Steam’s new Performance Overlay is extra correct than Task Manager, says Valve — GPU utilization monitoring comes on to Steam in newest shopper beta

Valve’s newest Steam Client Beta has upped the ante in relation to GPU monitoring, claiming its in-game overlay now delivers extra correct utilization readings than Windows Task Manager. According to Valve, Task Manager has traditionally under-reported GPU utilization, significantly for video games that launch auxiliary processes alongside the principle one. Steam’s revamped overlay captures all these processes, trims sampling errors, and aligns its stats extra carefully with trusted third-party instruments like MSI Afterburner.

The cause Task Manager might be inaccurate is that it measures GPU utilization on a per-process foundation and depends on the GPU driver to report statistics in response to the WDDM specification. Games that break up work throughout a number of processes can due to this fact have parts of their GPU exercise missed, and sure workloads can seem much less intensive than they really are. By aggregating utilization throughout all associated processes, Steam’s overlay gives a fuller and extra exact image of a sport’s GPU calls for:

“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.”

The quote above has since been faraway from the patch notes web page as a result of Valve’s confidence didn’t final lengthy underneath public scrutiny. Just a few days later, the beta replace introducing this extra correct GPU monitoring was rapidly pulled from distribution. Now, the patch be aware reads: “It was later re-released to roll back a GPU utilization monitoring change that needs more testing.” The inconsistency right here suggests Valve continues to be validating the function earlier than pushing it secure, regardless of the daring messaging upfront.