If you want to keep an eye on frame rates, GPU and CPU temperatures, and hardware usage without paying for anything or leaving your game, MSI Afterburner is still the default answer in 2026. It is free, works with every GPU vendor despite the name, and its on-screen display (OSD) via RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS) has become the de facto standard for in-game monitoring.
The mistake most people make is enabling everything at once. A monitoring overlay with forty graphs, two polling threads fighting each other, and full-screen capture enabled will itself cost you frames. The goal of a good setup is to prioritize four metrics: frame rate (FPS) and frame time for performance, GPU temperature and hotspot behavior for safety, and GPU/CPU usage to spot bottlenecks. Everything else is optional. This guide walks through the exact settings to use, why each value is chosen, and how to adjust for your hardware tier.
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Quick Recommended Settings
| Setting | Recommended value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware polling period | 1000 ms (Monitoring tab) | Updates stats once per second without adding measurable CPU load. |
| Global OSD update interval | 1000 ms (RTSS) | Matches the polling period so OSD text refreshes cleanly. |
| Frame rate statistic | Framerate (not 1% low) as primary; Frametime optional | FPS is the headline metric; frame time exposes stutter FPS hides. |
| GPU temperature | Enabled, graph + OSD, warning at 83 °C | Most modern GPUs throttle near this range; early warning matters. |
| GPU usage | Enabled, OSD only | Distinguishes GPU-bound from CPU-bound scenes at a glance. |
| CPU usage | Enabled, per-core disabled by default | Per-core rows clutter the OSD; total usage covers bottleneck checks. |
| Framerate limit | Off for monitoring-only setups | Limiting is a separate job; enable only if you also want capping. |
| On-Screen Display zoom | 100% (RTSS) | Prevents blurry or oversized overlay text on high-DPI displays. |
| Stealth/hotkey | Toggle OSD hotkey set (default: nothing — pick one) | Lets you hide the overlay for screenshots and streaming. |
Setting-by-Setting
Hardware polling period
Found in MSI Afterburner under the gear icon, then the Monitoring tab: the “Hardware polling period (milliseconds)” dropdown sits at the bottom. Set it to 1000 ms. Lower values (100–500 ms) give smoother graphs but spawn more frequent sensor reads, which adds a small but real CPU cost and can cause sensor conflicts on some motherboards. If you are troubleshooting a transient crash and want fine-grained temperature traces, drop to 500 ms temporarily, then return to 1000 ms. The trade-off: you lose the ability to catch sub-second thermal spikes at 1000 ms, which rarely matter for stability and matter mostly for reviewers.
Which metrics to enable for the OSD
In the Monitoring tab, each hardware parameter has a list of “Properties” shown in a chart below. Click a parameter (e.g., “GPU temperature”), tick Show in On-Screen Display, and optionally tick Show in graph and screenshot info. Enable these five:
- Framerate — tick “Show in On-Screen Display” and set the statistic dropdown to “Framerate.”
- Frametime — optional, but valuable: a flat FPS number can look fine while frame times spike wildly. Show it in the graph rather than the OSD to reduce clutter.
- GPU temperature — enable with the “Override default warning temperature” box ticked and set to 83 °C, which is where many current GPUs begin aggressive thermal throttling.
- GPU usage — OSD only. If GPU usage is pegged near 100% while your FPS is low, you are GPU-bound; if it sits well below that while FPS suffers, look at the CPU.
- CPU usage — OSD only. Leave “CPU (per-core) usage” disabled unless you are diagnosing a specific threading problem; it adds eight to thirty-two lines of noise.
The trade-off: every additional OSD line costs a small amount of overlay render time, and visually, more than seven or eight lines makes the overlay useless in fast gameplay.
RTSS global update interval
Open RivaTuner Statistics Server (installed alongside Afterburner, or via Start menu). Set Global update interval to 1000 ms and leave framerate limit at 0 (off) unless you specifically want frame capping. If you do use capping later, a good starting point is 2–4 frames below your monitor’s refresh rate to stay inside VRR windows. The update interval controls how often the OSD redraws; anything below 500 ms wastes CPU, anything above 2000 ms makes the FPS readout feel laggy and inaccurate.
OSD appearance and hotkeys
In RTSS, set On-Screen Display zoom to 100% and pick a text size in the “Text” section (12–14 pt is readable at 1440p; go to 16 pt for 4K at couch distance). In Afterburner’s Monitoring tab, scroll to the bottom and assign a key under “Toggle On-Screen Display” — Ctrl + Shift + O is a safe choice because few games bind it. This is your panic switch: hide the OSD for screenshots, video capture, or competitive matches where any overlay can trigger anti-cheat scrutiny.
Screenshots and logging
In the Monitoring tab’s lower section, set a screenshot key (F12 conflicts with Steam; use F11 or Ctrl + Shift + S) and choose the save folder — the default is C:\Program Files (x86)\MSI Afterburner\BMP, but point it somewhere with space. If you want a permanent record for troubleshooting, tick “Enable low-level IO driver” logging via “Start logging” with a hotkey, and set the logging period to 1000 ms to match polling. Log files land in the Afterburner installation folder as .hml files viewable in the bundled hardware monitoring graph tool. Disable logging when done; continuous logs grow quickly and add disk writes during play.
By Hardware Tier
Low-end systems (older quad-core CPUs, entry GPUs)
Set the hardware polling period to 2000 ms and RTSS update interval to match. Enable only three OSD lines: Framerate, GPU temperature, and GPU usage. Skip frame time graphs and all logging — on a system already near its limits, the overlay itself is a measurable tax. Turn “Show in graph” off for everything and rely purely on the OSD.
Mid-range systems (modern six-to-eight-core CPUs, mainstream GPUs)
This is where the defaults above apply: 1000 ms polling, five OSD metrics, frametime in the graph view only. You have enough headroom that the monitoring costs nothing perceptible. If you also want frame capping for VRR, set it in RTSS as a separate decision — a cap of 2 frames below refresh is the standard starting point.
High-end systems (top-tier CPUs and GPUs, 240 Hz+ displays)
You can afford 500 ms polling for responsive graphs if you are tuning overclocks, and you can afford per-core CPU rows if you are validating a threading issue. The important caveat: at very high frame rates, an overly aggressive OSD refresh can introduce frame pacing artifacts in the capture pipeline of streaming software. If you stream, run the OSD at 1000 ms and hide it via your hotkey during broadcast, or use your streaming software’s own overlay instead.
Common Mistakes
The OSD never appears in any game
What causes it: RTSS is not running, or the game is using a rendering API or exclusive fullscreen mode the current hooking method cannot attach to. How to check: Look at the system tray — RivaTuner must be running (its icon shows the current frame rate inside the game as a tiny number). In RTSS, check that “Application detection level” is set to High. What to do: Launch RTSS manually, set detection level to High, and if a specific DirectX 12 or Vulkan title still refuses, enable the “Use Microsoft Detours” or “Use CreateDXGIFactory1 hooking” options in RTSS Setup, then restart the game. How to undo: Set detection level back to Low afterward — High can cause false detections in launcher windows.
Stuttering or a few percent of FPS lost with the overlay on
What causes it: Polling too aggressively, too many OSD elements, or video capture hooking enabled when you do not need it. How to check: Toggle the OSD off with your hotkey mid-game and compare how it feels; also try the same scene with Afterburner and RTSS fully closed. What to do: Raise polling to 2000 ms, cut the OSD down to three metrics, and untick “Enable video capture” in RTSS Setup if you never record through it. How to undo: Restore values individually, one at a time, testing between changes so you know which one mattered.
A game crashes or an anti-cheat tool flags the overlay
What causes it: Some anti-cheat systems are strict about any process injecting into the game, including RTSS’s OSD hook. How to check: If crashes happen only in specific online titles, or you receive a warning message from the game, the overlay is the prime suspect. What to do: Close Afterburner and RTSS entirely before launching that game, or use the OSD hotkey before joining a match and verify the overlay is fully gone. As a permanent fix for specific titles, RTSS lets you set per-application profiles — add the game’s executable and set it to “no OSD.” How to undo: Delete the per-application profile in RTSS when the game updates its anti-cheat policy or you stop playing it.
Temperatures or sensor values show as zero or missing
What causes it: The low-level IO driver is disabled, or another monitoring application (motherboard vendor software, another hardware monitor) holds an exclusive sensor lock. How to check: In Afterburner’s Monitoring tab, do the expected parameters appear in the list at all? If the list is sparse or blank, sensors are not being read. What to do: In Afterburner’s General/settings tab, tick “Enable low-level IO driver” and “Enable PCIe access,” then reboot. Close competing monitoring software before launching Afterburner. How to undo: Untick the IO driver options if they conflict with a vendor tool you prefer; you cannot read sensors from two applications simultaneously in some chipset configurations.
FAQ
Does MSI Afterburner work with non-MSI graphics cards?
Yes. Despite the name, Afterburner supports NVIDIA and AMD GPUs from any board partner. It is a generalized overclocking and monitoring utility; the MSI branding is historical. If a specific card’s controls are locked, it is usually the vendor’s firmware restricting voltage or power-limit ranges, not Afterburner itself.
How much performance does the on-screen display actually cost?
With the recommended settings — 1000 ms polling and five or fewer OSD lines — the overhead is negligible on any system from roughly the last decade, because the sensor polling is throttled and the OSD is rendered through RTSS’s efficient overlay path. Heavy configurations (100 ms polling, per-core CPU rows, video capture enabled) are where measurable losses appear. If you suspect overhead, benchmark the same scene with the OSD toggled on and off.
Is it safe to use Afterburner’s overclocking sliders at the same time as monitoring?
Yes, and that is one of the tool’s main advantages — you can raise the core clock offset, watch FPS and temperature respond live in the OSD, and back off immediately if temperatures climb toward your warning threshold. Apply changes in small steps of 15 MHz on the core and 25–50 MHz on memory, and use the stress-test of your choice with the OSD confirming stability rather than trusting a single short run.
Where are my logs and screenshots saved?
Screenshots go to the folder configured in the Monitoring tab’s screenshot section — by default C:\Program Files (x86)\MSI Afterburner\BMP, and you should redirect this to a drive with real free space since uncompressed captures are large. Log files are written to the Afterburner installation directory with an .hml extension and open with the bundled “Hardware monitoring graph” viewer inside Afterburner. Both locations are configurable, so check the Monitoring tab if you cannot find an older capture.
