Nvidia App Performance Issue Hurts Games, With a Temporary Fix Available
Nvidia’s new app, launched last month as a replacement for GeForce Experience, promised better convenience and functionality, including automatic driver updates and game optimizations without requiring a login. However, users are now reporting significant performance drops in games, with one benchmark showing up to a 15 percent loss in frame rates. Tom’s Hardware’s testing has confirmed the existence of this problem.
In particular, Assassin’s Creed Mirage saw performance dips of 12 percent at 1080p Ultra and 6 percent at 1440p Ultra when tested on an RTX 4060. Some users with high-end GPUs, like the RTX 4080 Super, reported a much steeper performance drop of 15 percent in Black Myth: Wukong. Tom’s Hardware speculates that enthusiast-level GPUs may be more affected by the bug.
Nvidia has since issued a statement attributing the issue to the Game Filters and Photo Mode features in the app. Even when these settings aren’t being actively used, they can still impact performance. The company has suggested that users disable these options temporarily as a workaround while they work on a fix. Tom’s Hardware confirmed that this resolves the performance issue. Alternatively, users can uninstall the Nvidia App and manually update drivers to avoid the problem.
If you’ve been using GeForce Experience, you might have dodged this issue, but you’ll be stuck with older drivers. The latest drivers through GFE are version 566.14, and to get the latest updates, you’ll need to either put up with the Nvidia App or manually install them.