The Nvidia App, which is replacing both Nvidia Control Panel and GeForce Experience, is a nice new update but it seems to come with a small caveat: A performance hit when using certain overlay features. While not everyone is using filters if you are you may be taking a 16% performance hit doing so. So in this guide, we're going to guide you through the fixes until the issue is patched officially.

How to Fix the NVIDIA App Gaming Performance Issues.

In order to solve this problem you will need to make the following changes to your settings in the NVIDIA app. Once done you'll get an instant performance boost. Thankfully you do not need to completely uninstall the NVIDIA app to fix this problem. We explain the reasoning behind that a little further down.

• Open the NVIDIA App and navigate to the settings menu.
• Locate the "Game Filters and Photo Mode" setting and turn it off. These features are known to cause performance degradation.
• Keep other overlay features like video recording and performance metrics enabled, as these have little to no impact on FPS.
• Ensure your app and drivers are updated to the latest versions. NVIDIA is aware of the bug and actively working on a fix.
• After applying changes, restart your game to ensure the new settings take effect.

What is Causing Performance issues in the NVIDIA app?

The NVIDIA App consolidates several tools and settings previously spread across multiple programs. It offers a lot of features but these are the 3 primary ones.

• Driver Updates: Easy access to the latest GeForce drivers.
• System Optimization: Fine-tune graphics settings for your games.
• Overlay Features: Tools like game filters, photo mode, video recording, and real-time performance metrics.

The overlay feature is particularly feature-rich, allowing gamers to customize their experience with game-specific adjustments and live feedback. However, it’s also "the suspected" source of performance issues in some games and situations. In some texts it can reduce performance by up to 16%

Hardware Unboxed on YouTube investigated the situation and found the following results after extensive testing:

• Impact Range: The performance drop varies by game, ranging from 3% to 16%.
• Worst-case scenario: Games like Hogwarts Legacy saw up to a 16% hit under default settings.
• Average Impact: For the majority of titles, the impact was less severe, typically around 3-7%.

The benchmarks showed that the performance dip comes from specific overlay features and not simply from having the app installed. This means that you don’t need to uninstall the NVIDIA App or disable the overlay entirely.