Best NVidia settings for Pillars of Eternity II

If you use a PC build or gaming laptop with an Nvidia GPU and play Pillars of Eternity II, you can optimize your gaming experience by adjusting the graphics settings and other features in the Nvidia Control Panel. Having the best Nvidia Control Panel graphics settings for Pillars of Eternity II will enhance your gameplay and overall performance.

If you want to improve your computer’s performance, you can learn how to optimize your Nvidia Control Panel settings by following this guide.

best NVidia Settings for Pillars of Eternity II

Below is a brief summary of the best NVidia settings we will discuss below in case you want to copy/paste them.

• Image Scaling – Off
• Ambient Occlusion – Off
• Anisotropic Filtering – Off
• Antialiasing – Off
• Antialiasing – Off
• Antialiasing Mode – Off
• Antialiasing Transparency – Off
• Background Application Max Frame Rate: Off
• CUDA GPUs – All
• DSR Factors – Off
• Low Latency Mode – Depends
• Max Frame Rate – Off
• Preferred Refresh Rate: Highest Available
• Multi-Frame Sampled AA – Off
• OpenGL Rendering GPU – Main GPU
• Power-Management Mode – Prefer Maximum Performance
• Shader Cache Size – Driver Default
• Texture Filtering -Anisotropic sample optimization – On
• Texture Filtering – Negative LOD Bias – Allow
• Texture Filtering – Quality – High Performance
• Texture Filtering – Trilinear Optimization – On
• Threaded optimization – On
• Triple buffering – Off
• Vertical Sync – Off
• Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames: 1

Best NVidia Control Panel Settings for Pillars of Eternity II

If you want to understand the impact of each NVidia setting and why we recommend modifying them, keep reading.

I highly recommend you download the best NVidia driver for Pillars of Eternity II and install it before moving on to the settings.

Click on the “Use the advanced 3D image settings” option, and click Apply.

Then move to “Manage 3D settings” tab. Below I will go through all the settings one by one.

Image Scaling

Image Scaling replaced the old option called Image Sharpening. Image Scaling will downscale the resolution and then sharpen the image in Pillars of Eternity II. It’s like DLSS, but it’s not even close. Just keep it disabled.

Recommendation: OFF.

Ambient Occlusion

Keep it off on the NVidia Control Panel, and if you want to enable it, do it through the Pillars of Eternity II settings. It makes the shadows look a little better, but it’s not worth it.

Recommendation: Off

Anisotropic Filtering

Turn it off here and enable it in Pillars of Eternity II if needed. It makes everything sharper, more precise and looks better.

If you enable it on the NVidia Control Panel and start noticing weird graphics in Pillars of Eternity II, come back to the NVidia settings and disable it.

Recommendation: Off

Antialiasing – FXAA

“Budget” less FPS taxing anti-aliasing option. Keep it off.

Recommendation: Off

Antialiasing – Gamma correction

Almost every modern game, including Pillars of Eternity II has Gamma Correction already enabled. Useless setting; keep it off.

Recommendation: Off

Antialiasing – Mode

As I said above, keep it OFF and enable it in Pillars of Eternity II if you want it ON.

Recommendation: Off

Antialiasing – Setting

Recommendation: None

Antialiasing – Transparency

Doe’s nothing in Pillars of Eternity II, so keep it off.

Recommendation: Off

Background Application Max Frame Rate

If you are in a game and you alt+tab out Pillars of Eternity II, then having this setting set will cap the FPS when you tab out. But it only works for Windowed mode or Borderless. If you are playing on full-screen, this setting will not work.

Recommendation: Off

CUDA – GPUs

If you have only one GPU, you can skip this setting. If you have multiple GPUs, select the most powerful one because if you run a GPU-accelerated application that uses CUDA, it will come and use that specific one.

Recommendation: All

DSR – Factors

Dynamic Super Resolution(DSR) should be set to OFF unless you know what you are doing.

Recommendation: Off

DSR – Smoothness

Recommendation: Off

Low Latency Mode

Turn it OFF in the NVidia Control Panel and turn it ON in Pillars of Eternity II.

Recommendation: High-Medium systems, turn OFF. For low-end systems, try ON / Ultra and see which one works best.

Max Frame Rate

There are many more efficient ways to cap your maximum frame rate, so there is no reason to use this one. In most modern games, including Pillars of Eternity II, you can cap your FPS via Pillars of Eternity II’s settings.

Recommendation: Off

Preferred Refresh Rate

Recommendation: Highest available for the smoothest experience in Pillars of Eternity II.

Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA)

Recommendation: Off

OpenGL rendering GPU

Recommendation: Choose your NVIDIA GPU

Power management mode

Recommendation: Prefer maximum performance

Shader Cache Size

Recommendation: Driver Default

Texture filtering – Anisotropic sample optimization

Recommendation: ON

Texture filtering – Negative LOD bias

Recommendation: Allow

Texture filtering – Quality

Recommendation: High performance

Texture filtering – Trilinear optimization

Recommendation: On

Threaded optimization

Recommendation: On

Triple buffering

Recommendation: Off

Vertical sync

Recommendation: Off unless your GPU is overheating.

Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames

Recommendation: 1

That was fast

Please note that these settings may not be appropriate for every person on this planet, and we all have different playstyles and preferences regarding quality and performance. To summarize, the above NVidia settings are intended for gamers who want the absolute best performance possible in Pillars of Eternity II.