NVIDIA Profile Inspector 3.0.2.1 Download

NVIDIA Profile Inspector is a free Windows tool that edits the driver profiles of NVIDIA graphics cards, including settings the NVIDIA Control Panel never shows. The developer Orbmu2k makes it, not NVIDIA. Download the release zip, run the exe as administrator, pick your game's profile, change a value and click Apply Changes.

App Information

NVIDIA Profile Inspector 3.0.2.1 is a free 423 KB Windows program by Orbmu2k, released July 5, 2026, with these release details and requirements.

The MIT License (MIT)

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What is NVIDIA Profile Inspector?

Profile Inspector is an open source editor for the driver's profile database, the same store the NVIDIA Control Panel reads. Forum posts often shorten its name to NVPI. The difference is reach: it also lists the hidden and undocumented rows the Control Panel leaves out.

Orbmu2k publishes the program on GitHub under the MIT license. NVIDIA neither makes nor supports it, so a driver bug and a tool bug get reported in different places.

Your driver keeps one profile for each game it knows, plus one global profile for everything else. Click Apply Changes and the tool writes your value into that store. From then on, the driver loads that game's profile every time the game starts.

The README's Highlights list goes past editing values. The tool exports and imports .nip backups and NVIDIA text-format dumps. It restores one setting or one profile to NVIDIA's values; 3.x has no single reset-all button. Where your driver supports them, it shows override rows for DLSS, Ray Reconstruction and Frame Generation, and it ships with UI themes.

The NVIDIA App and Control Panel edit the same driver profiles with fewer rows, as how it compares with the NVIDIA App and Control Panel shows.

Where to download NVIDIA Profile Inspector

The zip this site serves is Orbmu2k's nvidiaProfileInspector.zip, byte for byte, with only the version number added to the file name. The developer's own source is GitHub, where Orbmu2k publishes NVIDIA Profile Inspector on the project's Releases page.

On that GitHub page, take only the zip and ignore the two "Source code" archives under it.

Open a Source code archive by mistake and you get a .csproj project instead of the program, as in issue #183.

The SourceForge mirror that ranks for the tool's name hands out that same source archive, so skip mirror sites. A size check also helps. On November 1, 2026, the 3.0.2.1 zip measured 433,354 bytes and had passed 430,000 downloads on GitHub.

There is no installer. Extract the zip into a folder you can write to, such as one in Documents, and start nvidiaProfileInspector.exe from there. Pick a writable folder, because the backup command saves its file next to the exe.

Windows SmartScreen may warn on first run, because the release is not code-signed and SmartScreen treats files with no established reputation as higher risk.

Latest version, pre-releases and forks

Use 3.0.2.1, the current stable release and the build served here. A higher number on a download site is either an Orbmu2k pre-release or someone else's fork.

Checked against GitHub Releases on November 7, 2026: 3.0.2.1 is still the latest stable release, and 3.0.2.3 is still marked as a pre-release. On November 1, 2026, the newest push to the project's GitHub repository dated from October 13, 2026. Keep a 2.4.0.x build only if your driver is very old. The developer has said such drivers are better served by an older build of the tool.

What changed in the 3.x line

The 3.x line rebuilt the interface and moved update checks inside the program. Release notes from 3.0.1.10 to 3.0.2.1, read on November 1, 2026, name these changes:

• New look with themes and a "compact or spacious" density choice.
• An update check with a Release or Pre-release channel and an in-place updater (3.0.1.12).
• Search by hex ID, the code number each setting has, such as 0x10E41DF3 (3.0.1.13).
• A filter that shows only the settings you have changed (3.0.1.11).
• Import of several .nip files at once, with Merge or Replace.
• A short notice after Apply Changes, plus checks on what you type.
• Better startup when the NVIDIA GPU is disabled or missing.

Two complaints about menus and the search bar in 3.0.2.1, issues #488 and #489, were still open on November 1, 2026.

How to update NVIDIA Profile Inspector

The built-in update check is the simplest way to update, on the Release channel unless a GitHub thread says your fix sits in a pre-release.

Updating by hand works too. Download the new Orbmu2k zip from this page or GitHub Releases, extract it and start the new exe. Your profile changes stay put, because they live in the driver, not in the program folder.

Requirements and .NET Framework 4.8

You need Windows, an NVIDIA card on a supported driver, .NET Framework 4.8 and administrator rights to save. Most current PCs already have the right .NET version. A PC with only AMD or Intel graphics has no NVIDIA profile store to open, so see what AMD and Intel owners can use instead.

Whether .NET needs installing depends on your Windows build, per Microsoft's .NET versions and dependencies page.

The driver sets a tighter limit than .NET. NVIDIA's own listing for Game Ready driver 591.86, from January 2026, names only Windows 10 64-bit and Windows 11. On Windows 7 or 8.1 you are limited to an older driver.

Seeing 4.8.1 instead of 4.8 is fine. Microsoft states that 4.5 and later versions run apps built for earlier versions, so a 4.8 app runs on 4.8.1.

Admin rights are the one requirement people miss. Without them the tool cannot write to the driver's profile store, so Apply Changes does not save.

How to open, close and turn it off

NVIDIA Profile Inspector has no Start menu entry, because nothing gets installed. You open it from the folder you extracted, every time.

For quicker access, right-click the exe and send a shortcut to the desktop. In the shortcut's Properties, open Shortcut, then Advanced, and tick Run as administrator. Every launch from that icon then has the rights it needs to save.

Turning it off means closing the window. No service or tray icon stays behind, and the driver keeps your applied values on its own. To stop a change from working, restore that setting or profile instead of hunting for an off switch.

How to use NVIDIA Profile Inspector

Using Profile Inspector takes five steps: open the exe as administrator, choose the game in the profile box, search for the setting, change its value and click Apply Changes.

Step 1: Open the program as administrator

Right-click nvidiaProfileInspector.exe and choose Run as administrator. The profile box at the top shows which profile you are editing. _GLOBAL_DRIVER_PROFILE (Base Profile) covers every program on the PC.

Step 2: Pick the game in the profile box

Click the profile box and pick your game, or type part of its name and press Enter to jump there. Every row in the settings list now belongs to that game only. When the game has no profile yet, create one first with the Create a new profile button.

Step 3: Find the setting with search

Type part of the setting's name into the search field. In 3.x you can also paste a hex ID, such as 0x10E41DF3 for the DLSS preset row. Star the rows you use often as favorites.

A row that stays out of view is usually filtered by source. Open the filter button next to the search field (tooltip "Filter setting and value sources") and tick more boxes under SETTING SOURCE, such as Driver API or Reference.

Step 4: Change the value

Click the value next to the setting and pick a new one from its list. Rows that pack several on and off flags open in the built-in Bit Editor. To force a DLSS preset in any game, change the DLSS - Forced Preset Letter row, hex ID 0x10E41DF3.

Step 5: Click Apply Changes

Nothing is saved until you click Apply Changes, so closing the window first throws your edit away. Version 3.x confirms a good write with a short notice. Then restart the game, because the driver reads the profile at launch.

Global profile vs game profiles

Make changes on the game's own profile, not on _GLOBAL_DRIVER_PROFILE (Base Profile), which every program shares. The README gives the same advice.

A value that suits one game, driver or GPU generation can do nothing, or cause trouble, somewhere else. Edit one game's profile and only that game feels it. If something breaks, you restore one profile and the rest of your library stays as it was.

How to add a game that is not listed

Create a new profile, then attach the game's exe file to it.

Create a new profile

Click the button with the tooltip "Create a new profile", next to Defaults and Delete, and name it after the game. A new profile starts empty, with no programs attached, and does nothing until the exe is added.

Add the game's exe file

Click "Add a new application to this profile" under the profile box and pick the game's .exe. The driver matches profiles by exe file name, so pick the file that actually runs the game, not its launcher. To undo, remove the exe from the profile.

An NVAPI_EXECUTABLE_ALREADY_IN_USE error means another profile already holds an exe with that name.

How to export and import NVIDIA Profile Inspector backups

Export a .nip file before your first change and after every change you want to keep. Import it later to restore or merge.

Select a profile and open the Export menu. Version 3.x offers five choices, and the right one depends on how much you want back later.

Store the file in a normal folder, such as Documents, and put the date and your driver version in its name.

Driver version matters because a backup does not always import on a different driver. One user hit that in issue #502: profiles exported on an older driver failed to import on driver 620.02. Keep each .nip paired with the driver that made it.

To restore, use Import and pick one or more .nip files. Choose "Merge imported profile(s)" to add your values to what is there, or "Replace imported profile(s)" to swap those profiles out. A text-format export goes back through "Import (replace) all driver profiles", which overwrites the whole database. Double-clicking a .nip file works too. If the program is already open, the running copy receives the file.

Command line options

Scripting a backup before each driver update takes one line. Open a command prompt in the program folder and run nvidiaProfileInspector.exe -exportCustomized to save a dated copy of every profile you changed. The full list sits in the Command Line table of the project README on GitHub.

Checklist before your first change

Six checks before your first change keep every later change easy to undo.

1. You started nvidiaProfileInspector.exe from the release zip, not from a source archive.
2. You ran it as administrator, or nothing will save.
3. You wrote down your NVIDIA driver version, so a backup can be matched to it later.
4. You exported a .nip backup, by hand or with -exportCustomized, and stored it in a normal folder.
5. You picked the game's own profile, not the base profile.
6. You will restart the game after Apply Changes.

Keep the .nip file and the driver note in the same folder.

What NVIDIA Profile Inspector can change

Anything the driver keeps in a game profile is fair game, from DLSS presets and frame caps to Resizable BAR and shader cache size. Find your goal in the table, then search the row name in the tool.

Newer settings files label the 616.56 row rBAR - Enable v2. 3.0.2.1 predates that label, so look for ID 0x000BFA21 rather than a name. Values can change between driver versions, so each linked page carries the date it was last checked. Change one row, restart the game, and judge it before you touch the next. Then you always know which change to roll back. If your goal is not in the table, the setting groups and best starting values list more rows with a value to start from.

NVIDIA Inspector vs NVIDIA Profile Inspector

The old NVIDIA Inspector and Profile Inspector are two separate programs. NVIDIA Inspector was an older all-in-one tool with hardware monitoring and an overclocking pane. Profile Inspector is the profile editor on its own, with no clock, voltage or fan controls.

Profile Inspector cannot overclock or undervolt your card. It changes how the driver handles each game, including the GPU power policy in Power Management - Mode. Clocks and voltage need a separate tool.

Older articles and download sites still show the old overclocking window under the Profile Inspector name. A guide with clock sliders is describing the old program.

FAQ

Conclusion

NVIDIA Profile Inspector is Orbmu2k's free editor for your NVIDIA driver profiles, and it needs no installer. Take the release zip, extract it to a writable folder, run the exe as administrator and export a .nip backup before anything else.

Then change one row on your game's own profile, click Apply Changes and restart the game. When a start or save error appears, match its text with the NVIDIA Profile Inspector error fixes.