How to Use a Graphics Card to Improve Video Streaming
If you’ve invested a significant amount of money in Nvidia’s RTX GPU, then you’ll want to maximize the return on your investment – and on top of the high frame rates and superior rendering you’ll get in your games, these graphics cards also come with some useful extras that will help boost your gaming experience. streaming video quality.
Collectively, these additions are known as RTX Video: There are two features you can take advantage of, and we may see more in the future. According to Nvidia, these are “real-time AI-powered video enhancements,” so they use some AI tricks to enhance the quality of what you watch beyond the original quality.
To use these features, you’ll need an RTX 2000, RTX 3000, or RTX 4000 series GPU in your system, and the Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge browser on Windows. Before you begin, make sure you have the latest drivers for your GPU installed – you can do this through the Nvidia GeForce Experience app, which should already be on your system.
Using RTX Super Video Resolution
First, we have RTX Video Super Resolution (VSR), which (as the name suggests) makes videos look like they were recorded in higher quality: according to Nvidia , it’s like putting on prescription glasses. sharpens the content. Most streaming content is played in 1080p resolution, although many of us use higher resolution monitors, and VSR is designed to solve this problem.
According to Nvidia, the update should work on “most” online videos played through Chrome or Edge, and in addition to sharpening images and reducing blur, it will also try to remove compression artifacts from videos. Nvidia says the technology will work with video resolutions from 360p to 1440p.
To enable it, all you have to do is right-click on an empty area of the desktop, select Show advanced options and Nvidia Control Panel , and then open the Adjust video settings tab. Turn on the Super Resolution option and you can choose a quality level from 1 to 4 (or your GPU will adjust it automatically). A higher quality level means your videos look better, but it’s also more demanding on your system.
Click Apply to enable the feature, then try playing a few videos—you’ll be able to see when the technology is applied (and at what level, if you left it on Auto ) in the control panel. You can even make changes while the video is playing—just be sure to hit the Apply button to see the difference—and switch to full-screen mode for best results.
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Using RTX HDR Video
Next up is RTX Video HDR, which applies high dynamic range to online videos. HDR is a technology that provides a wider range of image brightness and color. In practical terms, this means that you can see detail even in very dark and very light parts of the frame, details that would otherwise be blurry.
Compressed video streamed online is often SDR, or standard dynamic range, so this improvement can really make a difference when it comes to the clarity of what you’re watching. Again, Nvidia says it will work with “most” SDR videos, but not DRM-protected content (like Netflix).
For this to work, you’ll need a monitor that supports the HDR10 standard (most modern ones do now). You also need to enable HDR in Windows: open Settings from the Start menu, then click System , Display , and Use HDR . Here you can enable HDR if your monitor supports it.
After this, we return to the Nvidia Control Panel: right-click on an empty area of the desktop and select Show advanced options , and then Nvidia Control Panel . You’ll find the High Dynamic Range checkbox next to the Super Video Resolution option in the Video Settings tab – once it’s enabled, click Apply to confirm.