GUIDE NVIDIA Inspector

[TechAngel85]

I've updated the Guide.

• Uploaded new images for the new settings. The images are better quality as well.
• Added missing/new parameters where needed
• Updated the guide to reflect more towards Skyrim users
• Better defined some parameters for non-Skyrim users

[oqhansoloqo]

Some more recommendations for the "Editing Skyrim Settings - Advanced" section:

 

"A more general recommendation is to cap the frame rate to 2/3 of the monitor's refresh rates which is measured in hertz. For example, a user with a 120Hz monitor should cap their frame rate to 40FPS."

 

Shouldn't that cap be 80?  That would be 2/3.  As it is, 40 is 1/3.

 

"Antialiasing - Mode

Mode should be set to "Application-controlled" for Skyrim. The default AA method in Skyrim is Multisampling (MSAA), so "Application-controlled" yields MSAA. For other users, the "Application-controlled" value allow the game to control AA. The "Override any application setting" will override the game's AA and force the AA method which is specified below in Antialiasing - Setting. The "Enhance the application setting" will process the AA method specified below in Antialiasing - Setting on top of the game's default AA. This last method can be performance intensive."

 

Why not mention the situation where the user might be using SMAA as an option for AA?  In that case the user would probably want to use "Override any application setting", then set "Application - Setting" to "Application-controlled / Off".  As far as I know, this would cause the driver to not do antialiasing, leaving the job for SMAA.  Unless the settings should be set differently for doing that?
 

Also, I'm confused by the conflicting data about Anisotropic filtering.  On one hand it says "It is recommended to force AF through the drivers."  And then later, on another hand it says "ENB/ENBoost users should keep AF disabled in the drivers and turn it on the "enblocal.ini" file."  I know there had been some discussion about this previously somewhere... but why must ENB or ENBoost users do things differently?  Isn't doing it through the drivers more efficient?

[TechAngel85]

Thanks! I've updated those few things.

 

As for AF, in all honesty, it doesn't matter. You can run either one or both together; the performance difference is not noticeable on my current system. However, Boris says you should use the ENB AF because it skips some textures that he says shouldn't have AF applied to, whereas, the driver version does not. Who am I to argue with the ENBSeries creator? He knows better than I. So technically, yes, you can run whatever you like and it'll still work. I'm simply following Boris's recommendations for ENB users.

[oqhansoloqo]

What about: "Transparency antialiasing provides AA for transparent textures and will be most noticeable on fences, foliage, trees, and water. For Skyrim, it is recommend to remain set to "Off / Multisampling". If used, "2x Supersampling" is recommended as the minimum; however, adjust according to the performance/quality desired."

 

If "2x Supersampling" for Transparency AA is used along with SMAA, should the setting for "Antialiasing - Mode" be "Enhance the application setting", or does the "Mode" setting only apply to what's set for "Antialiasing - Setting"?

[TechAngel85]

The driver AA settings only refer to what happens within the game itself. These driver settings should have no effect on SMAA as it is a hooked process and will apply its own AA regardless of the driver settings. So when using SMAA in Skyrim, you should leave everything on their defaults so that you're not processing AA twice and causing an unnecessary performance loss. If you want to run SMAA and also have Transparency AA, then you need to set Mode to "override" and Transparency Supersampling to "2x Supersampling". I'd have to test this to be certain, though since it's been a long time since I've ran with that enabled. If you do enable Transparency AA, have a close look at fires. The transparent part of the fire mesh often causes the most issues and will look like this:

 

 

With that said, I personally run ENB AA with SMAA to get better results. My driver AA settings are always on their defaults for Skyrim. With this set up I never see any jaggy lines in game.

[oqhansoloqo]

I should have titled the setting better: "AA - Transparency Supersampling".  If I disabled or set to off every other type of AA in Nvidia Inspector, why is "Enhance the application setting" not the proper way to apply the AA - Transparency Supersampling?  From my understanding, SMAA doesn't provide it.  I disabled AA altogether in the Skyrim application itself.  I also disabled it in enblocal.  I would think that I don't want to override my SMAA settings in this case, so enhancing them with providing the extra AA - Transparency Supersampling - 2x Supersampling would be the right way to do it as it wouldn't cause extra performance loss outside of adding the Transparency AA process (which is what the intention is in this case).  If I did override, wouldn't I lose the SMAA?

[TechAngel85]

Do not think of SMAA and the driver AA as linked. They are not. Regardless of how you set up the drivers, SMAA should still work. The drivers only affect the game's AA and nothing else. So ENB AA and SMAA will not be affect by the driver's settings. You simply can not run driver AA and ENB AA together. I'll have to do some testing to confirm, but I'm 90% sure this is the case.

[oqhansoloqo]

OK, I was thinking SMAA was linked to the game application in a way that could be affected by the drivers instead of looking at it as though SMAA was linked to ENB and ENB not being controlled by settings in the drivers (such as the ability to override the application).  In light of that, if I set the application to do no AA itself then it would seem that either "Enhance the application setting" or "Override" in the driver settings would work equally as well.  But I'll set it to "Override" because you have more knowledge about how these settings work than I do.

[Benturi]

This is probably a stupid question, but... Does NVIDIA Inspector have to be running when the game is launched for the profiles to be loaded? I'd guess it doesn't, but the guide isn't explicit about this, and since I know very little of programming, and given that the Inspector can be located anywhere and there is no installation, I'm surprised that NVIDIA "knows" which setting to load and from where.

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited August 4, 2015 by Benturi

[TechAngel85]

No, just make your changes, save, and close.

[Benturi]

OK, thanks 

[oqhansoloqo]

This is probably a stupid question, but... Does NVIDIA Inspector have to be running when the game is launched for the profiles to be loaded? I'd guess it doesn't, but the guide isn't explicit about this, and since I know very little of programming, and given that the Inspector can be located anywhere and there is no installation, I'm surprised that NVIDIA "knows" which setting to load and from where.

 

It "knows" because what you are doing is editing your Nvidia driver profiles whenever you use Inspector.  Inspector basically unlocks driver settings so you can modify them - settings that you can't normally access through the standard Nvidia driver control panel.

[ShaithEatery]

I had a question as I just started using Inspector to OC my two 980s; I can't seem to get the overclocks to register using the shortcuts created unless Inspector is already open.  For example, if I were to just double-click the shortcut it created, nothing happens and when I open Inspector none of the OC settings were applied.  However, while I have Inspector open I can then double-click the shortcut and only then will it apply the OC settings saved.  This, of course, makes it to where I can't simply put the shortcuts into my startup folder to have them applied when I turn my PC on, which I would like to do.  Of course, as I mentioned I have two 980s and so I have two of these shortcuts that it has created; one for each card it seems.

 

Running Windows 10 Pro 64bit, latest Nvidia drivers (forget the revision number, but the ones that were just released via Geforce Experience), and latest Inspector version.

[TechAngel85]

I have no experience with this on Win10. Try giving the shortcuts admin rights.

[TechAngel85]

Over the last couple weeks I've given this guide a good work-through. I finished it up this evening. Changes are as follows:

• Corrected use of tense to align with standards (took out the "you" and "your")
• Applied default formatting to nearly all sections
• Improved the layout of the guide
• Expanded or updated the information for many of the settings (this could probably be improved further)
• Added a few missing settings
• Changed the format of the guide to be directed towards general use of the tool as a first priority and provided recommendations for Skyrim users as a second priority