RivaTuner is one of the most commonly used tools for overclocking. Overclocking is the practice of increasing a component’s clock rate more than certified by the manufacturer.
The software has a graphical interface that allows users to tweak certain driver-levels, as such, that it has gained fame, especially among gamers. RivaTuner tool is used to improve PC game performance, on-screen monitor system, overclock the graphics card, etc. The freeware program was last updated in 2009.
What Is RivaTuner?
RivaTuner is a freeware software tool programmed to make computing devices run faster than their original configuration. It was initially developed for the NVIDIA video cards. It supports GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) based display adapters of several ATI graphics processors like ATI RADEON 8500, etc. It is compatible with most series of Windows OS, including Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vistas, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10.
Importantly, RivaTuner works with GPUs of all price ranges. Whether your GPU cost $150, $400, or even $500, you can overclock it! The same would applie to both cheap and expensive CPUs, but RivaTuner only focuses on GPU performance.
With RivaTuner, users can tweak the application programming interfaces such as Direct3D and OpenGL. Direct3D is a Windows-based Graphics API that renders 3D graphics in applications and OpenGL is an API rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. Also, it allows users to perform low-level hardware monitoring. RivaTuner works in two modes – tweaking graphics at driver level as well as low level.
The driver-level functioning of RivaTuner includes changing the settings via the registry and reading the information directly from the graphics hardware. In this mode, no changes can be made to any configurations of the device, setting clock frequencies, changing color schemes, etc. In the low-level mode, RivaTuner interacts with the hardware directly and can make any configuration changes to it. As such, the software programs the registry of the graphics processor. Many hardware vendors have integrated RivaTuner to many of the overclocking utilities such as MSI Afterburner, EVGA Precision, and ASUS GPU Tweak.
Features of RivaTuner:
- It supports multi-monitor or multi-display system.
- It supports an LCD panel from gaming keyboard Logitech G15.
- It comes with a built-in registry editor that allows the user to change registry settings on windows.
- The overclocking tool helps devices or computers to gain additional performance by increasing its operating speed.
- RivaTuner’s hardware monitoring module is from GPU and chipsets producing heavyweights Nvidia and ATI technologies.
- Users can control the fan speed by configuring automatic fan control.
- Besides being compatible with the various versions of Windows, RivaTuner also runs smoothly on any DirectX, Vulkan or OpenGL compatible graphics cards. It doesn’t support mobile solutions or mobile graphics solutions.
RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS)
The RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS) initially evolved as companion software to RivaTuner. But its role later shifted to a de-facto framerate monitoring and high-performance video capture service provider for the client applications. RTSS continues to receive updates and many latest APIs and graphics cards. The server makes it easy for APIs like DirectX and OpenGL to collect framerate and frame time statistics. Clients can also use the software as an independent frame rate monitoring solution.
It also provides high-performance real-time screen capturing support for desktop and video capturing support for live games. It supports screen captures in many formats such as BMP, JPG, and PNG. Some of the unique features include custom RTV1 and MJPG video encoding, third party VFW compatible codec based encoding, and multi-source stereo audio capture with push-to-talk support.
Gamers commonly leverage the aforementioned RivaTuner Statistics Server. The software promises smooth functioning of PC games by altering the frame timing equal and thus preventing screen tearing at time of gameplay. This is especially important for GPU-intensive games such as racing simulators, and when using monitors with high refresh rates.
The software permits customization and personalization. Users can choose to design their skins for RivaTuner Statistics Server, customize it with a local language or even display custom text on the screen. Users can execute these extensions using the client application.
Download and Install RivaTuner Statistics Server
RivaTuner is now outdated as the last stable release was in 2009. Therefore, it doesn’t work well with the latest graphics cards. Hence, it is advised to install MSI Afterburner developed by the Guru3D RivaTuner team. RivaTuner Statistics Server can be downloaded directly, or it comes bundled with a variant of MSI Afterburner. Users can check with graphics card manufacturer to see if it permits access to MSI Afterburner variant. EVGAs and video cards have a program called Precision X, which is a rescan of MSI Afterburner and it accompanies with RTSS.
- Download the RivaTuner Statistics server setup from here.
- Click on the link to download the latest full beta version of MSI Afterburner that comes with a stable build of RTSS.
Alternatively, users can download MSI Afterburner directly from the official website of MSI. - Following that, a zip file will download on the computer. Users will get a setup file for MSI Afterburner upon extraction. Install the application using this file.
- Make sure to select the RivaTuner Statistics Server along with MSI Afterburner when prompted to choose the components to install. Without RTSS, the on-screen display feature would not work.
- Follow the same installation process for RTSS.
- Open MSI Afterburner and click on settings. Go to the monitoring tab.
- On the resultant window, users will see many options provided by MSI Afterburner to customize screen display like GPU fan speed, GPU temperature, GPU usage, memory usage, core clock, and other settings. Save these setting in custom group names.
- Save all the settings and click on “OK.” It will open the RivaTuner Statistics Server application.
- By clicking on the Raster 3D tab, a front window will pop up that lets a user change the font settings for the on-screen display. Users can change the color of the text, make it look bigger or smaller, edit the location where the text should locate.
- While playing a game, all those selected settings are visible in the mentioned position, in the same manner.
Following the successful installation of RTSS, it’s time to test it by setting the frame rate limits really low and then try playing the game to verify that it works. After verifying that it works, set it to your monitor’s or TV’s refresh rate.
To add a .exe file of a game to the RTSS server, open RTSS server application, click on the plus(+) sign at the left bottom of the screen, navigate to the location of the .exe file of the game, select the .exe file and click “open.”
It will display parameters given in the RTSS settings on launching the game that a user just configured.
RivaTuner is a powerful and robust overclocking tweaking tool. The MSI Afterburner bundled with RivaTuner makes it the top graphics card utilities of all times.
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Last Updated on June 15, 2021