How can I reduce the fan volume under 3D load? (NVIDIA Whisper Mode and FPS Limiter)

Performance profiles

Generally, our laptops offer different performance profiles, which set different priorities between temperature, performance and fan volume. Find them by searching for "Control Center" in Start Menu.

Beyond that, however, there are two additional methods to reduce the fan speed.

FPS Limiter (Frame Limiter)

FPS stands for "Frames per Second", also known as frame rate. This refers to how many new frames the graphics card renders per second. The higher the frame rate, the smoother the image in motion. However, as soon as the refresh rate of the graphics card is higher than the refresh rate of the LCD monitor, you actually start rendering frames for nothing. In other words, you put additional energy into the system without gaining any benefit from it.

By default (with VSync disabled), the NVIDIA graphics card tries to achieve the highest possible FPS rate at any given moment. Therefore, even older games or low graphics settings are able to generate a very high GPU load. If you reduce the graphic details, the graphics card simply increases the FPS \u2013 the bottom line of actual GPU load might not change much.

This dilemma can be avoided by using an FPS limiter. Since early 2020 an FPS limit can be set directly in the NVIDIA control panel - either globally for all applications or individually for each game.

  • A general recommendation is to set the maximum FPS to 1 to 3 FPS below the refresh rate of the monitor. So if you are using a 144Hz monitor, you can set the max FPS to 141.
  • For some games, you might want to set the value even lower. A strategy game, for example, will already look pretty good even with "only" 60 FPS.
  • For games where the FPS has an influence on the in-game physics (e.g. CS:GO), you might want to set the value a bit higher.

The following article describes exactly how to set this value and shows an example of how much energy can be saved by doing so:

Rule of thumb: the less energy your laptop consumes, the lower the fan noise will be.

NVIDIA Whisper Mode

NVIDIA Whisper Mode was introduced in 2017 and is now available in version 2.0.

NVIDIA Whisper Mode can be described as an intelligent, dynamic frame limiter. Instead of defining a maximum FPS value, the user specifies a "minimum FPS" value here, e.g. 30, 60 or 120 FPS. The NVIDIA driver then controls the graphics card in such a way that the minimum FPS value is not undercut, but also in such a way that certain temperature and volume values are not exceeded.

The actual frame rate in Whisper Mode thus depends on the situation. In games or scenes that are not very demanding, the graphics card easily achieves a high FPS value. In demanding scenes or very high ambient temperatures, on the other hand, NVIDIA will lower the target rate, but preferably without falling below the user-defined lower limit.

Apart from this dynamic frame limiter, NVIDIA's Whisper Mode has a few more tricks up its sleeve. For example, the graphics settings of many games are automatically changed in such a way that computationally intensive but visually barely visible graphics effects are slightly reduced. NVIDIA Whisper Mode thus strives for an optimal balance between image impression, temperature, and fan noise.

NVIDIA Whisper Mode can be activated and configured in the "NVIDIA GeForce Experience" (GFE) program on all XMG laptops. In order to leverage this feature, it is necessary to log-in to GeForce Experience with a personal user account. Whisper Mode 2.0 is already integrated into the Control Center profile "Balanced" in some XMG models (XMG CORE and XMG NEO from 2021) \u2013 so it can be used without an NVIDIA account in these models.