Exciting News for PC Gamers: Steam Feature Undergoes Major Upgrade - Understanding Its Enhancements and Applications
Valve, the video game company behind Steam, has announced updates to its built-in performance tracking tool, aiming to provide a more comprehensive and customisable solution for PC gamers. The updates, revealed in a recent news post, include a range of new features designed to offer deeper hardware stats, better graphical overlays, AI-frame distinction, and customisable options.
One of the key additions is the expansion of metrics tracking. The tool will progressively add more detailed hardware and performance metrics, such as CPU and GPU utilisation, clock speeds, temperatures, and memory usage. This will enable gamers to monitor their system's load and diagnose bottlenecks in real-time.
The performance monitor now offers multiple levels of detail, from a single FPS value to comprehensive displays showing FPS, CPU, GPU, and RAM usage. Additionally, it distinguishes between true frames and AI-generated frames, flagging and separating frames generated by upscaling technologies like NVIDIA DLSS Frame Generation and AMD FSR from native rendered frames.
Valve has also added customisation options to the performance tracking tool, allowing users to customise text size, colour saturation, and background opacity in the overlay. Users can also adjust the detail and information displayed by the performance monitor, as well as choose the location on the screen where the monitor appears.
While some features, such as frame rate limiting, remain exclusive to the Steam Deck due to architectural reasons, Valve plans to enhance compatibility on Windows PCs and roll out additional diagnostics over time. Moreover, future updates will see the inclusion of features to detect common bad hardware performance scenarios.
The updated performance tracking tool can show FPS count, frames generated by Super Resolution technologies like DLSS and FSR, min/max frame values, a graph of average FPS over time, and utilisation data for CPU, GPU, graphics card VRAM, and RAM. Users can also set a hotkey for the performance monitor.
To enable the performance tracking tool, users can click the Steam button at the top left of the Steam client, select Settings, and then navigate to the Performance Overlay section in the In Game tab.
In a separate development, Valve has implemented accessibility search filters in Steam, further enhancing the user experience for all gamers. These updates underscore Valve's commitment to continuous improvement and providing a superior gaming experience for its users.
- The updated performance tracking tool in Steam, a gaming software developed by Valve, now includes detailed hardware stats for PC users, such as CPU and GPU utilization, clock speeds, temperatures, and memory usage.
- The tool also offers improved graphical overlays, enabling users to monitor their system's load and diagnose bottlenecks in real-time, thanks to the addition of features like AI-frame distinction.
- Microsoft's Windows 11 users can benefit from the customizable options in the updated tool, as they can adjust text size, color saturation, and background opacity in the overlay, and choose where the performance monitor appears on the screen.
- Valve plans to enhance compatibility on Windows PCs and roll out additional diagnostics over time, with future updates set to include features for detecting common bad hardware performance scenarios.
- Valve has also implemented accessibility search filters in Steam, using technology like Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Teams, to further enhance the user experience for all gamers, demonstrating their commitment to continuous improvement.
- To enable the performance tracking tool, users can navigate to the Performance Overlay section in the In Game tab within the Steam client settings, showing FPS count, frames generated by Super Resolution technologies like DLSS and FSR, min/max frame values, a graph of average FPS over time, and utilization data for CPU, GPU, graphics card VRAM, and RAM.
