Anyone Using nVidia nTune

[Starbuck1975]

A few weeks ago I purchased an LG226WT, and one thing I noticed is that my GPU is having a hard time pushing games, with eye candy enabled, at native resolution.

I downloaded the latest version of nVidia control panel, and enables aspect ration scaling so that I can run games at non-native WS resolutions. What a difference that made, especially for Oblivion...I only went down two resolution tiers in WS, and the image remained true to aspect ration...sure I have black bars at the top and bottom, but they are hardly noticeable, and it does retain the WS experience. Interestingly enough, I can run Supreme Commander and Company of Heroes at native resolution.

As I have an Abit MB, I also use their uGuru utility to overclock my CPU a few levels when running games, and it does make a minor difference.

The only thing I haven't overclocked is my 7900 GT KO. Now I have posted here before, asking if I need to upgrade my GPU, and most have said "not yet, wait for your next system build."

I will probably wait to upgrade my entire system once DirectX10 settles in, as does Vista. So for the time being, I am looking to squeeze every ounce of performance out of my current system.

In the latest issue of PC Gamer, they have an article on overclocking, and showed an nvidia utility I was not aware of...nTune.

Now that I know that nTune is similar to uGuru, but for overclocking GPUs, is anyone using it? If so, is it reasonably stable. The first few run throughs with uGuru gave me numerous headaches, as it would start sounding alarms and send my computer into a reboot sequence...I finally worked out all the kinks, but don't want to go through a similar exercise in madness with uTune.

 

[nullpointerus]

If you're happy with one overclocking utility, there's no point in switching to another. So unless you have a reason to install nTune, I would not bother with it.

How much of an overclock have you achieved with uGuru?

What are you using for stability testing? Typically, you'll want to stress-test your system before settling on an overclocked setting for gaming. There's nothing more frustrating than losing 1/2 hour of playing time because your GPU crashes the game. RTHDRIBL and ATITool's artifact tester seem to work well.

Given that you're using a 7900GT, I would ensure that the voltage regulators have adequate cooling. It's common to achieve excellent overclocks with those cards only to have the card die a few weeks or months later. As long as you cool the voltage regulator units (VRU's), you should be fine.