Test Your GPU Using
Nvidia FrameView
1
DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL
FrameView can be downloaded from Nvidia’s website at
http://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/technologies/frameview/. Right
now, it’s still in beta, so be aware that you might encounter the
odd bug here and there.
>> Installing FrameView is super-easy. Unpack the ZIP file and
navigate to the “FrameView_x64” folder. Here, right-click the
“Install.cmd” file and click “Run as administrator.” When it loads,
press any key. It’s important to run this file—without it, you won’t
get any power consumption results. Now, open the “FrameView_
x64.exe” file located in the same folder to get started.2
CAPTURE YOUR PERFORMANCE
Open FrameView and one of the first things you’ll see
is the benchmark folder location. You can change this
to something that’s easy to access; you can also change the
benchmark hotkey, if you like.
>> Next, head to the “Capture delay” section. Here you
can define a delay between you pressing the benchmarking
hotkey and the benchmark beginning, and also how long the
benchmarking process should last. By default, both are set to
zero seconds; for the capture duration, that means you have
to manually stop the benchmark by pressing the hotkey again.
Once the process has finished, the results are saved to a folderIT’S ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA to keep an eye on how your hardware is per forming. Not only will this
help you diagnose problems, but it can also indicate when it might be time to upgrade. If you’re
getting stuttering and frame drops during gameplay, for example, there’s a good chance your
graphics card may be past its prime.
There’s a number of tools that you can use to ascertain the performance of your graphics
card, from GPU-Z to HWiNFO, but none really provides a one-stop shop to help you measure
power consumption, frame rates, performance-per-watt, and more. That’s where Nvidia’s
FrameView comes in.
FrameView is a simple utility that provides a quick and easy way to see whether your graphics
card is performing to its best. It works with almost every game, and supports DirectX 9 through
12, OpenGL, Vulkan, and Universal Windows Platform programs.
Note that, due to an apparent quirk in how AMD cards measure power draw, FrameView
should not be used to compare the power consumption of Nvidia and AMD GPUs—see the
boxout for more info. For everything else, though, it’s a nifty little tool that can shed light on
how your graphics card is chugging along—and whether it’s time to replace it. –ALEX BLAKEYOU’LL NEED THIS
NVIDIA FRAMEVIEW
Download it from http://www.
nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/
technologies/frameview/.A COMPATIBLE
GRAPHICS API
DirectX 9 or later, OpenGL,
Vulkan, or Universal
Windows Platform.specified in the program, where you can analyze the
results more closely.3
MEASURE POWER USAGE
FrameView measures power usage in a couple of
ways. On the overlay, “CHP” indicates the power
consumed by the chip on your graphics card. “TGP,” on
the other hand, is a measure of the total power consumed
by both the chip and the rest of the graphics card’s board
(minus the power consumed by any device connected to
the GPU’s USB-C port, if it has one). For instance, our
GPU is currently drawing 65W of power, while the total
power used by the card is 134W [Image A].
>> This data is used to calculate your graphics
card’s performance-per-watt (PPW) rating, which is
determined by dividing your FPS by the TGP. Simply put,
the larger this number is, the better your PPW rating,
and the more efficient your graphics card is.4
RENDERED FPS VS. DISPLAYED FPS
You can determine your graphics card’s
performance by measuring how much stutter
you get in games. One way FrameView does this is by
taking measurements for rendered FPS and displayed
FPS. Rendered FPS is measured at the beginning ofBA©^NVIDIA60 MAXIMUMPC OCT 2019 maximumpc.com
R&D