How To: Limit Frame Rate (FPS) in game on Nvidia GPUs

Hey people. Decided to search for a simple way to limit my FPS (lets say 40 fps or lower) to decrease heat as I overclock my GPU. Instead of creating different profiles of mild overclocking for light games, average OC for more hungry games and high overclocking for latest games like Crysis I decided to limit FPS to 30-40 and use just 1 high overclocking profile on all games.

If you still don't get the reason I repeat: if you overclocked Gpu too high and palay light games your GPU still kicks in up to 100% and gives you lets say 65 fps and reaches up to 80 degrees Celsium while you would like it to work on 40 fps and reach lower temperature like 70C.

So after little Google Search I found that first search links are either way too old or give no answer. While reading about new features in 300x Nvidia WHQL drivers I saw smth about FPS limit. Hmmm.

So I went deeper in this problem, decided to use special software which was on my mind for editing Nvidia drivers and in a minute found a simple solution.

So here is a HOW TO:

You need:
- installed latest Nvidia Drivers (I tried this on v301.42 WHQL);
- Nvidia Inspector (I tried on v1.9.6.6);
- NVidia Gpu of course (I tried on 330M)

Launch Nvidia Inspector and click Configure button next to Driver version.



A new window will be opened with different settings.

You need to go to Common menu and find Frame Rate Limiter string. Set it to the value you would like to see and apply settings.

I also suggest people who has strong CPU but low GPU to set value of Maximium Prerendered Frames to 8. Older Nvidia drivers offered to do this in usual Nvidia Control Panel but new 3-x version lets you to set to 4 at max. Higher rate gives you smoother gaming experience on low fps. I have 840QM CPU so why not?



And of course you can use this Tool to overclock GPU and even set higher rate than the Max limit set by driver. In my case Max memory clock was 948 while now I can set higher.

Known issues:
- for some reason VERY SLOW boot time in COD: Black Ops.

 

Thanks!

This is going to help a lot of people to have there say 680M's chill down in games where they don't need all that power... say in CSS or CS:GO