Steam GAME DASHBOARD Practical gaming overlay Last Update Instructions
- June 2, 2024
- STEAM
Table of Contents
Practical gaming overlay Last Update
Instructions
GAME DASHBOARD Practical gaming overlay Last Update
Practical gaming overlay
Last Update: July 2022
Instructions
(Optional) Use the Desktop Test to modify the initial settings. Framerate
limit default is 120.
Start the Loader for 64-bit games, or the Loader for 32-bit games. It will
enable functionality for any games launched while the respective loader is
active. Older games are usually 32-bit and newer games are usually 64-bit. If
you don’t know which to use start them both.
The main advantage of separate loaders is that it allows to use only the
minimal amount of resources, since they work independently and people don’t
normally play several games at the same time. It also avoids interfering with
other processes unnecessarily.
Launch options with the “(minimized)” suffix are the same as starting the
respective loader and immediately minimizing the app to the system tray. Once
you learn how the software works this is the quickest way to activate it.
In-Game Features
The following keyboard shortcuts are available while playing:
- Control+F12 to toggle the GUI
- Control+Page Up to increase framerate limit
- Control+Page Down to decrease framerate limit
- Control+End to set/unset toggle framerate limit
GUI is currently not available for OpenGL, but the framerate features still work, since they can be used without activating the graphical interface.
Main Window
Click and drag the window background to move it. Click and drag lower-right edge to resize it, or double-click that edge to resize automatically. Click the upper-right close button to return to the game, or alternatively press Control+F12 again. Control+Tab switches the active window.
Overlay Window
Right-click the Overlay window to change its position or transparency (alpha). Add/remove items by toggling the respective “Add to Overlay” checkbox or selecting the Compact/Chart Overlay display option.
GPU Status Tab
Here you can view graphics card information and select a GPU for monitoring/overclocking. There are several sections containing detailed status for the selected graphics card. Click a section to expand or collapse it, or navigate the interface with the cursor keys and activate items with spacebar. Scroll with the mouse wheel or by dragging the scroll-bar.
- Overview includes a summary of the most relevant status data.
- GPU Temperature is the graphics core processor temperature.
- Memory Temperature is the video memory temperature. It is only available for some cards and is usually a bit lower than the GPU temperature.
- Fan Speed is available as a percentage or the value of the tachometer, in rotations per minute.
- GPU Utilization is the percentage of time the GPU is busy. Due to the dynamic power management in modern GPUs, this metric doesn’t necessarily indicate usage relative to the maximum performance limit; clock speeds also need to be taken into account. Usually this is the main bottleneck in 3D games.
- Bandwidth Utilization is the percentage of time the video memory controller is busy. It is not related with memory consumption.
- Memory Consumption is the amount of allocated video memory. Shared memory refers to system memory reserved for video purposes.
- Clocks includes the clock speeds for the GPU and video memory. In this section you can modify the clock speeds for the highest-performance state. Type in a number and click “Apply” to set the new value, or click “Reset” to restore the default setting. When a range appears that indicates the clock speed within that state is adjusted automatically according to the load level.
For each specific status item you can select how to display it in the overlay:
Disabled removes it, Compact shows a space-saving representation and Chart
shows a chart with more comprehensive information.
Main Window charts include cumulative values for the current data session:
minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation. These statistics are reset
when the respective item is not displayed, or by clicking “Reset Data”. Right-
click a chart to customize its options: Type can be Bar, Step or Line; Scale
controls the number of samples included; Size controls the dimensions in the
Overlay window (horizontal and vertical).
Specific features may not always be available: when a warning/error is
detected functionality is disabled to avoid interfering with the game. Some
graphics card driver versions restrict clock modifications to processes with
administrative privileges. To use this feature in these cases would require
starting both the loader and the game/app with elevated privileges, which
should be done with care because of the potential security implications.
CPU Status Tab
This tab includes sections with status information for CPU utilization, system
memory (RAM) consumption and CPU clock speed. Click a specific logical
processor to expand/collapse detailed information (chart settings are the same
of overall CPU utilization).
Navigation and other functionality is similar to the GPU Status Tab.
Frame Control Tab
Here you can view rendering information (including API, window size and active
resolution, with respective swap/present mode) and adjust the framerate. Type
in a number to modify the framerate limit (or alternatively the frame time
interval), or click the +/- buttons to increase/decrease the current value
(hold Control while clicking to increase/decrease faster).
Toggle rate is a limit that can be instantly toggled with the respective
keyboard shortcut. It can be used to quickly disable the limit or set the
upper value of the variable refresh range.
The Latency section (when available) can be used to adjust the balance between
lower latency and higher smoothing. It is currently not modified when loading
profile settings.
Enabling the Override Buffers feature can reduce latency further when the
latency slider is already at the minimum level. It can also improve
performance and reduce stutter when playing DirectX 9 games with V-Sync, so it
is recommended to enable it in those cases. Changes to this setting don’t take
effect immediately; it may be necessary to resize the window or otherwise
modify the game’s graphics options, but the preferred approach is to save the
modified setting so it is active when the game is (re)started. When the new
setting takes effect the respective warning disappears from the GUI. Currently
this feature has no effect on DirectX 12 or Vulkan games.
Since these features work at the application level it is usually best to set
any related graphics card driver settings to “application-controlled” (or the
equivalent), in order to avoid a possible silent override of the expected
behavior.
Settings Tab
Use this tab to adjust and manage general settings. Select a different Theme
to change the colors. GUI size is scaled automatically according to the
current resolution, and can be customized further with the Zoom level; final
minimum size is capped to prevent the interface from becoming hard to
use/read, so small Zoom values are valid but may not have an effect until the
resolution is increased enough. Text Weight controls the base font thickness.
Control-click a slider to type in an exact value.
Selecting a different profile activates the settings values associated with
that profile, and can be used to instantly change multiple settings. When
creating a new profile the current settings are copied by default. Click
“Save” to store the entire collection of profiles, or click “Load” to load it
from storage. Access to the settings file (stored at
“%LOCALAPPDATA%GameDashboard”) is globally synchronized and cached, to prevent
data corruption and minimize interference with game I/O.
The Notes feature can be used to save a small text message and add it to the
overlay.
Smooth Gameplay Tips
This product is carefully designed to avoid introducing adverse effects in
games and to ensure optimal frame stability. When other tools (e.g.
overclocking apps and overlays) are active while playing these guarantees no
longer apply, since 3rd-party software can add undesirable effects such as
potential stutter, depending on multiple factors.
Steam Overlay is officially supported and is generally safe to use.
Combinations with other overlays may cause problems for some users.
Update and Uninstallation
To update or completely remove all files when uninstalling it may be necessary to close running processes where the software is still active. An easy solution to make sure all relevant processes are closed is to log-off the current Windows user. Therefore, the proper time to update is after restart /log-in, before activating the tool.