Nvidia's game tuning GeForce Experience software has expanded its features in the latest 1.8 update. Game settings optimiser now has more features to select the performance level you want. Just like in previous versions, the default optimal settings just aim at 40 FPS target on a reference version of the card at the current screen resolution. Now, there are more customisations available for those who like to play differently. Playing a game in a windowed or borderless mode is now an option inside optimiser. The resolution can also be picked manually for those cases and for those who want a good image quality with the downsampling. Finally, there is a feature less casual PC gamers might like. A performance-quality slider changes game settings one-by-one in a specific order, which Nvidia considers optimal to get the highest quality gains with minimal performance hit. The "optimal" 40 FPS target is shown on it as a reference and you can then go up or down from it for the balance you like.
Another big part of the update is improvements to the Shadowplay gameplay recording feature. The first beta version of Shadowplay was extremely barebones, limited to 1920x1080 60 FPS recording with in-game audio only. Playing at any other resolution meant scaling, while any aspect ratio different from 16:9 was distorted. While 1920x1080 remains the upper resolution limit in this version of Shadowplay, the aspect ratio is always preserved, while videos recorded at lower resolutions will match game settings. The weird 4 GB limit is also gone on Windows 7, allowing arbitrary large recordings and 20 minutes shadow buffer on it in the same way as in Windows 8. The last addition is the support for recording both in-game audio and from a microphone. While nice for people who want to comment a bit during the game, it is not fit for any serious editing yet. Both tracks are mixed together and cannot be separated. So while YouTube is getting filled with gameplay videos, do not expect any big gaming video makers to switch to Shadowplay anytime soon.
