Why Some Heavy AAA Titles Behave Better with Custom Per-Game Settings (RTX 5090 Edition)

Even with a sensible global NVIDIA profile, there are always a few big-name games that just… don’t behave.

You know the type:

• Stuttery launch PC ports
• Huge open worlds taking ages to compile shaders
• Over-the-top ray tracing that looks great but murders frametimes at 4K
• Games that ship with half-baked V-Sync / frame limiter options

On an RTX 5090 driving 4K, these “problem children” can still hitch, spike and feel weird – even though the card is technically powerful enough.

That’s where per-game NVIDIA Control Panel profiles become your secret weapon. Instead of trying to make one global setting work for everything, you give particularly demanding AAA titles their own rules.

On rtx50series.co.uk, this article should sit right after your global profile guide and just before game-specific tuning.

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1. What Do We Mean by “Heavy AAA Titles”?

We’re not just talking about any new release. The games that really benefit from custom per-game settings usually fit one or more of these patterns:

• Ray-traced / path-traced showcases
  Big RT GI, RT reflections, RT shadows at 4K – even a 5090 can be pushed hard.
• “Cinematic” engines with heavy post-processing
  Volumetrics, depth of field, motion blur, film grain – all stacked together.
• Large open worlds with streaming & shader compilation issues
  Think busy city hubs, sprawling maps and lots of asset streaming from SSD.
• Poorly optimised PC ports
  Where the engine struggles to maintain consistent frametimes even on top-tier GPUs.

Recent coverage around Borderlands 4 is a good example: reviewers and players reported persistent stutter and found that increasing the NVIDIA shader cache size to 100 GB helped smooth things out on high-end hardware, including RTX 50-series class GPUs.

Those are the kinds of games where a per-game profile can be the difference between “looks incredible but feels awful” and “properly smooth 4K”.

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2. When a Per-Game Profile Is Worth the Effort

You don’t need per-game tweaks for every title. A per-game profile is worth creating when you see any of the following:

• The game ignores or fights your global sync setup
  • e.g. in-game V-Sync always turns on, or the limiter is inconsistent.
• VRR feels unstable
  • Flicker, sudden brightness shifts, or obvious judder when frame rate bumps near the top of the VRR range.
• You hit a very specific frame-time problem
  • Stutters only in certain scenes, or only with certain RT settings, even though average FPS looks fine.
• The game has its own NVIDIA Reflex option
  • You want to build per-game rules that respect Reflex and don’t clash with driver Low Latency Mode.
• It’s a notorious “problem port”
  • Community and press reports of shader stutter, VRAM spikes or inconsistent behaviour at 4K – like the Borderlands 4 cache issue.

For everything else, your global profile can usually carry you.

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3. How Per-Game Profiles Interact with Your Global Profile

In Manage 3D settings → Program settings, NVIDIA lets you:

1. Pick a game’s .exe
2. Override specific global settings just for that title

Anything you leave on “Use global setting” simply inherits your baseline.

So the philosophy for RTX 5090 tuning is:

Global profile = safe, good default.
Per-game profile = override only what this game genuinely needs.

Avoid the temptation to clone your entire global profile into every single game. That just makes troubleshooting harder later.

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4. Key NVIDIA Settings That Often Need Per-Game Overrides

4.1 Max Frame Rate – controlling wild FPS swings

Setting:
Max Frame Rate → custom limit for that game

NVIDIA’s own documentation calls Max Frame Rate “particularly helpful” for staying within a VRR range and for reducing power and latency spikes.

For heavy AAA 4K titles, it’s ideal per-game because:

• Different games have different “sweet spots”
  • A cinematic RT showcase might feel best at 70–80 FPS.
  • A lighter engine might hold a clean 100–120 FPS at 4K on a 5090.
• You can stabilise frametimes
  • Capping stops the GPU from bouncing between 80–140 FPS depending on whether you’re in a corridor or an open city.
• You can stay inside VRR comfortably
  • Pairing G-Sync / FreeSync with a per-game cap a few FPS below refresh is a widely recommended pattern for smooth VRR.

Example pattern for a 4K 120 Hz display:

• Cinematic RT-heavy game: cap at 75–90 FPS in the per-game profile.
• Mainstream AAA: cap at 117–118 FPS to sit just under 120 Hz.
• Competitive AAA: either cap at 117–118 FPS or manage via in-game limiter.

You can use either the driver’s Max Frame Rate or a good in-engine limiter; just avoid stacking multiple caps.

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4.2 V-Sync behaviour – let each problem game pick its rules

Your global profile might use:

• V-Sync: On + G-Sync, with games’ V-Sync left Off

But some AAA titles:

• Refuse to behave nicely unless you set “Use the 3D application setting” for V-Sync in their per-game profile
• Have excellent built-in pacing with their own V-Sync and limiter, in which case driver V-Sync can get in the way

For a game where you see odd judder, double images, or UI “stickiness” when you pan:

1. In Program settings, set Vertical sync → Use the 3D application setting.
2. Control V-Sync inside the game’s menu and test again.

If that fixes it, leave that game on app-controlled V-Sync and keep your global pattern for everything else.

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4.3 Low Latency Mode vs in-game Reflex

A lot of modern AAA titles now ship with NVIDIA Reflex options (On / On + Boost). Reflex manages latency inside the game engine, and external guides plus NVIDIA’s own docs make clear it takes priority over Control Panel Low Latency Mode.

So per-game, you usually want:

• If the game has NVIDIA Reflex:
  • Turn Reflex On (or On + Boost for competitive modes).
  • Leave driver Low Latency Mode = On or even Off; don’t bother with Ultra.
• If the game has no Reflex and is GPU-bound:
  • In its per-game profile, try Low Latency Mode = Ultra.
  • Test for stability and frametime smoothness – if it introduces hitching, drop back to On.

Tech sites and community testing generally agree: Ultra can shave some latency when GPU-bound but isn’t universally stable, while Reflex in-engine is a better solution when available.

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4.4 Shader Cache Size – for stuttery, shader-heavy games

By default, NVIDIA uses a managed shader cache on disk to avoid recompiling the same shaders every time you play, which reduces stutter.

However, recent examples like Borderlands 4 show cases where:

• The default cache size is too small for a particular game’s massive shader set.
• Manually increasing Shader Cache Size in NVIDIA Control Panel to a large value (e.g. 100 GB) significantly reduced stutter at 4K on high-end RTX GPUs.

For most games, you can leave Shader Cache at the default global value, occasionally clearing it if you suspect corruption. For one or two stutter-plagued AAA titles, though, it’s worth:

• Creating a per-game profile
• Raising Shader Cache Size
• Restarting the game and letting it rebuild

This isn’t a magic bullet for everything, but for certain engines it can be transformational.

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4.5 Power Management Mode – “Prefer maximum performance” only where needed

If your global profile uses Optimal power to keep desktop power and noise down, you can still:

• Set Power management mode → Prefer maximum performance for particularly heavy AAA games only.

This ensures the 5090 doesn’t keep dropping clocks in menus or loading screens and then surging confusedly when you move back into gameplay – something that can cause subtle frametime spikes.

Use this per-game for:

• Heavy RT titles
• Games with very spiky load patterns (big cutscenes, large hubs, etc.)

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4.6 Texture filtering overrides and AA – for older or quirky engines

Most modern AAA games have good in-engine AF and AA, so you leave:

• Anisotropic filtering: Application-controlled
• Antialiasing – Mode: Application-controlled

But some older or weirdly-tuned titles:

• Don’t offer high anisotropic filtering in game
• Have broken MSAA options

For those, a per-game profile can:

• Force Anisotropic filtering = 16x
• Set Texture filtering – Quality = High quality

Just don’t do this globally; it’s overkill for modern engines and occasionally conflicts with their AA/AF pipelines.

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5. Example Per-Game Profiles for Different AAA Scenarios

5.1 Cinematic RT-heavy single-player

Think path-traced showcase or ultra RT mode:

• Global settings as per your baseline.
• Per-game Overrides:
  • Max Frame Rate: 75–90 FPS
  • Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
  • Low Latency Mode: On (Ultra usually unnecessary here)
  • V-Sync: Use global setting (G-Sync + driver V-Sync On)
  • Shader Cache Size: consider increasing if you see repeated shader stutter

Result:
Gorgeous 4K visuals with capped, very stable frametimes, and a card that isn’t thrashing itself to death chasing benchmark numbers.

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5.2 Poorly optimised PC port with stutter

For a port with known issues (Borderlands-style example):

• Per-game Overrides:
  • Shader Cache Size: Large (e.g. 50–100 GB), then fully restart the game
  • Max Frame Rate: tight cap inside your VRR range (e.g. 70–80 FPS)
  • Power management: Prefer maximum performance
  • Consider Low Latency Mode = On only; focus on stability over raw reaction time

Result:
You can’t fix the engine, but you can soften the worst spikes and tame shader stutter, especially on a fast NVMe SSD.

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5.3 Competitive AAA shooter with Reflex

For something like a big-name shooter with Reflex integration:

• In-game:
  • NVIDIA Reflex: On + Boost (if you want the snappiest feel)
  • Use in-game FPS limiter close to monitor refresh (e.g. 140–141 FPS on 144 Hz)
• Per-game Overrides:
  • Low Latency Mode: On or Off (Reflex does the real work)
  • V-Sync: Use the 3D application setting if you want the game to control it, or Off if you prefer pure VRR
  • Power management: Prefer maximum performance

Result:
Fast, consistent latency with very little queueing, and a clear hierarchy: Reflex and the engine are in charge, driver just stays out of the way.

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6. A Simple Workflow for Creating a Per-Game Profile

1. Identify the problem game
   • Stutter, weird V-Sync behaviour, or unstable FPS at 4K.
2. Start from your global profile
   • Confirm game runs okay with pure global settings first.
3. Create a Program setting entry
   • NVIDIA Control Panel → Manage 3D settings → Program settings
   • Add the game’s .exe from its install folder.
4. Change only 1–2 settings at a time
   • e.g. add a Max Frame Rate cap first and retest.
   • Then adjust V-Sync mode or Low Latency if needed.
5. Use a repeatable test scene
   • Busy city hub, driving sequence, or the game’s built-in benchmark.
6. Keep notes
   • Save a brief note (even in a Notion/Google Doc) of what helped which game – perfect content fodder for future “Best settings for X on RTX 5090” articles on your site.

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7. Mistakes to Avoid with Per-Game Profiles

• Overriding everything “just because”
  • Only touch settings that need changing; inherited global rules are fine.
• Double V-Sync / double FPS caps
  • Don’t use driver V-Sync + in-game V-Sync + TV smoothing + external cap all at once.
• Stacking scaling methods
  • Don’t combine DSR/Image Scaling in the driver with DLSS/FSR/XeSS in-game unless you know exactly what you’re doing.
• Forgetting that Reflex overrides things
  • If the game has Reflex, treat Control Panel Low Latency Mode as secondary.