Valve has taken a significant step forward with its latest Steam Client Beta, enhancing GPU monitoring capabilities that promise to deliver more precise utilization readings than the traditional Windows Task Manager. Historically, users have found that Task Manager tends to under-report GPU usage, especially in scenarios where games launch auxiliary processes alongside the primary executable. Valve’s updated in-game overlay addresses this issue by capturing all related processes, minimizing sampling errors, and aligning its statistics more closely with reputable third-party tools such as MSI Afterburner.
Enhanced Monitoring Features
The limitations of Task Manager stem from its per-process measurement approach, which relies on GPU drivers to report statistics in accordance with the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) specification. This can lead to missed GPU activity in games that distribute workloads across multiple processes, resulting in an underestimation of overall GPU demands. By aggregating usage across all relevant processes, Steam’s overlay offers a more comprehensive and accurate representation of a game’s GPU requirements. As Valve notes, “the net effect should be that in most games it’s nearly the same as before, but in certain situations we previously underreported overall GPU utilization, and the utilization number will now be higher and should closer match third-party tools like MSI Afterburner.”
In addition to improved GPU metrics, the overlay distinguishes between native frames and those generated by technologies like DLSS and FSR. It also provides real-time readings of CPU load, RAM usage, clock speeds, and frame timing graphs. These features have transformed Steam’s HUD into one of the most robust in-game monitoring tools available, effectively rivaling established options like MangoHud and MSI’s RivaTuner.
The recent addition of CPU temperature display—available on both Windows and Linux—further highlights Valve’s commitment to making the Steam overlay a central hub for tech monitoring. This capability is enabled by a trusted CPUID-derived kernel driver, indicating Valve’s willingness to delve deeper into system-level access. Such moves are not uncommon in today’s business landscape, where dominant players often develop proprietary solutions to replace previously relied-upon third-party offerings.
For gamers who are passionate about performance tuning, bottleneck diagnostics, and optimization, having accurate telemetry available through Steam—without the need for additional applications—could prove transformative. This shift brings hardware monitoring from niche community tools into the mainstream, making it accessible to newcomers and those less technically inclined, potentially sparking a newfound interest in understanding their systems.
However, users are advised to proceed with caution, particularly regarding the stability of the updated GPU metrics. As this feature is part of the beta client, it remains in early access and may not be suitable for the general public. If Valve decides to withdraw it from this channel, it may indicate ongoing tuning and experimentation. Should this feature become widely available, in-game performance diagnostics could become significantly smarter and more user-friendly for a broader audience.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
