Template:Notice -- by the S.T.E.P. Team and Wiki Editors
GUIDE FORUM THREAD
NVIDIA Inspector is a tool created by Orbmu2k. This tool provides detailed hardware information much like GPU-Z from all the available hardware senors pertaining to the video card. This senor information can also be monitored via the included monitors which, in turn, can be logged to a CSV file for later viewing. Inspector also provides simple overclocking tools to control the GPU clock, memory clock, shader clock, voltage, and fan speed of the video card; however, not all of these options will be available to all users.
NVIDIA Inspector's real treasure is the Driver Profile Settings (game profiles). Inspector includes over two hundred individual game profiles. Using these profiles you can set up individual driver settings for individual games that will be loaded and used when the game is launched. These settings are also more extensive than the settings included in the NVIDIA Control Panel so you have more control and additional settings to fine tune your games.
This Guide will not be a step-by-step process of what to set your Inspector settings on. That would be impossible to do with the endless combinations of video cards and system hardware. This Guide will; however, break down each of the settings in Inspector so that you may be better informed about what settings may be best for your system.
The wonderful thing about NVIDIA Inspector is that it's a standalone application. There is no installation required. Simply download the tool and run the .exe to launch the program. This means it can also be ran from USB flash drives and used on the go. You can download NVIDIA Inspector here: NVIDIA Inspector
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WARNING
When you open the program this is the first screen you'll see. Here you'll find all your hardware information. You'll also notice two buttons on the upper left side. The first button uploads a screenshot to Techpowerup.org. The second button below that will open your hardware monitors. Further down to the right of the Driver Version box is a button that will open the game profiles plugin for Inspector. Finally, at the bottom there is a banner to allow you do donate, a drop-down box to allow you to switch between multiple GPUs if you're running SLI, and a button that will open the Overclocking pane. Clicking this button will prompt a warning about overclocking, before the pane opens.
Clicking the Sensor Monitoring button will open the this screen. Monitors are discussed on the Sensor Monitoring tab.
Clicking the Driver Profile Settings (game profiles) button will open this screen. Game profiles are discussed on the Creating Skyrim Profile tab.
Clicking on the Show Overclocking button and choosing "Yes" to the prompt will open this overclocking pane. Overclocking is discussed on the Overclocking tab.
Sensor monitoring can be very helpful when testing hardware stability, performing overclocks, mod testing, or when testing new settings or changes to those settings. Inspector includes 14 different monitors for this purpose. These include:
Of these, the most useful are going to be determined by what you are using the monitors for.
To open the monitors, click on the Sensor Monitoring button located on the main screen on the upper left side. Once opened, the monitors are defaulted to stay on top of all other windows. The default monitors displayed are the GPU Usage, GPU Clock, Voltage, and the GPU Temperature. To change the monitors simply right-click on the monitor window and hover over "Monitors". The monitors which have a check beside them will be the monitors displayed. You may check as few as one or all of them, if you desire.
The other settings on the right-click menu are as followed:
First a disclaimer: Inspector and STEP can not be held liable for any possible mishaps resulting from overclocking your video card. Potential problems resulting from overclocking can include anything from voiding your warranty to overheating and bricking your card and everything in between. If you decide to overclock your video card, you do so at your own risk. This overclocking overview is meant for information purposes only. Now, on to the magic...
Overclocking in Inspector is not much different than overclocking in other third party software. Keep in mind, depending on your video card model, not all overclocking controls will be at your disposal in Inspector. Inspector was not written with overclocking in mind; therefore, if you need more powerful and precise options you should look elsewhere.
To open the overclocking pane, click the "Show Overclocking" button at the bottom of the main screen. You'll be prompted with a warning asking if you are aware of the risk with overclocking. Clicking "No" closes the windows. Clicking "Yes" will open the overclocking pane.
WARNING: SSAO set to "Quality" or "High Quality" have a HUGE impact on performance!
− In NVIDIA Inspector, search for "Elder Scrolls: Skyrim". If you cannot find it, update your NVIDIA drivers to the latest version. − Make sure Transparency Multisampling is disabled. It has been reported that this can make Khajiit and other creatures appear semi-transparent.
IMPORTANT: Some NVIDIA cards (like the GTX 560 Ti) ceased rendering SSAO outdoors in Skyrim after the official 1.5.24 patch. The problem hasn’t been resolved but NVIDIA is aware of it. For now, you can temporarily switch to Oblivion or Fallout 3 compatibility to get back the SSAO outdoors.
