Nvidia App could be impacting your gaming PC performance. After an investigation, the company has come out and confirmed the new desktop software is causing issues, with other outlets reporting frame rate drops of up to 15% in some games.
While it had been in beta for a few months, last month saw the official public switching on of Nvidia’s new software that helps users manage some of the best graphics cards in the world. It hasn’t taken long for the millions of Nvidia GPU users of the world to encountered a few issues, though.
Nvidia’s previous app to manage its drivers was an aging and rather clunky program while its GeForce Experience app that provided game recording and overlay functionality was tied to an Nvidia account, which put some users off using it. As such, the launch of the new single Nvidia App that combined all these features into a a semi-stripped-down version, and removed the need for an account, has largely been welcomed by users.
However, it seems this new app is the root cause of some performance issues. Discovered by X (formerly Twitter) user Sebastian Castellanos, they found that “mainly [Unreal Engine 5]” games were affected by having the app installed.
They monitored Black Myth: Wukong and The Talos Principal 2, which they found to lose 15% in overall performance. However, after further tinkering with the app they discovered that turning off “Game filters and Photo mode”, fixed the issue.
Now, Nvidia has confirmed the problem and is actually recommending Sebastian’s method as a quick fix.
To turn off this setting yourself, you’ll need to go to the Nvidia App settings, then Features, Overlay, and finally Game Filters and Photo Mode. It’s a small toggle switch, but will disable Nvidia’s custom photo mode option that’s only available in a few games.
The issue was investigated by Tom’s Hardware, who managed to replicate the bug across even more games.
Another X user, Mostly Positive Reviews, found that the bug is tied to those using driver 566.36. Nvidia’s official fix should come in a driver patch, as the issue isn’t present on the previous 566.14 driver. There’s no word on when the fix will be coming down the pipes, though.
Elsewhere, Nvidia has been all over the news recently, as its CES 2025 plans begin to leak out all over. Most recently, a Zotac RTX 5000 leak confirmed the upcoming RTX 5000 graphics cards that are set to be announced.