How to Monitor GPU & CPU Temperature, Usage & FPS On-Screen with RTSS

Monitoring your PC's vital hardware parameters while gaming is essential for tuning settings, detecting thermal throttling, and troubleshooting crashes. Here is the complete guide to setting up an in-game telemetry overlay using RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS).

Prerequisites

To view comprehensive hardware sensors (like GPU temperature, fan speed, CPU package power, and clock speeds), RTSS acts as the rendering hook while an aggregator like MSI Afterburner or HWiNFO feeds the raw sensor values:

• RivaTuner Statistics Server: Download latest RTSS v7.3.7 here.
• Hardware Monitor: MSI Afterburner (recommended for gaming) or HWiNFO64.

Step-by-Step Configuration Guide

1. Open Monitoring Properties: In MSI Afterburner, click the Gear icon (Settings) and navigate to the Monitoring tab.
2. Select Metrics to Track: Click through the active hardware monitoring graphs list. Highly recommended metrics include:
   • GPU Temperature
   • GPU Usage (%)
   • Memory (VRAM) Usage
   • CPU Temperature
   • CPU Usage
   • Framerate & Frametime
3. Enable In OSD: For each metric selected, check the box labeled Show in On-Screen Display at the bottom of the window.
4. Customize Labels: Check Override group name to group items cleanly (e.g. labeling GPU stats as "RTX 4080" or "Radeon RX 7900").
5. Configure RTSS Font & Styling: Open the RTSS window from the system tray:
   • Set On-Screen Display rendering mode to Vector 3D or Raster 3D.
   • Adjust On-Screen Display zoom slider to scale the text to your monitor resolution (1080p, 1440p, or 4K).
   • Drag the corner numbers in the 3D preview box to position the overlay anywhere on your screen.

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