NVIDIA’s Project G-Assist Makes AI Useful To Gamers, Assists With In-Game Tuning, Performance Diagnostics, PC Customization & More

NVIDIA's Project G-Assist is finally rolling out to gamers, showcasing the benefits of AI and how it can be used to customize your PC experience.

NVIDIA Is Changing The Way You Interact With Your PC Through The AI-powered Project G-Assist, Lots of Use-Cases For Gamers & First on Desktops

Last year at Computex 2024, NVIDIA showcased Project G-Assist, an AI-powered assistant that is effectively an SLM (Small Language Model) integrated within the NVIDIA App. This new feature is designed to change how gamers interact with their PCs. Some of the uses NVIDIA showcased allowed adjustments to the GPU in real-time and in-game settings adjustment, all by talking to your PC through text or audio.

A year later, Project G-Assist still works in a similar fashion and, according to NVIDIA, it will provide gamers with real-time diagnostics and recommendations to help with system bottlenecks, improve power efficiency, optimize game settings, overclock your GPUs, and a lot more.

[Technical Note] NVIDIA's Project G-Assist is based on a Llama-based instruct model with 8 billion parameters, so it's a very lightweight Language Model. It is designed to run locally and requires no cloud hosting or paid subscription as it will be available for free to anyone running the NVIDIA App.

Given that gamers and enthusiasts are interested in charting out their in-game performance. G-Assist can help users by reading the in-game metrics when called and exporting these in a nice little chart, making it easier for PC owners to understand how well their PC is performing. Say a game is not performing as intended.

You can ask G-Assist to provide a list of in-game settings that will be better for you based on your PC specs and if you want to gain that extra bit of performance out of your PC, G-Assist can also provide overclocking and undervolting assistance.

Now, most of these things can be done manually, but with G-Assist, these NVIDIA and third-party PC APIs are ready to use at the click of a button, rather than having to look them up on search engines or forums or run other apps. The G-Assist menu can be brought up by pressing Alt+G and from there, you can either write down a prompt or simply talk and input the prompt using audio.

NVIDIA is providing us with a useful list of prompts that can be used within G-Assist. Do note that, since this is an SLM that is designed to run locally (offline), it is not intended for broad conversations but as it gets further tuned, more prompts and features will become available to gamers:

NVIDIA Project G-Assist Prompt Examples:

Function	Description	Example Prompt
GeForce Knowledge	Answers basic questions on NVIDIA/GeForce tech (DLSS, Re ex, G-SYNC, etc.)	"How does DLSS Frame Generation work?"
Optimize Graphics	Applies balanced/recommended settings based on user hardware. May require the game to be closed or restarted for changes to take e etc.	“Optimize my graphics for Cyberpunk 2077.”
Preference-Based Optimization	Adjusts settings for performance, image quality, or a balance between both. May require the game to be closed or restarted for changes to take effect etc.	“Optimize Rust for higher performance over quality.”
Launch Game	Launches games recognized by NVIDIA App	“Launch The Finals.”
GPU Overclocking (Manual)	Overclocks the GPU core by a specified MHz in 15MHz increments, up to 60MHz	“Overclock my GPU by 60 MHz.”
Save ShadowPlay Clip	Saves the last few seconds/minutes of gameplay as a clip	“Save a shadowplay clip"
Start/Stop Recording	Starts or stops manual gameplay recording	“Start recording my gameplay.”
Show/Hide Performance Overlay	Toggles NVIDIA App’s performance overlay	“Hide the performance overlay.”
Driver Update	Checks for and downloads the latest GPU driver, if available.	“Update my GeForce driver”
Latest Driver Check	Reports whether drivers are up to date	“Am I running the latest GPU driver?”
Peripheral/Room Lighting (See Plugin System Requirements Below)	Sets basic lighting for supported devices	“Set my keyboard lights to green.” “Set my room lights to yellow”
Set Fan Profile (See Plugin System Requirements Below)	Adjust system fan speeds on supported devices to Balanced, Performance, or Silent profiles	“Set my fans to silent mode”
CPU Utilization %	Reports overall CPU usage, averaged in the last 60s	“What’s my CPU utilization?”
GPU Utilization %	Reports overall GPU usage, averaged in the last 60s	“What’s my GPU utilization?”
GPU Clock Speed	Reports GPU core clock, averaged in the last 60s	“What’s my GPU clock speed right now?”
GPU Power Usage	Shows how many watts the GPU is drawing, averaged in the last 60s	“How much power is my GPU using?”
Average FPS	Reports average framerate. Requires a running game.	“What’s my average FPS in this game?”
Average PC Latency	Reports measured PC Latency. Requires a running game that supports PC Latency markers.	“What’s my PC latency?”
Performance per Watt	Reports performance-to-power ratio (FPS/W). Requires a running game.	“What is my performance per watt?”
Overclock Revert	Reverts any previously applied GPU overclock	“Remove my GPU overclock”
Framerate Analyzer	Suggests ways to increase FPS or identifies bottlenecks. Requires a running game.	“Analyze my performance”
Responsiveness Analyzer	Suggests ways to reduce input lag or system latency. Requires a running game.	“Analyze my responsiveness”
Power Analyzer	Helps improve power efficiency. Requires a running game.	“Analyze my power consumption”
Set Refresh Rate	Changes refresh rate (step up/down, max, or specific)	“Set my monitor to 144Hz.”
Current Refresh Rate	Reports the display’s current refresh rate	“What’s my current refresh rate?”
Refresh Rate Max	Reports the monitor’s max supported refresh rate	“What’s the highest refresh rate my monitor supports?”
Detect FRL	Checks if a frame rate limiter is active	“Is there a frame rate limit right now?”
Set FRL	Applies a new frame rate cap. Requires a running game.	“Set a Frame Rate Limit to 100.”
FRL Revert	Disables a previously set frame rate limit	“Turn off my frame rate limiter.”
Power Efficiency Mode	Seeks to maximize power efficiency while maintaining a minimum of 60FPS. Requires a running game.	“Set my GPU to power efficiency mode”
Revert Power Efficiency Mode	Reverts previous power-efficiency changes	“Undo my power efficiency settings.”
Graphing – 2-variable	Plots two metrics of choice over time	“Graph my CPU and GPU usage”
Graphing – CPU Utilization	Plots CPU usage over time	“Graph my CPU usage”
Graphing – GPU Utilization	Plots GPU usage over time	“Graph my GPU utilization”
Graphing – GPU Clock Speed	Plots GPU clock frequency over time	“Plot my GPU clock speed”
Graphing – GPU Power	Plots GPU wattage usage over time	“Show me a power usage graph”
Graphing – Average FPS	Plots FPS over time. Requires a running game.	“Graph my frame rate”
Graphing – 1%L	Plots 1% Low frame rate over time. Requires a running game.	“Graph my 1% Low FPS”
Graphing – PCL	Plots PC latency over a speci ed time window. Requires a running game.	“Plot my latency”
Graphing – PPW	Plots performance per watt over time. Requires a running game.	“Graph my performance per watt”
Graphing – GPU Fan Speed	Plots GPU fan RPM over time	“Show me a graph of my GPU fan speed”
Set Specified Display Resolution	Changes display resolution to a specific dimension	“Set my display resolution to 1080p.”
Set Resolution to Max	Switches to the monitor’s maximum available resolution	“Go to the maximum resolution.”
GPU Temperature	Reports GPU temperature	“What’s my GPU temperature right now?”
GPU Operating Voltage	Reports GPU voltage	“How many volts is my GPU drawing?”
1%L	Reports 1% Low FPS. Requires a running game	“What’s my 1% low frame rate right now?”
Check Undervolt State	Checks if GPU is undervolted	“Is my GPU undervolted ?”
Stutter Analyzer	Suggests ways to reduce stuttering. Requires a running game	“Help me analyze stutter”
GPU Model Info	Identifies the installed GPU model	“Which GPU am I using?”
GPU Driver Version Info	Reports which driver version is currently in use	“Which NVIDIA driver do I have installed?”
GPU Total VRAM Info	Reports total VRAM on the GPU	“How much VRAM does my GPU have?”
Monitor Model Info	Identifies the connected display model	“What model is my monitor?”
Current Display Resolution	Reports the monitor’s active resolution	“What resolution am I running now?”
Display Resolution Max	States the highest resolution supported by the monitor	“What’s my monitor’s max resolution?”
Detect G-SYNC	Checks if G-SYNC is enabled or off	“Is G-SYNC enabled?”

Open For ISVs & Community To Expand G-Assist's Functionality

NVIDIA's Project G-Assist is built using NVIDIA's ACE & NIM Microservices. As such, it is fully open to ISV's and the community for further expansion, who can extend the capabilities of the AI suite with new plugins by defining functions through simple JSON code. Developers are also open to submitting plugins directly to NVIDIA for review for potential inclusion so that they become available to a wider list of audiences.

Currently available sample plugins include Spotify, to enable hands-free music and volume control, and Google Gemini, allowing G-Assist to invoke a much larger cloud-based AI for more complex conversations, brainstorming, or web searches using a free Google AI Studio API key. In the clip below, you’ll see G-Assist ask Gemini about which Legend to pick in Apex Legends when solo queueing and whether it’s wise to jump into Nightmare mode at level 25 in Diablo IV.

NVIDIA has published instructions within its GitHub repository, allowing ISV's, developers, and users to generate G-Assist plugins using a ChatGPT-styled "Plugin Builder". You can access the repository here.

Performance Impact & What Do You Need To Run G-Assist

Since G-Assist is designed to run locally on RTX hardware such as GPUs, it will have a small impact on performance. The GPU will allocate a small amount of its horsepower, mainly to power the AI inference, so if you're running a certain app or game, using G-Assist will result in a performance dip for a short duration (a few seconds at most).

In terms of support, the NVIDIA Project G-Assist feature will be available on GeForce RTX 30, 40 & 50 series GPUs with VRAM of more than 12 GB. It is supported in both Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems and has nominal CPU requirements. You will need 6.5 GB of space for the system assistant while voice commands will be another 3 GB. As for the driver version, G-Assist will work only with GeForce 572.83 or higher GRD. At launch, it will only support the English language.

For now, NVIDIA's Project G-Assist will only be available with Desktop CPUs, but support for GeForce RTX Laptops is also coming in a future update.