Steamhas released a fresh update that gives players new tools to monitor their system performance while they’re playing games. While the capabilities of the tools are available from other programs and apps, this new update from Valve is completely integrated intoSteam, potentially cutting down on how many programs a player needs to run while gaming.
In late 2024,Steam released an update adding video recordingoptions to both the PC platform and the Steam Deck. While there are plenty of third-party program options for recording gameplay videos, having a built-in option via Steam was generally received well by players. Cutting down on background programs while gaming can help to improve performance, so those users may also appreciate this new update.
Now, Steam has released a new update that adds a performance monitor to the game platform. Steam can directly render the performance monitor over a player’s game, allowing them to keep an eye on their system performance seamlessly. The performance monitor will display information on FPS, including generated frames fromDLSS or FSR, as well as CPU, GPU, and system RAM usage information. Players will be able to adjust the display as well, changing color saturation, text size, and opacity to ensure that the overlay is as visible or unobstructive as a user likes.
How to Use the New Steam Performance Monitor
By default, the new performance monitor in Steam is turned off, so users will need to enable it if they want to use it. To do so, all a player needs to do is go to Steam’s settings, click on the In-Game category on the left-hand menu, scroll down to Overlay Performance Monitor, and then choose a preferred placement for the monitor, like top-left or bottom-right. Players can also set up a toggle key to make the monitor appear or disappear as needed without having to go into thepopular game platform’s settings every time.
Steam adds that it will be continuing to tweak the performance monitor, with plans to add new data that can help users detect bad hardware, and further details when players pull up the full Steam overlay. At launch, the performance monitor is primarily intended for WIndows users with “the most common GPU hardware,” but Steam’s wording seems to indicate that it will be expanded for older and uncommon GPUs andnon-Windows operating systemsin the future. Valve is welcoming feedback on the feature, and thus far, users seem to be quite pleased with the addition.
