Nvidia’s impressive AI-based computer tuneup tool G-Assist launches next month but the best bit is missing

Has your PC been slowing down recently and you don’t know why? Well, if you have an Nvidia RTX card, you will be able to use its own AI tuneup tool next month.

Announced in a press release, the software is called G-Assist and it will be coming to the Nvidia App at some point in February. Just make sure you turn off the game filters if you download the Nvidia App, as we saw some performance issues with them turned on last month.

Outside of that, the Nvidia App, which was intended to replace GeForce Experience, is a solid bit of software that allows you to tune up your rig, easily download graphics drivers, and redeem codes for games when you buy new Nvidia gear.

G-Assist uses an on-device Small Language Model (SLM), which would explain why you need an RTX card and also means it can function, in theory, without needing a connection to the internet.

This tool can perform “real-time diagnostics and recommendations to alleviate system bottlenecks, improve power efficiency, optimize game settings, overclock your GPU, and much more.”

As shown off in this short YouTube clip, it can even create graphs of CPU and GPU usage for monitoring purposes and to understand more about your rig. However, it’s not all about graphs and figures and it can be used to explain Nvidia terms like how DLSS Frame Generation works or what specs are in your machine. It can even customize some basic features in Logitech G, Corsair, MSI, and Nanoleaf devices.

We had the chance to try out the app last June and came away pleasantly surprised. You can get the information it sources organically, if you know where to look, but this shines in allowing you to use casual and neutral language.

This could work in tandem with AMD’s Adrenalin AI, which is designed specifically to answer AMD-based questions.

However, perhaps the most interesting part of the demo we tried isn’t actually present in the press release. Labelled the “Knowledge Database”, Nvidia’s G-Assist was used in that demo last year to give advice to a player trying out Ark: Survival Ascended. It analysed what was on screen and gave recommendations to a player wondering how to spend their next skill point.

Razer has just announced its own gaming AI bot called Ava, and this seems to do something very similar, signalling how hard all these gaming companies are pushing to get their specific AI integration on the market.

Nvidia’s gaming AI did not make an appearance in the most recent press release so we don’t know if it’s planned for the future or has been scrapped. Given the wide spread of information needed to give real-time advice in games, it seems very unlikely that version of G-Assist works on-device, and will likely be based on the cloud.

The version of G-Assist launching next month will primarily focus on optimising and finetuning RTX rigs, and it’s one of the few uses of generative AI this CES I’m actually quite looking forward to. Hopefully, it lives up to those expectations.