When Nvidia replaced the old GeForce Experience app with a new unified Nvidia app last month, most GPU owners probably noted the update and rebranding with nothing but bewilderment (although the new lack of a boot requirement account session was a nice improvement). Now, tests show that running the new app with default settings can cause significant frame rate drops in many high-end games, even when the app's advanced AI features are not actively used.
Tom's Hardware noticed the performance drop after reading reports of related issues on the web. The site's testing with and without the Nvidia app installed confirms that across five games run on an RTX 4060, the app reduced the average frame rate by 3 to 6 percent, depending on resolution and graphical quality level. .
The frame rate drop measured by the Site peaked at 12 percent during Assassin's Creed Mirage running at 1080p Ultra settings; other games tested (including Baldur's Gate 3, Black Myth: Wukong, Flight simulator 2024and Stalker 2) showed a minor drop in most environments.
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This is a significant performance hit for an app that simply runs silently in the background for most users. The impact is roughly comparable to that of moving from a top-of-the-line RTX 4070 Ti Super to an older RTX 4070 Ti or 4070 Super, based on our previous testing of those cards.