144 Hz Nvidia card not idling with ROG Swift

[asperity]

Awhile back when the ROG Swift first came out, I didn't know about nvidia cards not idling when running at 144 Hz. I had noticed that my room became noticeably hotter and I thought it was just the Swift that put out lots of heat. That was when I found out about it. It probably doesn't help that the GTX 780 Ti is a power hungry card compared to the newer Maxwell cards. Ever since then I've been running 120 hz to keep my card idling when I am not gaming.

Now I've already done a few google searches and couldn't help but notice a few posts on how nvidia cards do not idle at 144 hz. Some of the situations I've seen:

• Using 144 Hz @ 1080p + extra monitors
• Using 144 Hz + opening up some light applications such as browsers on a 1440p monitor

Is it me or am I the only one bothered by the fact that my card just wont idle at the max hz that my monitor can support? What do you guys do with your 144 Hz 1440p monitors?

 

[elvn]

As mentioned by others previously in the swift's actual thread (and seach-able via typing 'idle' in the thread's search box I'd imagine :b ... ) this is what we do.

Set the monitor to 120hz and use 120hz on desktop/apps.
Open the nvidia control panel and go to the "Manage 3D settings" section.
Set the
"Preferred refresh rate" of the monitor to "Highest Available" setting.
Hit "Apply".

Now when you launch a game it will use the highest available settings, 144hz, and it will drop back to idle-capable 120hz when you drop back out of the game to the desktop.

You can also utilize this (if you wanted to for some reason) to run ulmb mode on desktop but not in games, since ulmb mode only works at 120hz or 100hz and highest available would jump to 144hz (and g-sync if enabled previously) again on game launch.

 

[asperity]

As mentioned by others previously in the swift's actual thread (and seach-able via typing 'idle' in the thread's search box I'd imagine :b ... ) this is what we do.

Set the monitor to 120hz and use 120hz on desktop/apps.
Open the nvidia control panel and go to the "Manage 3D settings" section.
Set the
"Preferred refresh rate" of the monitor to "Highest Available" setting.
Hit "Apply".

Now when you launch a game it will use the highest available settings, 144hz, and it will drop back to idle-capable 120hz when you drop back out of the game to the desktop.

You can also utilize this (if you wanted to for some reason) to run ulmb mode on desktop but not in games, since ulmb mode only works at 120hz or 100hz and highest available would jump to 144hz (and g-sync if enabled previously) again on game launch.

Ooh, did not know that was possible thanks for the info!

 

[chenw]

Also, each of the 3 HZ settings on the monitor itself (60, 120 and 144hz) each saves its own individual settings, so you can freely adjust color, brightness and contrast settings for 120 and 144 individually (IE desktop and gaming) and the monitor will automatically adjust itself.

 

[dowant120hz]

You can also use "Nvidia Inspector" to force the power state you want
In my experience IDLE always works no matter the refresh rate or number of monitors

 

[mistaneat]

As mentioned by others previously in the swift's actual thread (and seach-able via typing 'idle' in the thread's search box I'd imagine :b ... ) this is what we do.

Set the monitor to 120hz and use 120hz on desktop/apps.
Open the nvidia control panel and go to the "Manage 3D settings" section.
Set the
"Preferred refresh rate" of the monitor to "Highest Available" setting.
Hit "Apply".

Now when you launch a game it will use the highest available settings, 144hz, and it will drop back to idle-capable 120hz when you drop back out of the game to the desktop.

You can also utilize this (if you wanted to for some reason) to run ulmb mode on desktop but not in games, since ulmb mode only works at 120hz or 100hz and highest available would jump to 144hz (and g-sync if enabled previously) again on game launch.

Awesome, thanks for the info! I didn't even realize I was using extra idle power until I saw these posts.

Edit: Oops posted in the wrong thread, didn't mean to necro this.