Overwatch Gamers Get An Edge With NVIDIA Reflex Latency Reduction, How To Enable It
Competitive multiplayer games are growing in popularity more than ever, and players need every edge they can get over their competition. To help with this, NVIDIA created NVIDIA Reflex, which is a suite of technologies that optimizes gaming experiences to reduce system latency in games. Now, the tech is coming to Overwatch, with players able to take it for a spin on the Public Test Region today.
As NVIDIA explains, Reflex is “a revolutionary suite of GPU, G-SYNC display, and software technologies that measure and reduce system latency in competitive games.” To boil that down, Reflex simply reduces "motion to photo" system latency (your interactions versus the time it takes your screen to update based on them), allowing players to have faster actions and reactions via keyboard and mouse input. This is incredibly important in competitive games and eSports, as being the first to fire a shot or deliver that shot more accurately can be the difference between winning and losing.
While Overwatch will not always come down to the split-second kill, playing to the fullest of your capability certainly would help in any situation. Ultimately, players with Reflex will hopefully be able to “acquire targets faster, react quicker, and increase aim precision simply by enabling NVIDIA Reflex in a game’s settings.” NVIDIA further claims that this may be the best implementation of the software and technology yet, as the company claims that its testing has indicated up to a “whopping 50% reduction in system latency with Reflex enabled.”
If you want to give NVIDIA Reflex a whirl in Overwatch, you can follow these steps from NVIDIA below to jump in today:
Step 1: Restart the Battle.net desktop app.
Step 2: Navigate to the Overwatch tab on the left-hand menu.
Step 3: Select "Public Test Region(PTR)" from the “GAME VERSION” drop-down menu.
Step 4: Click "Install" to begin the installation process.
Step 5: Once the PTR client is installed and updated, click "Play" to begin
Once you have the Overwatch PTR client installed, and have the March 11th update downloaded, open the game, go to Options, Video settings, and enable NVIDIA Reflex. With NVIDIA Reflex activated, gameplay will instantly be more responsive, increasing your chances of victory online.
Overall, NVIDIA Reflex is a pretty impressive technology and bound to help any player up their game in Overwatch, or any other titles that support the tech. Hopefully, Reflex will soon come to Overwatch proper, but for now, it is only available in the Public Test Region that you can try out today. If you do get a chance to try NVIDIA Reflex in Overwatch, let us know what you think of it in the comments below.
