PRESS RELEASE
Since its release this January, GeForce Experience has optimized millions of gamers' systems, giving them optimal game settings, the latest drivers and profiles, access to SHIELD game streaming, and with the release of GeForce Experience 1.7 last month, the ability to automatically capture gameplay footage with a minimal performance impact through the integrated ShadowPlay application.
Today, we are releasing GeForce Experience 1.8, which includes game-changing Optimal Playable Setting functionality, and a number of ShadowPlay updates that make the innovative, critically-lauded gameplay recorder even better at capturing your favorite action-packed moments.
Introducing Adjustable Optimal Playable Settings
The core of GeForce Experience is its Optimal Playable Settings function, which recommends ideal combinations of settings customized for each system, giving gamers the perfect balance between image quality and performance.
At launch, GeForce Experience offered an easy one-click solution to often-complicated game configuration. It was a major innovation for gamers unsure of what to change to improve performance and fidelity, and for gamers intimidated by dozens of acronym-laced settings. For them, consoles were more appealing - a simple plug and play solution. With GeForce Experience, we brought those gamers back into a world of high-definition, super-high fidelity gaming. Over time, it was clear from user feedback that while all loved the idea of GeForce Experience, some preferred to have a super-smooth 60 frames per second experience, while others preferred 30 frames per second with superior image quality.
Today, with the release of GeForce Experience 1.8, users can now open a new in-app panel that enables customization of our one-click Optimal Playable Settings. Resolutions up to 3840x2160 can be applied, Fullscreen, Windowed and Borderless Windowed modes can be selected, and optimal settings altered with the movement of a slider, enabling users to choose between default Optimal settings and those that favor image quality over performance, or vice versa.
By default, we recommend a Screen Resolution, Fullscreen experience, one that gives you at least 40 frames per second during a game's most demanding moments. With GeForce Experience 1.8, if you prefer 60 frames per second drag the adjustable slider to the left; if you're happy with 30 frames per second drag it to the right to increase image quality. Changes to the Optimal recommendations are instantly reflected in the user interface, showing you the combination of settings you'll use in-game, and if you prefer to play in a window, the option can be quickly selected via the dropdown.
To determine system configurations for Optimal Playable Settings we read the make and model of your CPU and GPU. To read your clock speeds would require an invasive system scan that we do not perform (the GeForce Experience FAQ details our data collection policy), meaning we're unable to account for overclocking, which can make a system considerably faster. With the introduction of Adjustable Optimal Settings, you can now manually adjust recommendations to account for overclocks, by dragging the slider to the right to increase image quality.
Similarly, if you Downsample from a higher resolution, the Downsample resolution can now be manually applied, and the recommendations will instantly update based on your system configuration. As above, you can further tweak the recommendations to account for overclocks and performance preferences.
The introduction of Adjustable Optimal Settings dramatically improves the functionality of GeForce Experience, making it an invaluable tool for overclockers and those who prefer more eye candy or more performance than our default Optimal Playable Settings provided in the past. For 4K gamers and power users who Downsample, the new Adjustable Optimal Settings function is particularly beneficial, given the demands 4K Gaming places on any system.
To get started, download and install GeForce Experience 1.8, and scan your system for supported games.
ShadowPlay: Now Even Better
GeForce ShadowPlay has taken the gaming scene by storm since its introduction last month. Being ‘always on' when gaming allows gamers to save the last twenty minutes of action to disk with a single button press, meaning you never again say "I wish I had recorded that". Be that an incredible RPG chopper kill, or your first League of Legends Pentakill. For gamers who prefer to record everything, ShadowPlay also has a traditional recording mode that can be manually toggled on and off in-game, enabling an entire session to be saved to disk as you play.
In addition to these innovative features, ShadowPlay has drawn further praise from gamers for using H.264 hardware encoders built into GeForce GTX 600 and 700 Series desktop GPUs, minimizing the performance impact of recording to a few frames per second. In comparison to other recording applications, the impact is considerably lower, resulting in a superior, smoother experience for the player. And by saving to H.264, file sizes are manageable, clips can be edited quickly, and final footage uploaded without delay to YouTube and other video sharing sites.
With the release of GeForce Experience 1.8, we've implemented many of the community's most requested enhancements. First and foremost, Windows 7 users can now save up to 20 minutes of Shadow Mode footage, just like Windows 8 users, and Windows 7 Manual Mode is no longer restricted to a single 3.8GB file - footage is now recorded continually across multiple files until the moment you run out of HDD or SSD space.
One of the most requested additions was multi-source audio recording, the ability to record game audio and VOIP simultaneously. Today, it is available as part of ShadowPlay and GeForce Experience 1.8. Simply select the relevant option in the ShadowPlay control panel and you'll be good to go.
Other changes of note include the ability to capture footage at native resolution and aspect ratios up to 1920x1080 (beyond 1920x1080 the aspect ratio is preserved), and the reduction of stuttering during playback of captured video.
In the future, we'll be introducing a major new ShadowPlay feature: the ability to stream directly to Twitch.tv. For news of its release stay tuned to GeForce.com. In the meantime, download GeForce Experience 1.8 to get a hold of ShadowPlay and the new Adjustable Optimal Settings.
