Reddit Discovers a Neat Performance Improving Trick for NVIDIA Users

[RyneSmith]

You're on an enthusiast site, where 5-10% performance increase is what we strive for on a daily basis for GPUs with overclocking. Granted, CPU's not so much.

This isn't SevenForums for your grandma.

 

[Uplink10]

I upgraded my dads pc a while ago with SSD and and a fresh windows 8.1 installation, he has a hd 4870 installed, and I could not find a driver for it anymore.
But it appeared windows 8.1 automatically installed the driver for it, no CCC , just the display driver.

Windows 8 and 7 offer driver for AMD Radeon graphic card, that is WDDM driver. The problem is that if you install WDDM over the driver AMD supplies with their driver package the CCC will not work anymore. Furthermore when you use Catalyst install manager on windows 8.1 it will not install driver by default, you have to search for the driver from Device Manager.


It looks like Nvidia has the same problems as Microsoft has. Windows lacks a good service which would turn off services which are not needed. That is a small piece of the puzzle "Why is Windows so slow especially newer versions"?

 

[xorbe]

I wonder how many benchmarks this has affected.

 

[Nordic]

I find it odd this is such big news. Of course it does. That is why there are bare bones windows iso's custom made for benchmarking. If you strip out enough services you get more performance. Different services have different performance impacts, and 5-10% I think it actually pretty high. Still though, not tpu front page news.

 

[Darksoviet]

If you're AMD user, you could disabled AMD External Events Utility and AMD FUEL Service.
They correspond to Crossfire and Overclocking.

 

[rooivalk]

Couple of months back I used "space sniffer" on my 120gb ssd only laptop, I had been using it for about 2 years by then. It visualizes what programs/files use your hdd space. Turns out Nvidia had backed up all previous installers on alternate locations in two different ways mostly too. I free'd up over 4GB I think it was even more, from tracking these backups to their locations. (we're talking 16 driver updates at about 256-512MB a pop) I do always update my drivers when new ones come out, but I never realized Nvidia copied all used installers to alternate locations. They were easily spotted with the sniffer program because the driver version was in the package name and it was just one big installer file.

I think AMD does that too in C:\AMD\Support

 

[Naito]

Another NVIDIA tip: delete this folder to free up some space on your C: drive

I'm not sure if it is due to GeForce Experience or something else, but Nvidia software also seems to store a lot of driver package installers (among other things) within C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation\NetService folder. These seem to be left over from updates and previous installs.

 

[W1zzard]

I wonder how many benchmarks this has affected.

Not ours

 

[SamuilM]

This really is not "news" worthy . It's a bunch of people thinking they have done proper testing .
I saw that claim yesterday , and tested myself . I did 10 runs of ingame benches of Metro LL , Valley and Shadow of Mordor , took the avarage . Then I disabled this service and did the same . in Metro and Valley I got 0.5 of a frame more and in Shadow of Mordor , 0.7 fps lower , this resulsts are with 50-60 fps avrg.
As you probably know there is always a margin of error . Almost every test from the 10 , had different results , sometimes with 2-3 fps difference . People often mistake this for an improvement .
If you don't have shield , it doesnt harm you to turn it off , but do not expect improvements of your fps .

 

[Steevo]

and that's why I always do custom install, and deselect everything:

Apparently the service doesn't exist if you don't install GFE

Another NVIDIA tip: delete this folder to free up some space on your C: drive

AMD/ATI users can delete the older drive file from their C:\AMD folder and free up space, as AMD's drivers don't delete the prior versions ever.

 

[Maban]

Disabling it for now, but I can imagine soon I will ask myself why the hell can't I stream to my Shield? Rage about it for a couple minutes then realize oh duh I did this.

 

[arbiter]

I will note that service, its not just for shield streaming. Its also the service that handles Shadowplay recording. So if you use shadowplay to record clips of games then have to leave it on.

 

[Disparia]

Couple days after the posting (only just noticed it now with the new nVidia driver):

GeForce Experience 2.4.3 Release Highlights

• Bug fixes for intermittent user accounts and application crash issues.
• Fixed a bug that was causing the NVIDIA Streamer Service to use excess CPU cycles on some PCs.

Accounts for why it couldn't always be replicated.

 

[Vayra86]

With the current system I installed the whole gamete of waste that comes with the driver package... but after reading this I think I will uninstall and install just the driver, like I used too. I rarely use Shadowplay. I wish I didn't have to download the HUGE driver package when all I need is the driver!

I can strongly suggest you use the iCafe drivers, built for Chinese market. Those have a minimum level of bullshit coming along with the download, it's just the driver. What's more, they almost never have bugs in them, strange but true.

Over the years this has become standard practice on my PC; go for newest WHQL, run into issues, roll back to the most recent iCafe, problem solved and rock stable. Works a charm. Another thing, not every driver iteration gets an iCafé version, which is a telltale sign you really don't NEED the new driver. When it gets an iCafé, it usually brings improvements across the board.