How to Disable NVIDIA Overlay in GeForce Experience?

NVIDIA GeForce Experience is a boon for all gamers out there. It comes with plenty of on-screen icons and overlay options that allow you to record and stream your gameplay to online platforms such as Twitch, YouTube, etc. But, for a lot of gamers who don’t vlog their gaming experience, these icons can be very annoying. 

Note that the NVIDIA Overlay icons are optional and you can choose to disable them. In this article, we’ll tell you how to disable NVIDIA Overlay in GeForce Experience. Keep reading!

Note: The Overlay features cannot be disabled for a single game. These will be disabled for all your games if you choose to disable them.

What Are The NVIDIA Overlay Icons And Notification For?

The overlay icons come up on your screen when the NVIDIA GeForce Experience share feature is working to record your gameplay. This feature’s default setting is to always record your gameplay as per the Instant Replay feature. 

The Instant Replay feature is responsible for automatically saving the last 5 minutes of your gameplay in a buffer. Now, you have the option to increase or decrease the number of minutes it saves. 

This feature is very beneficial when it comes to capturing your cool moves and victories. For example, when something cool occurs, simply open the overlay and click on Instant Replay > Save. But, if you don’t manually save the gameplay, nothing will get saved to your hard disk and the temporary clips will get discarded.

How To Disable GeForce Experience?

Users have been complaining that the GeForce Experience becomes active as soon as you turn on the computer. You can prevent this by disabling it from the Task Manager. Follow the steps given below to do so:

1. Right-click on the Taskbar and open the Task Manager.
2. Select the Startup tab
3. Keep scrolling till you find “NVIDIA GeForce Experience.” Highlight it and click on “Disable” from the bottom-right corner.

4. Restart the computer so that the changes take effect.

How To Uninstall GeForce Experience

You can also choose to uninstall the GeForce experience but it shouldn’t be your display driver. If you uninstall your display driver, your screen will get wiped out.

There are a couple of ways to uninstall the GeForce Experience. Let’s discuss the first one:

1. Open the Start menu and type in “Add or remove programs” in the search box.
2. Click on the search result and launch the program.
3. Keep scrolling till you find the NVIDIA GeForce Experience followed by its version number. Click on it and choose “Uninstall.”

4. Follow the on-screen instructions of the uninstall wizard to finish uninstalling the GeForce Experience.

Second method:

1. Click on the Windows icon from the system tray to open the Start menu.
2. Click on the Settings icon > System > Apps & Features
3. Look for “NVIDIA GeForce Experience” and then click on uninstall
4. Follow the on-screen instructions of the uninstall wizard.

Third method:

1. Navigate to My Computer
2. Find out the original location of your NVIDIA GeForce Experience files. It could be located either in Drive C or in Drive D.
3. Now, delete the complete GeForce Experience folder. 
4. Next, go to the official website of NVIDIA.
5. Download the latest version of NVIDIA and install it.
6. The newest version of NVIDIA should come with a proper uninstaller to replace the faulty one.

Disable NVIDIA Overlay Share Settings

The Share feature of NVIDIA allows you to stream, record, broadcast, or even take screenshots of your game. 

1. Right-click on the NVIDIA icon located on your system tray. Click on NVIDIA GeForce Experience
2. Log into your account
3. Click on the Settings icon (gear-shaped icon) located on the top-right corner.

4. From the General tab, toggle the SHARE settings off. 

Note: In some editions of NVIDIA, the SHARE settings is named as in-game overlay.

How To Hide/Disable The Overlay Icons?

Many gamers have reported having noticed the frame-rate drop when the NVIDIA overlay icons are active. So, if you want all the speed and precision your processor can provide, you need to disable the overlay icons of NVIDIA:

1. Share Overlay
2. Instant Replay
3. Status Overlay

Let’s check out how you can disable these overlay icons:

1. Disable NVIDIA Share Overlay (To Remove Alt+Z Message)

If you have an NVIDIA graphics card installed in your system, you must be getting the notification “Press Alt+Z to share your gameplay” every time you start a video game. Many users find it annoying and wish to get rid of it. You can turn it off within NVIDIA’s share overlay. Follow the steps given below to know how to do the same:

2. Launch the GeForce Experience app by pressing the keyboard shortcut: Alt + Z. Click on the Share icon (triangle shaped) located towards the left of the Settings icon (gear-shaped). 
3. Once the app opens, click on the Preferences icon
4. Next, click on Notifications
5. From the General section, turn off the toggle for the Open/close share overlay

2. Disable NVIDIA Instant Replay

1. Open the NVIDIA GeForce Experience by pressing the Alt+Z key.

2. In the GeForce Experience app, click on the Share icon from the top.

3. Click on Instant Replay
4. A pop-up will come up, select Turn Off from there.

5. A notification will show up informing you that the Instant Replay has been turned off.

3. Disable NVIDIA Status Overlay

1. From the Preferences screen, click on Overlays
2. Under the Position section, click on Off.
3. Now, you can also change the position to top-left, top-right, bottom-left, and bottom-right.

Alternative Way To Turn Off NVIDIA Overlay

This method achieves the same result as the prior one but, you need to execute some extra steps. If the first method doesn’t work, you can resort to this one. Here are the steps you need to follow to turn off the NVIDIA overlay feature:

1. Click on the “Start” menu and type in “services.msc” in the search box.
2. When the program opens up, look for NVIDIA Display Container LS. Right-click on it once you find it and click on “Properties.”
3. From the “Startup Type,” click on “Disabled.”
4. Click on “Apply” and then on “OK” to apply the changes you made.
5. Restart the system and the changes shall take effect.

Disable Overlay While Keeping Instant Replay On

The instant replay overlay allows you to record clips of your gameplay and share them with friends. However, everybody doesn’t like the overlay pop-up that comes when you save a clip. 

You can disable the overlay feature without having to turn off the instant replay feature. Here’s how you can do that:

1. Press the Alt + Z key to open the GeForce Experience app.
2. Click on the Preferences icon
3. Select the option that says Overlays
4. Click on the Status Indicator button and then, select the Off option

Now, you will be able to play games on your computer without having to tolerate the annoying overlay icons. Besides, you won’t have to compromise with the Instant Replay feature. So, the NVIDIA overlay icons from the bottom-right of your game screen will go away instantly even if the Instant Replay is kept on.

Note: Usually, applications with overlays will enable them automatically every time they are upgraded. So, if you want to keep the overlays disabled after manually disabling them, avoid updating the software. However, if you must update the program or some part of it like graphics, voice chat, and so on, don’t forget to disable the overlays after the update.

Final Words

The above guide tells you various ways to disable the NVIDIA overlay. We have tried to make it as comprehensive as possible. We hope the instructions were helpful and easy to understand. Gaming is amazing when you can simply play the game without the disturbance of any unnecessary icons. Hopefully, you have been able to successfully disable the NVIDIA overlay and enjoy the game to the fullest.