Nvidia Forceware Tweak Guide
[Page 7] Forceware Control Panel (Pt.2)
Performance
As noted on the previous page, this section may be in a category of its own, not under the 3D Settings category, if you've installed the nTune or System Tools Utility. Furthermore you can also enable a hidden Overclocking setting in this section - see the Overclocking chapter for details.
Set SLI Configuration: If you have two Nvidia graphics cards connected to your system, and your motherboard supports SLI, then this option will allow you to enable SLI mode. As mentioned earlier, detailed information about SLI is not possible in this guide. If you have the appropriate hardware to enable this option, it is strongly recommended that you enable SLI.
Monitor Temperature Levels: This readout shows your graphics card's current temperature level in degrees Celcius, and is quite accurate. Note, you may need to install the Nvidia System Tools utility to access this feature in the latest Forceware drivers. If you don't wish to install these tools to monitor temperatures, you can use a free third party utility like GPU-Z instead. The temperature reading is taken close to the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) or 'Core' of the graphics card, and as such is higher than the ambient air surrounding the graphics card. It also doesn't necessarily reflect how hot your Video RAM temperatures are either.
The 'Slowdown threshold' is the fixed temperature at which the Forceware drivers will initiate steps to prevent heat damage to your graphics card by throttling back your graphics card's performance to keep it cool. If the 'Notify me if the GPU temperature exceeds the slowdown threshold' box is ticked, whenever your current GPU Core Temperature exceeds the threshold temperature, an automatic dialog box will pop up warning you of the situation and the steps taken to reduce your graphics card's temperature. It is strongly recommended that you tick this box so that you become aware of the situations when your graphics card has reached dangerously high temperatures - particularly as this often occurs while playing a game. Your idle or load temperatures should never get anywhere near the slowdown threshold, as at that point you're risking permanent damage or the death of your card. If you suspect your card may be running hot during gaming, tick the 'Continue to log temperature after I leave this page' box, do some gaming, then come back here to see how high your temperatures have reached. To reduce temperatures see the cooling tips in the Overclocking section of this guide, and the Overclocking and BIOS & Hardware Management chapters of the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion.
Display
This section has settings which affect the way the image is displayed on your screen.
Change Resolution
This section allows you to change the screen resolution, color quality and refresh rate. These are detailed in the Windows Control Panel section of this guide and have exactly the same functionality.
Move CRT Screen Position
For CRT monitors only, this section allows you to alter the position of the image on your screen. The main purpose for this is to allow you to ensure that the on-screen image is perfectly centered on your display. To shift the image around on the screen, click the small green arrowed icons. In general I recommend that where possible you should use your monitor's own screen positioning functionality as it allows much finer control over the screen shape, size and position. You should ensure the image on the screen fits perfectly to the screen's shape and extends as far as possible in each direction to the edges of the visible screen. This setting doesn't apply to LCD panels which don't require such alignment; their image is always square in the middle of the screen.
Change Flat Panel Scaling
If you have a digital flat panel - most commonly an LCD display - connected via a digital connection like DVI or HDMI, then this section allows you to determine how various resolutions appear on your screen. Basically since an LCD display consists of a fixed number of separate pixels, it has a 'native' resolution at which images display at their sharpest. This native resolution (e.g. 1280x1024) is the number of pixels in width x number of pixels high in the panel, and any time your software resolution is different to this native resolution the LCD panel will do one of the following depending on your choice:
Switching between these modes will not damage your monitor so try them all out and see which suits you best. Nvidia Scaling should be best for most people. If you're using Windows XP remember to also use ClearType to help smooth out text in scaled images for best results. Under Vista enable ClearType under Control Panel>Personalization>'Window Color and Appearance'>'open classic properties for more color options'>Effects.
Adjust Desktop Color Settings
This screen allows you to customize the brightness, contrast, vibrance and color balance of images on screen.
Color Channel: This drop down box lets you specify whether you want the changes you make on this screen to only be applied to a specific color, or to all colors. There is no reason to change this from its default of 'All Channels'. If for some reason you want to alter a particular color channel, for example if you want to make reds on your desktop a little brighter, select the Red color channel from the box. Now move the Brightness slider slowly to the right. You will notice that all reds on the screen will become brighter. This is useful for compensating for the way some displays over-represent a particular color by default.
There are a range of sliders you can select under the Slider tab here, or if you are more advanced you can use a graph to change the color curve. The Sliders are recommended to all but the most advanced users. Note that there are several images you can use to judge the impact of your changes while calibrating your settings here - click the 1, 2 or 3 options under the image to the right to select a different calibration Preview Image.
Brightness: This slider determines the overall level of light or dark for the display. 50% is the neutral and default point. You should ideally adjust your monitor's Brightness setting first if you feel it is too dark, then use this slider for fine tuning as required.
Digital Vibrance: This slider can increase color saturation of an image so that all images - including 2D, 3D, and video - appear brighter and crisper (even on flat panels). The use of Digital Vibrance depends on your particular tastes and your particular display device(s). For most people I recommend only a slight increase if you want to use this slider, otherwise everything will appear neon bright and highly unnatural. There is no performance impact from using Digital Vibrance, so find a level which suits you and try it out in games to see the impact.
Contrast: This slider determines the difference between light and dark. The higher the contrast the whiter whites will be and the darker blacks will be in relation to them. Some display types actually benefit from a slight reduction in contrast as this reduces glare and harshness, while others require a slight increase in contrast to reduce a muddy washed out greyness. Set to suit your taste.
Image Sharpening: This slider starts at the default position of Off. As you move the slider to the right, the onscreen image becomes much sharper, however depending on your particular display and preferences, typically even a slight increase in this setting can produce noticeable 'ghosting' - that is white shadows around dark lines - not to mention added harshness to the image. There is no performance impact from using Image Sharpening, so adjust to your taste.
Gamma: This slider determines the brightness of most images, but in a more subtle way than Brightness. It requires a bit more experimentation to reach an appropriate level which does not result in a washed out screen image, but also doesn't make the screen look too dark.
Once done adjusting these, click the Apply button to save them.
Rotate Display
This section allows you to rotate the onscreen image through a series of preset angles. If you want to rotate the onscreen image through a set angle of either 90 degrees right or left, or 180 degrees (upside down), use one of the relevant options at the bottom of this box. Alternatively you can use one of the small arrow icons to the left and right of the small screen representation, or the one inside it. Once you've chosen the angle of rotation you require, click the Apply button and the change will be immediately visible. Note that only games or 3D applications which support rotation will work in rotated modes. Also note that rotation requires additional video memory, and as such if you have one or more displays rotated, you will experience slower performance.
Change Display Configuration
If you have multiple displays, this section allows you to choose the nView display mode to use. For single displays, or if you only wish to use a single display, the choice is Single display mode. Multiple displays can access the following additional modes:
You can then select the displays to use for your selected mode, and which is the Primary display for Windows. Using multiple displays can increase memory usage and decrease performance especially at very high resolutions, but on most medium to high-end graphics cards the impact should not be significant, at least for regular Desktop usage.
Manage Custom Resolutions
This setting can be used to add custom resolutions/timing modes to your particular CRT display. This is advanced functionality which most users should not alter. However if you know that your monitor can support a particular resolution, refresh rate and timing standard, then click the Create button here and you can create a brand new custom timing to associate with your monitor. This can then be used in Windows. If you set a resolution, refresh rate or timing standard the monitor does not support, this will usually result in a black screen, and may even harm your screen, so make sure to research your monitor's capabilities before changing this.
Video & Television
The settings under this section only apply to video and TV playback on your PC. They do not affect your Desktop or games. Therefore it's recommended that you play a video while adjusting these settings to see the impacts of any changes you make.
Adjust Video Color Settings
You can choose whether to adjust video playback settings using the settings in your default media player, or select the 'With the Nvidia Settings' option to allow access to a range of settings which can override the media player:
Color: The sliders under this tab include Brightness, Contrast, Hue, and Saturation. Most are already described above, but to add to these descriptions, the Hue slider determines the particular shade that colors take, while Saturation determines the richness of colors.
Gamma: You can adjust the overall gamma using the top slider, or if you select the second option, you will then have access to separate Red, Green and Blue sliders you can use to individually adjust colors to correct any color flaws or over/under saturation of a particular color on your screen, or certain video sources.
Adjust Video Image Settings
This section provides additional video playback image enhancement/adjustment options:
Edge Enhancement: Here you can set the level of 'Edge Enhancement', which is a form of image sharpening that can help make blurry videos seem sharper. It can however also increase ghosting, so it needs to be used in minimal amounts.
Noise Reduction: The 'Noise Reduction' slider can be used to remove film grain and other forms of 'visible noise' in the image, but can make the picture appear more blurry as a result.
When done, click the Apply button, and once again, these changes only apply to Video/DVD playback.
Change the Signal or HD Format
This section allows you to change the signal format of the output to match that appropriate to your TV. There should be no reason to change this from the 'Auto Detect' setting enabled by default, unless you're not getting a correct image or no image at all on your screen. Check the TV type you are using and the type of connector which is being used between the TV and your graphics card. Note that some HD content played back under Windows Vista requires DVi/HDMI connectors and an HDCP-compliant display to work properly - see the Digital Rights Management section of the Windows Media Player chapter of the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion for Vista for more details.
There will be other settings under this section depending on the device you've hooked up to your graphics card. They cannot all be covered here, most should be self explanatory.
Performance & System Stability
As noted on the previous page, the Performance and System Stability sections pictured at the top of this page only appear in the new Nvidia Control Panel if you've installed the latest Nvidia System Tools utility. I recommend you install this utility as it contains a range of system information, monitoring and adjustment/overclocking utilities, however it is not critical that you do so. Remember that while nTune/System Tools works on all motherboards, you won't have access to its advanced features on non-NForce-based motherboards.
If nTune or the System Tools are not installed, some of the Performance and monitoring features may be found under the 3D Settings category instead of being in their own category - see further above for details. Importantly, on some newer forceware driver versions you will not be able to use the overclocking or temperature monitoring functionality at all in the Nvidia Forceware Control Panel without installing nTune/System Tools - see the Overclocking section for details.
The next page looks at the nView functionality of the Nvidia Forceware Control Panel under XP.
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