Steam has released a new in-game monitor to help players understand the causes of bad PC game performance.
In a blog post, developer Valve explained that the new performance overlay will show you framerate values, similar to the old FPS counter, “but it can also break out generated frames from DLSS or FSR vs actual game framerate.” That’s great timing given the new Steam Summer Sale is live.
“It can show you min/max single frame values and a graph of framerate over time,” Valve continued. “Additionally, it will show you CPU performance information, GPU performance information, and system memory usage information. These pieces of data can be useful to understand the causes of bad game performance whether that be a slow CPU, GPU, or too high graphics settings that are over-subscribing your video or system RAM.”
Here’s a screenshot showing all four current options, although note you can only have one of these displaying at any one time — we’ve compiled them here to make it easier to see what the different settings — FPS Single Value, FPS Details, FPS Details, CPU & GPU Utilization, and FPS, CPU & Ram Full Details — offer:
To enable the new overlay or adjust its size or position, head to Settings->In Game and find the new Performance Overlay section.
Valve said this is “a first step” towards helping Steam users more easily understand their game and system performance, and we can expect additional pieces of data to be added to the overlay going forward.
Steam, the most popular digital game distributor for PC players, once again broke its own concurrent user record, breaching 40 million players for the first time in March 2025.
Steam has since broken that record again logging 41,239,880 simultaneous players, breaking its previous record of 40.2 million players set the weekend before.
And while that number includes idle players — that is, players with Steam open but not necessarily using it — the number of users actively in a game has hit a new record, too, jumping to 13.2 million players.
Valve recently dismissed reports its Steam platform suffered a “major” data hack, confirming there was “NOT a breach” of Steam systems. Given the prolific rise in data breaches and the fact that over 89 million of us have a Steam account, users had good reason to be worried about a possible security compromise.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
