface has been improved considerably. Previously, these settings were split between the Control Panel and GeForce Experience: the Control Panel handled driver overrides, while GeForce Experience handled game settings and the optimization tool. The Nvidia app combines everything, letting you adjust everything for each game in a single app.
This consolidation is especially important for modern games. Traditional Control Panel overrides, such as anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing, have little effect on new titles. Managing game settings in the Nvidia app through in-game settings rather than driver settings makes perfect sense. Important driver settings such as frame rate limits, DSR, G-Sync, Vsync, and others have all been brought into the app's easier-to-use interface. Changing these settings in the Control Panel was slow, and switching between games was difficult.
Since the first release, Nvidia has added a Performance tab under the System section, which offers full GPU metrics and one-click GPU overclocking that, according to Nvidia, still preserves the warranty. Limit sliders let you control how hard the overclocking feature pushes the GPU, with custom limits for power, temperature, and fan speed.
The redesigned overlay is another notable addition to the Nvidia app. Unlike the GeForce Experience overlay, which took over the entire screen, the new overlay has a more compact design and gives you access to features such as video recording, screenshots, game filters, and performance information.
The Nvidia app also introduces new features, such as RTX HDR and AV1 video recording.
After using the Nvidia app through several beta stages over the past six months, we highly recommend installing it if you own a GeForce GPU. Nvidia has steadily added new features, and as more functionality is brought over from the Control Panel, the whole package gets easier to use.
The Nvidia app also brings Nvidia's software closer to AMD's Radeon Software, which has offered a high-quality app experience for a long time. At version 1.0 of the Nvidia app, Radeon Software still has a richer feature set, with every setting and feature integrated, while the Nvidia app still has some gaps. Even so, the core functionality is there, and users can send feedback to Nvidia about features or changes they would like to see.
