Nvidia GeForce Experience
Now let’s move onto Nvidia’s GeForce Experience software. Unlike AMD’s Gaming Evolved app there’s no home screen with shortcuts to all the different aspects of the software, instead it jumps straight into the game library. From within here we can see it does the same as the Gaming Evolved App and scans your entire PC for games. Like with Raptr this scan will find Steam, Origin, UPlay and standalone games on your system. From within this tab you can also optimise your game settings which is calculated in an identical way to the way Raptr does it: Nvidia collects data based on the configurations of thousands of systems running certain games with various hardware configurations and then calculates the optimal settings required to get a fluid gaming experience.
Under the drivers tab the software will automatically search for the latest WHQL and beta driver releases. You can stick to WHQL and exclude betas if you want the latest stable releases. From here you can download and install the latest driver quite quickly and easily.
The next tab along is called “My Rig” where it lists your hardware specifications. This tab also contains entry into the LED visualiser area where you can configure the lighting pattern on supported Nvidia GeForce GTX graphics cards. For example stock GTX 770, GTX 780, GTX 780 Ti, GTX Titan, GTX Titan Black, GTX Titan Z and Nvidia’s special SLI bridge all have green LED lighting. With the LED visualiser you can tweak the brightness and lighting effects of these LED lights.
Moving along to the preferences tab and there are lots of options here to fine tune the user experience.
Under the ShadowPlay tab you can obviously fine tune aspects of ShadowPlay which we’ll discuss more in a moment.
In the GameStream tab you can stream your games from your PC to any Nvidia Shield 1 or 2 devices. This can be done using just your local network or with the internet too meaning you can visit a friends house with your Shield, leave your PC on at home and play your PC games out and about. You will of course need some fairly fast internet for this as we discovered in our in-depth Nvidia Shield testing.
ShadowPlay is Nvidia’s equivalent to AMD’s Game DVR but it is slightly more developed. By that I mean there is much more functionality on offer, for example you can support unlimited recording times not be restricted to just 10 minutes. There’s also a variety of audio recording options and modes you can set. Check out our full in-depth review of Nvidia’s ShadowPlay software right here.
Nvidia’s GeForce Experience software is fairly diminutive in terms of its hard drive foot print. The main reason for this is that some of its features are also part of the main Nvidia GeForce Control Panel which gets installed whether you choose to install the GeForce Experience software or not. However, in literal terms the installation of GeForce Experience is about one tenth of the size of AMD’s Gaming Evolved App: although both are so small it really is irrelevant.
I have used both and for old GPUs NVIDIA is much better to optimizing games. I had a GT520 (if that can even be called a GT) and I could play with mixed settings and AA enabled BF3 and it was pretty smooth. On the other hand 5770 was a Low level on BF3 for AMD App, meanwhile I could play at High No AA pretty well. But I suppose it needs more feedback from the users.
Personally I liked the simplicity of NVIDIA better.
Using dif GPU’s = the different graphic performance, has nothing to do with the programs.
And game options are the same no matter what. So saying game options were simple with one programe over another makes zero sense.
Please read more carefully. The programs are different. The cards are totally different, and Geforce Experience does a better job at automatically setting the settings compared to Raptr.
The only real beauty of the software for me is the ability to optimise game graphics settings in an instant and amazingly they both seem to get it just about spot on, it takes away all that tedious, boring hit or miss stuff that was part of setting up games in the past. The other functions, apart from auto update I couldn’t care less about let alone use but it’s there if thats what floats your boat.
If you wanna sit on the fence Ryan thats quite alright but overall I think GFE is slightly more polished.
And how so ? just being Nvidia fanboy isn’t it ?
Both are
Personally i vote for the Experience. The Gaming Evolved has a lot of problems for me, I got so mad, I don’t even open it anymore. It’s like a beta program for years.
But the Experience works fine on my other pc.
I’ve used both and Raptr is like malware, pops up all the time with ads and garbage and I’ve never had it update drivers properly, or it will say drivers not supported for this card. Nvidia Geforce Experience is beautiful and simple, keeps my drivers up to date which is a main thing, also optimizes my game video settings for optimal performance and has the awesome shadowplay that can record your gaming and the screen for that matter with zero lag and full res. Geforce Experience is definitely way better.
Raptr is like malware, no where near the best if you’ve even tried geforce experience lately.
No it isn’t. I have Raptr and have had a popup with it. Raptr also gives you points for playing that you can trade in on in game perks, hardware discount, etc. GeForce Experience is extremely lacking in its features. Everything GeForce can do, Raptr can also, plus you earn those points in Raptre.
I have tried both. Honestly, neither one really offer any true benefit. They are both all fluff.
Could I use gaming evolved with some support on a GTX 970? I am planning to upgrade my card and don’t want to lose my points.
Raptr still has a long way to go. I recently reinstalled the AMD Crimson Drivers and Raptr after putting in an older AMD card. The Raptr software is still not great, doesn’t allow for recording in unsupported games and still doesn’t allow desktop capture. The Crimson drivers also felt a little clunky and the layout could be better.
Not really. The AMD app builds points for playing that can be traded in for perks in games or discounts on hardware. GeGorce doesn’t do that.