While today's games look better than ever, you're likely not capturing their full potential from screenshots alone. NVIDIA's Ansel technology helps any gamer take professional in-engine captures, rivaling those of game developers themselves. Here's what you need to know about the technology and how to get started.
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What is NVIDIA Ansel?
Ansel is NVIDIA's dedicated application for capturing in-game screenshots, offering direct integration into your PC games for increased flexibility. Only a keyboard shortcut away in supported titles, Ansel integration makes it easy to set up and tweak screenshots without leaving the game. Packing a specialist toolset to help screenshots look great as can be, it's the perfect companion for a digital photographer.
Support for NVIDIA Ansel is baked in by developers, meaning the application hooks directly into the game's engine for improved versatility. When activated, shots can be repositioned and reangled, with all changes rendering in real time. A variety of post-processing effects are available too, allowing for fine tuning of image properties. Other benefits include the ability to output screenshots at a higher resolution than your display and create immersive 360-degree panoramas.
Getting started with NVIDIA Ansel
Before using NVIDIA Ansel, you'll need to check your PC is up to specification. As an NVIDIA technology, the application is only available to a subset of its best graphics card options. Fortunately, supported cards range from high-end desktop solutions to notebook chips, spanning a variety of devices currently on the market. You'll also need to accompany this with the latest Game Ready Driver via GeForce Experience. Below is a complete list of NVIDIA cards with Ansel support:
- GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
- GeForce GTX 1080
- GeForce GTX 1070 Ti
- GeForce GTX 1070
- GeForce GTX 1060
- GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
- GeForce GTX 1050
- GeForce GTX TITAN X
- GeForce GTX 980 Ti
- GeForce GTX 980
- GeForce GTX 980M
- GeForce GTX 970
- GeForce GTX 970M
- GeForce GTX 965M
- GeForce GTX 960
- GeForce GTX 960M
- GeForce GTX 950
- GeForce GTX 950M
- GeForce GTX 880M
- GeForce GTX 870M
- GeForce GTX 860M
- GeForce GTX 850M
- GeForce GTX TITAN Black
- GeForce GTX TITAN
- GeForce GTX 780 Ti
Going forward, we can expect future graphics card releases from NVIDIA to support Ansel at launch.
Using NVIDIA Ansel
If your PC meets the requirements, you'll now be ready to use Ansel on your PC. However, with developers manually adding support for the feature, adoption is limited to a small pool of titles. While the list continues to grow, most blockbuster releases don't offer Ansel integration right now.
Where you buy games also factors into whether Ansel is available, with Microsoft Store titles restricted by limitations of the Windows Universal Platform. Below is a complete list of titles with support for Ansel as of publication:
- Agents of Mayhem
- ARK: Survival Evolved
- ATOM RPG
- Aven Colony
- Bulletstorm Full Clip Edition
- CAT Interstellar
- CHKN
- ClayBook
- Conqueror's Blade (Zhan Yi)
- Conan Exiles
- Dark and Light
- Dishonored 2
- Fade to Silence
- For Honor
- Formula Fusion
- Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
- Kona
- Mass Effect Andromeda
- Middle-earth: Shadow of War
- Mirror's Edge™ Catalyst
- Nioh: Complete Edition
- Obduction®
- Paragon
- PixArk
- Pro Evolution Soccer 2018
- Raiders of the Broken Planet - Prologue
- Snake Pass
- Tekken 7
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- The Witness
- Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands
- Transformers Online
- War Thunder
- Watch_Dogs 2
- WRC 7 FIA World Rally Championship
If your chosen game is among the list of supported titles, you'll now be ready to take advantage of its toolset. At any time while in-game, press "Alt + F2" to automatically pause and open the Ansel control panel. From here, it's your chance to get creative with its offerings.
Over to you
Have you used NVIDIA Ansel on your PC? Make sure to drop into the comments section and share your thoughts on the application.
