nVidia takes back an unpopular choice with its new PC app

It’s not just all good things that come to an end. It’s also some of the bad, as nVidia recently proved by finally deciding to take back one of the most vehemently hated choices it’s ever made – and that’s saying something – with its GPU software. The company released a new Windows application called “the nVidia App”, which is noteworthy for several reasons but even more so for one in particular: this new app replaces the former GeForce Experience app without forcing consumers to login with an nVidia account or a Google account before using it.

That highly controversial choice the company made all the way back in 2016 had nVidia graphics card owners up in arms, and rightly so, to the point where many of them chose to just not use the GeForce Experience app again rather than impart with personal information and usage data in order to use it. It was simply unacceptable to have consumers forced into registering an nVidia account in order to tune their own hardware and update its software, but nVidia did it anyway, infuriating millions of its customers for years. The new app fixes this, as can be used without consumers having to login – although they are still given the option to do so in order to redeem certain digital “rewards”.

What the nVidia app does, basically, is unify the GeForce Experience app, the RTX Experience app and the nVidia Control Panel into a common graphics user interface where the options and functions of all three reside. It is designed in a more cohesive, modern way, based around a vertical toolbar leading to different pages of options and settings. It allows users to monitor and tune their graphics cards, optimize installed games, manage DLSS profiles, enable or disable specific Nvidia RTX features and set up an in-game overlay with various pieces of information, among other things.

It’s worth noting that, when first run, the new nVidia app offers the option of choosing between “Game Ready Drivers” and “Studio Drivers”, the latter being optimized for stability and creative applications rather than PC games. The nVidia app is currently in beta – yours truly did use it on an RTX 4090 without any issues whatsoever for a couple of days already – and it can be downloaded through nVidia’s page right now. When the Video and Display sets of settings are added to it, the app is expected to exit beta and be officially released – nVidia also promises to add new functionality to it over time, such as AV1 support for Shadowplay, additional DLSS controls and extra overclocking options.