Nvidia Control Panel - Performance Vs Quality

Hi!

I was just looking at the Nvidia Control Panel, and had some questions about the 3D settings, the texture filtering and all that. There is always a choice between Performance and Quality.

I just wanted to ask someone who have any experience with the settings, my L702x is just weeks old.

As I am always connected via the power adapter, there is no reason not to choose the Geforce 550M, right?
If I were to choose all the settings at best Quality, will the affect on performance be noticeable? ( I have 8 gig ram and i5 2430m @ 2.4). Is there a setting that will worsen my performance and make un-noticeable improvement on quality?

Basically, the most demanding game I will play on my laptop (for the time being) is left4dead 2, so the demand on performance might not be the highest, but, will the settings for best play experience with left4dead be different if I were to play lets say Skyrim (i.e will the settings on the Nvidia Control Panel make noticeable difference for different games?)

If I seem confused or did not make my self clear or you dont have a specifik answer to my question(s) then please comment on what ever experience you have with the settings.

Thanks!

 

Well if you care about being more eco-friendly, then you might care about using the integrated card. The fact is that most applications other than 3D gaming and some media editing tasks can be handled without issue by the Intel card, so there's almost no reason to switch to Nvidia for everything. But it's up to you.

As for Quality vs. Performance, all you can do is play with it and see how it affects whatever game you're playing. Some games aren't very demanding and can use all Quality (or if slowed down, not too badly for your use), or you may need to use closer to Performance for some of them. A game like Skyrim *will* be on the more demanding side, but again, you should just try it out and see what works for you. Though the setting which has the greatest impact on performance, apart from the resolution, tends to be anti-aliasing, so when you're figuring out what to do, I'd suggest reducing that first, followed by anisotropic filtering.

Many, but not all, of these controls can also be set inside the game rather than in the graphics card controls, so take note of that as a way to customize those settings for the given game.

 

from a long time ago, i remember reading an article comparing performance vs quality (in CS:S at least) and the image quality difference is almost negligible (I couldn't tell a difference) but the fps was like 5-10fps better with performance so i've just gone with high performance.

also, im hooked up to power most of the time but i rather use my intel graphics for non-gaming things because it lets ur laptop run cooler and in terms of wear and tear, ur graphics card will last longer (especially since i OC)

 

Thanks for your replies.
Any more experiances with the settings will be appreciated!

 

I always found that the graphics change was really high, textures would become blurred and everything became very aliased. Maybe I should try it again some time...