Nvidia is killing off its Control Panel app - and it wants you to help shape its replacement

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Bartholomew Chekube / Kapitosh / Future)

Nvidia is calling for user feedback on its legacy features from the Nvidia Control Panel, with Team Green keen to know which features still matter to users and how they are used.

The company recently announced that it would be shutting down its Nvidia Control Panel and GeForce Experience app, replacing both with the new Nvidia App, which will apparently be a one-stop shop for all Nvidia settings. The app is currently in beta, and promises to seamlessly integrate legacy tools with new features that support current and future games and hardware.

To better inform this transition, Nvidia shared a survey called “Nvidia App beta – Migration of Nvidia Control Panel and legacy 3D settings survey”. It aims to gauge which features should be brought over to the new app, and which should be left in the past.

The features on the chopping block

The 3D settings mentioned in the survey title are those found under the “Manage 3D settings” tab in the Nvidia Control Panel. These allow you to optimize for performance, energy efficiency, and visual fidelity on a game-by-game basis or globally.

Some highlights include:

Limiting power consumption and reduce thermal load – useful for laptops as it can prolong battery life and reduce the risk of overheating
Low Latency Mode, which reduces lag, limiting the number of frames queued in advance
Toggling V-sync which eliminates screen tearing by synchronizing the game’s frame rate with the monitor’s refresh rate but can increase latency
Tweaking anti-aliasing, which smooths jagged edges for better visual quality
Anisotropic filtering, which sharpens textures when viewed from angled perspectives
Triple buffering, which reduces stutter when using V-sync

These settings have always been essential for gamers who wanted to tailor their gaming experience - especially with games that lack in-game graphics options. Laptop users can set profiles to switch between their integrated graphics and discrete GPU, preserving battery life when they aren’t gaming.

A lot of these features, though, no longer offer any significant benefits to modern games and hardware, as we now have better ways of doing many of these things.

Still, as users on Reddit, ask, what about old games? Users have expressed their desire for features like AA and anisotropic filtering (AF) to remain for older games, as well as “GameStream” for streaming games from their PC to their Android or Nvidia Shield TV devices.

Whatever the outcome, it’s nice that Nvidia has made strides to include its users’ feedback to inform the migration process. When Nvidia launches the full version of its new app and shuts down Control Panel and GeForce experience at the end of the year, it will truly be the end of an era - and the company will need to make sure its new replacement app is embraced by gamers. As we all know, they aren’t the easiest bunch to keep happy…