Steam beta adds in-game overlay for CPU, GPU usage, RAM, temperature

Topher

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Valve has announced that it is improving Steam's game overlay with new features. You can use it to check your PCs RAM, CPU, GPU usage along with the temperatures.

Prior to this, Steam only displayed the frame rates per second (FPS) which you could bring up with the shift + tab hotkey. Now you can get additional information from the same tool.

These counters aren't completely new. This is literally the Performance Overlay which has existed on Steam Deck for years. But still, it is good to have it for computers now. Windows has Game Bar, but it's kind of buggy. Linux has MangoHud, which is pretty cool. There's also MSI Afterburner. Steam's overlay feels lighter than the rest.

The In-game overlay will help you understand how a game's performance is, whether your PC is running hot, using too much RAM, etc., and also help you find whether your CPU or GPU might be your bottleneck in modern games.

steam-overlay.jpg


To test the feature, open the Steam client on your computer, and head to Interface. Select Steam Beta. The client will restart, and install the update. Open Steam's settings > In Game and scroll down to manage the Performance Monitor Settings. The first drop-down menu lets you choose from the following options:

  • FPS Single Value (just the FPS counter)
  • FPS Detail and Graph
  • FPS Detail, CPU and GPU Utilization
  • FPS Detail & Graph, CPU, GPU & RAM details.
Steam-beta-settings-overlay-2.jpg


Select an option that you like, and start playing a game. You should see the performance metrics at the top of the screen, they are pretty useful. Steam's Settings also has sliders to adjust the overlay's position on the screen, text contrast and saturation, as well as the opacity of the overlay.

Steam-performance-overlay-in-game.jpg


The overlay displays additional details like current FPS, minimum and maximum fps (indicated by the up/down arrows), a separate counter for DLSS/FSR Frame Generation, CPU Processor Utility numbers (including the boosted %), GPU load, Temperature, and RAM usage. You can read more about it here.

Steam-beta-settings-overlay.jpg


Note: If you're facing any issues with the beta version, just follow the same steps to opt-out of the program and go back to the stable channel.

Valve says that the full set of performance counters are initially available on Windows, but most of it will apply to other operating systems. It is also working on supporting more operating systems. The latest Steam update also improves detection of FlyDigi Vader series controllers, and Remote Play's audio resilience to variable network conditions.

Steam has announced some superb updates recently, SteamOS is now available for non-Steam Deck devices, there are some new accessibility tags for games. Steam beta for Linux now comes with Proton enabled by default. Steam for macOS is a native app now, in beta. It's nice to see positive advancements in the gaming world when a lot of the news is bad like, consoles are more expensive, games now cost $80 or more, etc.




Bob Odenkirk GIF by The Office
 
that's essentially a feature brought over from fhe Steam Deck.

I didn't actually know that steam didn't have this on PC yet tbh.
on PC I use the Nvidia overlay for that
 
that's essentially a feature brought over from fhe Steam Deck.

I didn't actually know that steam didn't have this on PC yet tbh.
on PC I use the Nvidia overlay for that

Yeah, exact same thing used in SteamOS. I used MSI afterburner, but this is a welcome addition.
 
that's essentially a feature brought over from fhe Steam Deck.

I didn't actually know that steam didn't have this on PC yet tbh.
on PC I use the Nvidia overlay for that
Up till now it had a frame counter, but not much else.
 
Would be nice to have it built into the overlay and not need third party programs.

Also, and quite rarely, Afterburner / Rivatuner can cause some issues with games. I think Lords of the Fallen has a pop up saying you should close the program completely before starting the game (seen similar pop ups elsewhere too)
 
Would be nice to have it built into the overlay and not need third party programs.

Also, and quite rarely, Afterburner / Rivatuner can cause some issues with games. I think Lords of the Fallen has a pop up saying you should close the program completely before starting the game (seen similar pop ups elsewhere too)
Quest 3 doesn't like having RTSS open.

With any luck launching a non Steam game through Steam would be nice to show stats from Epic GOG. Good luck with PC Gamepass.
 
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Bye bye afterburner and riva tuner statistics?
For the overlay part, maybe, but RTSS is also really good to cap framerate and fix frame times.
There are so many games that felt stuttery with the ingame framerate cap on many games, but locking the framerate with RTSS give me a very steady frame pacing, so it's still really useful for this.
 
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I still use afterburner for the custom GPU fan curve and I spent what felt like an age setting up it's custom overlay to my liking, but this is welcome news nonetheless
 
Gaben you coward, fuck this feature since I don't use it. GIVE ME THE CHOICE TO EDIT MY LIBRARY. WTF MAN. I HATE SEEING MY GAMES IN CAPS.
 
Gaben you coward, fuck this feature since I don't use it. GIVE ME THE CHOICE TO EDIT MY LIBRARY. WTF MAN. I HATE SEEING MY GAMES IN CAPS.

I've been wanting this for years, I honestly can't believe it hasn't been implemented yet.

There is a sort of workaround, though: https://steamedit.tg-software.com/

The issue with it is that even with your edits applied, Steam game names will randomly revert to their original after some time. There isn't a way to make the changes permanent (as of yet), so you can try running SteamEdit automatically on startup:
 
I've been wanting this for years, I honestly can't believe it hasn't been implemented yet.

There is a sort of workaround, though: https://steamedit.tg-software.com/

The issue with it is that even with your edits applied, Steam game names will randomly revert to their original after some time. There isn't a way to make the changes permanent (as of yet), so you can try running SteamEdit automatically on startup:


Trust, Ive been using this for years too. But its annoying EVERY SINGLE TIME TO PRESS THE REFRESH BUTTON and to close Steam. For fuck's sake even Gog Galaxy has this feature. The feature is so fucking overdue.
 
I use the built in overlay on Armory Crate on Ally X but this is much better to have it directly from the Steam client, especially when docked and in desktop mode.
 
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I never liked Riva, so im glad this is there.
No CPU temps though which would be good, but yeah, not touching third party crap now.

You can adjust the size now in steam also.
 
Nice, but I just use mangohud anyways on CachyOS.

overlay_example.gif


Might be useful on Windows though - if I will dual boot that is.

MangoHUD is pretty awesome. So much easier to customize than RTSS. How do you like CachyOS? I have Arch on my deskop PC and Windows on a separate drive, but finding myself booting into it less and less.
 
MangoHUD is pretty awesome. So much easier to customize than RTSS. How do you like CachyOS? I have Arch on my deskop PC and Windows on a separate drive, but finding myself booting into it less and less.
Pretty good! I'm not that good yet to do my own Arch from scratch but CachyOS is pretty useful, I've been on RC kernel branch since like April, and even now I get newer and newer kernels pretty fast for my RX 9070XT. Lately new drivers also and new AMD microcode. My 9070XT is properly recognised now by OS instead of vague RX 9070/9070XT. LACT has properly recognised it for a while now but OS only vaguely.

I have customized OS also to my liking like GNOME dash-to-dock, icons, Blur my shell and whatnot.

I also have a separate Mesa drivers compiled with FP8 hack for FSR4 and Proton Bleeding Edge with FP8 hack. I can run FSR4 through OptiScaler now.

And I'm always amazed by pacman manager speed. It's speed is insane compared to other distros and package managers.
 
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Pretty good! I'm not that good yet to do my own Arch from scratch but CachyOS is pretty useful, I've been on RC kernel branch since like April, and even now I get newer and newer kernels pretty fast for my RX 9070XT. Lately new drivers also and new AMD microcode. My 9070XT is properly recognised now by OS instead of vague RX 9070/9070XT. LACT has properly recognised it for a while now but OS only vaguely.

I have customized OS also to my liking like GNOME dash-to-dock, icons, Blur my shell and whatnot.

I also have a separate Mesa drivers compiled with FP8 hack for FSR4 and Proton Bleeding Edge with FP8 hack. I can run FSR4 through OptiScaler now.

And I'm always amazed by pacman manager speed. It's speed is insane compared to other distros and package managers.

Ah man.....is there guide out there that shows you how to do that FP8 hack? I have a 9070 XT myself and I use OptiScaler on the Windows side. I've been curious if it worked on Linux.

You are right about pacman. Really fast. I generally try it first and then AUR.
 
Ah man.....is there guide out there that shows you how to do that FP8 hack? I have a 9070 XT myself and I use OptiScaler on the Windows side. I've been curious if it worked on Linux.

You are right about pacman. Really fast. I generally try it first and then AUR.

Here you go. Guides copied from GitHub I recently shared in PM.

So they are quite easy to quote, even on mobile.

Guides for Fedora/Nobara and Arch distros:


FEDORA (/Nobara)

FSR4

  1. Download the latest AMD driver. I am using this one which has 4.0.1 inside: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/amd-radeon-graphics-drivers/
  2. Extract the FSR4 file from it: 7z e -r amd-software-adrenalin-edition-25.4.1-win10-win11-apr22-rdna.exe amdxcffx64.dll (or replace with other newest driver, I bolded out the important parts)

Mesa

  1. Install all the build dependencies
  2. Download the "hack" mesa branch: wget https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/DadS.../radv-float8-hack3/mesa-radv-float8-hack3.zip
  3. Extract the zip and go in folder: unzip mesa-radv-float8-hack3.zip && cd ./mesa-radv-float8-hack3
  4. Install build dependencies: sudo dnf builddep mesa
  5. Setup build: meson setup build64 --libdir lib64 --prefix $HOME/mesa-fp8
  6. Build/install: ninja -C build64 install

Proton

  1. Download the latest fp8 build: https://github.com/Etaash-mathamsetty/wine-builds/releases/tag/fsr4
  2. Extract it and put it in the folder with the other proton versions: /home/<user>/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d (change the user to your own)

OptiScaler

Game settings

In Steam ensure you have the following set (per game):

  • Compatibility: bleeding-edge-local
  • Launch Options: WINEDLLOVERRIDES=dxgi=n,b VK_DRIVER_FILES=/home/<user>/mesa-fp8/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json %command% (change the user to your own)


Arch/CachyOS (whatever)
Basically download the same things, FSR4 dll extraction amdxcffx64.dll, download the hacked mesa branch. Steps are different with Mesa build and dependencies, and game settings.

Mesa
  1. cd && git clone --recurse-submodules https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/DadSchoorse/mesa.git mesa-fp8 && cd mesa-fp8
  2. git checkout radv-float8-hack3
  3. sudo pacman -S yay rust meson
  4. yay -S cbindgen rust-bindgen libclc python-mako llvm spirv-llvm-translator
  5. meson setup build/ --prefix=/opt/mesa-fp8 -Dbuildtype=release
  6. ninja -C build
  7. sudo ninja -C build install
Game settings:
If using Lutris, just set:
VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/opt/mesa-fp8/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json
In system options / variables for every game

In Steam:
VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/opt/mesa-fp8/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json %command%
In General / Start up option for every game

You have to use proton-bleeding-edge-local in every game

I just have a OptiScaler folder ready with amdxcffx64.dll and some already applied commands in optiscaler ini.

I drop it in games folder and just run the bat file with wine and it works.

In steam while I want to use mangohud besides the hacked mesa branch I use:
VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/opt/mesa-fp8/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json mangohud %command%

If by any small chance Arch won't build Mesa, you can throw in this command and it will:
sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel git clang make rust gtk4 hwdata vulkan-tools ocl-icd

Extract it and put it in the folder with the other proton versions: /home/<user>/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d (change the user to your own)

Something was messed up during copying :> .
 
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Would be nice to have it built into the overlay and not need third party programs.

Also, and quite rarely, Afterburner / Rivatuner can cause some issues with games. I think Lords of the Fallen has a pop up saying you should close the program completely before starting the game (seen similar pop ups elsewhere too)

Maybe that's why i have weird issues with the weapon menu skin selection?
 
Nice to see it's being included with Steam.

I recently switched to AMD and I'm liking their stats display a little more than RTSS. Happy with it for now.
 
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