Nvidia Forceware Tweak Guide

[Page 9] Advanced Tweaking



This section delves into the types of things you can do outside the standard Forceware Control Panel to further improve your graphics performance and/or to alter image quality to suit your tastes and perhaps resolve specific graphics problems. Please note that if you are not confident in undertaking these tweaks then do not perform them - none of them is necessary for you to enjoy full functionality. There is a certain level of risk involved in changing some of these settings. That said, the following tools/methods are safe if used correctly, and all the changes below can be reversed if they don't suit your preferences, or if a particular game has issues with them.



DXTweaker


Click to enlarge

DXTweaker is a small utility which allows users to forcefully enable Triple Buffering in Direct3D, something which is not possible using the normal Triple Buffering setting in the Nvidia Control Panel (See the Triple Buffering setting in the Forceware Control Panel section). You can download DXTweaker for free from here. Note that you will need to have the DirectX9.0c June 05 update or newer installed otherwise you will get errors. You can get the latest DirectX Update here. You will also need .NET Framework 1.1 in Windows XP for DXTweaker to run - both Vista and 7 already contain the appropriate .NET software.


Update: See the bottom of the next page for a useful utility which comes with RivaTuner that allows the application of Triple Buffering in an easier manner.


Whenever you enable Video Synchronization (VSync) in a game, you will get better image quality due to the removal of "tearing": that is, when the top and bottom halves of the image go out of alignment, especially during fast turning motions for example. However if you enable VSync your average Frames Per Second (FPS) also drops because of the way your graphics card waits for data to be synchronized before displaying it on your monitor. The only way to enable VSync and be rid of tearing, yet at the same time not have to worry about reduced framerates is to enable an option called 'Triple Buffering'. However to further complicate things, this option is often not available in many games, and if enabled in the graphics card control panel only works for OpenGL games, not for Direct3D games. This is all explained in more detail in my Gamer's Graphics & Display Settings Guide.


DXTweaker can force Triple Buffering in Direct3D games, but it is not straightforward to use. To use DXTweaker to force Triple Buffering, do the following: Install DXTweaker, then run the DXTControl.exe file in the main DXTweaker directory. In the window which opens, you can specify the game(s) you wish to add Triple Buffering to by clicking the New button and finding the path to the appropriate game executable. Once you've added the game executable path, highlight the game in the Projects box and at the bottom of the DXTweaker box, click the 'Modules to Load' heading, and below a list of options will appear. To force Triple Buffering in the highlighted game, tick the Present Changer box, and in the options which appear for it, set the Count box to 2 (i.e. it will set two back buffers instead of the usual 1, giving three total buffers). Now to actually force this setting to work in the game you've chosen, you will have to launch the game through DXTweaker by highlighting it in the Projects box and clicking the 'Start' button. The game will now start with Triple Buffering On - but make sure VSync is On otherwise it will have no impact.


However, some very important things to note: firstly, PunkBuster may detect DXTweaker as a hack, so be careful when using it for online games. Secondly, Triple Buffering has the drawback that it uses more video memory to store graphics information, and thus for graphics cards with less video RAM and/or in games which are more graphically intensive, forcing Triple Buffering on will result in laggier mouse movements and increased texture loading pauses. So basically for fastest performance in games, disable VSync and disable Triple Buffering. However if you believe the tearing is just too annoying, enable VSync then check to see if the in-game options allow for Triple Buffering. If so, enable it - or use DXTweaker if it's an offline game - and see if it improves performance without generating too much lag and stuttering.



The next section of this guide covers further Advanced Tweaking using the RivaTuner utility.