How to setup Rivatuner Statistics Server with Afterburner Overlay

Want to know how to set up Rivatuner statistics server with Afterburner overlay? It’s actually pretty easy, and this guide will show you how. Rivatuner is a great tool for monitoring your graphics card performance, and the overlay makes it easy to see information while you’re playing games.

Setting up a Rivatuner statistics server (RTSS) with Afterburner overlay is a great way to get real-time information on your graphics card while you are gaming.

Maybe you’re looking to overclock it for higher performance or use the Rivatuner Statistics server to track your FPS and temperatures in games. In either case, Rivatuner Statistics Server (RSS) is a great tool that can help you do just that.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to set up the Rivatuner Statistics server with Afterburner overlay so you can get the most out of your graphics card. Let’s get started!

What is RivaTuner Statistics Server?

RivaTuner Statistics Server (or Rivatuner for short) is a nifty tool used by gamers and computer enthusiasts to get information on their video card performance. It can provide data on things like Frames Per Second (FPS), temperature, clock speeds, and more. While it’s not required to use Rivatuner with Afterburner overlay, it’s certainly a handy feature to have.

RSS allows you to monitor your graphics card performance in real-time, as well as save logs for future analysis. This tutorial will show you how to set up RSS with the Afterburner Overlay so that you can keep an eye on your stats while gaming.

What is Afterburner Overlay?

Afterburner is a free MSI utility designed to help gamers fine-tune their graphics card for optimal performance and monitor its vitals in real-time. It allows users to tune core clocks, voltages, memory clocks, fan settings, and more as well as provide live information such as FPS and temperature.

What are the benefits of using Rivatuner Statistics Server with Afterburner Overlay?

One major advantage of using RSS with the Afterburner overlay is that you can see your GPU vitals at a glance, without having to alt-tab out of your game. It’s especially useful if you’re trying to overclock for higher FPS or looking to find a stable balance between performance and heat.

Afterburner also features an in-game overlay, so you can quickly access core clock speed, fan speeds and memory usage. This can help to identify issues in games where your graphics card is crashing or providing poor performance.

The benefits of using RTSS with Afterburner Overlay is that you can see your average FPS as well as GPU temperature, and toggle those on or off. This way you can monitor your PC’s health and performance. RTSS also tracks other statistics that are unrelated to Afterburner Overlay.

Download Rivatuner Statistics Server and Afterburner Overlay

Rivatuner Statistics Server can be downloaded here. You’ll need to create a free account in order to download the software. After you have it installed, download Afterburner from here.

After installing both RTSS and AB, open up Rivatuner first. Then, click on the ‘Settings’ tab on the menu bar on top.

Next, select the ‘Integration’ tab and look for a drop-down menu called “Monitoring”. Click on this menu and select “Enable Hardware Monitoring support”, then hit Apply changes.

Back out one more level to reach the main dashboard, and you should see some new options appear underneath the graph.

How to set up Rivatuner statistics server with Afterburner Overlay

Now that you have both RTSS and AB installed, it’s time to configure the settings so you can use the overlay while gaming. First, open Rivatuner Statistics Server on your PC. Then click on ‘Settings’ in the menu bar, and select ‘Integration’.

There are two settings here that need to be set so you can use the overlay without issues.

First, make sure “Enable Hardware Monitoring support” is selected from the drop-down menu. Second, check ‘Display current monitoring data on the On-Screen Display’. Save your changes by selecting ‘OK’.

Next, click the ‘General’ tab on the left-hand side of the menu.

Click on ‘Configure On-Screen Display settings’, and a new window will pop up. Make sure “Enable On-Screen Display” is selected, then set your preferred position for the overlay by selecting a corner from the drop-down menu. After that, select the appropriate size.

Now you need to tell Rivatuner which statistics to display on your overlay. Scroll down until you see ‘General Options’, and look for the ‘On-Screen Display’ section underneath. Here, enable “Show Framerate” by clicking on the box to the right of it, and selecting the ‘Show in In-Game Overlay’ option from the drop-down menu. Follow suit with “Show CPU Usage” and “Show Gpu Temperature”.

That’s all the configuration you need to do for RTSS. Afterburner’s overlay, on the other hand, has a few different options that can be tweaked.

How use the Overlay while Playing Games?

To use the overlay while playing games, you’ll need to configure Afterburner to track your framerate and temps. To do this, open up the Overlay settings by going to “Settings” –> “Video Capture Settings”.

Make sure ‘Capture On-Screen Display’ is selected from the drop-down menu. You can choose to ‘Capture all displays’ or just the one that you’re gaming on. One of the most useful features of the video capture tool is the ability to overlay text onto your gameplay, letting you know if your temps are getting too high or recording how many FPS you’re getting in a certain section.

To set up this feature, click on ‘Additional Settings’ in the video capture menu.

After that, select “Custom Text”. Here you can adjust where you want this text to appear (bottom left, top center, etc.), what font you want it to use and how translucent the overlay should be. Save your changes by clicking ‘OK’, then exit out of this menu.

Once you have Afterburner configured, you’ll need to start a game in order for the overlay to work. We recommend starting up a non-graphically intensive title so everything can properly initialize. Otherwise, your PC might run sluggishly while the FPS counter runs in the background, or RTSS might not load properly.

After you have a game launched, simply pull up the RTSS overlay by pressing Shift + F1. If everything is working in accordance with what you previously configured, your framerate and GPU temps should be displayed on the screen. You can also toggle these values on or off by pressing Shift + F2 and Shift + F3, respectively.

In the Overlay settings menu, there are a few additional options you can configure to personalize your experience even further. For example, if you want to disable the overlay when you alt+tab out of a game, select “Detect Windows” from the drop-down menu and choose ‘Disable video capture’ from the list.

You can also change the hotkey for on-screen display, toggle key filtering on or off and adjust the transparency of the overlay.

After experimenting with the settings and you’re satisfied with your experience, click ‘Save’ to ensure everything is saved.

Additional Information

The video captured by Afterburner will be choppy, but the value displayed of the framerate is accurate to real-time performance. To avoid this problem, adjust your shadow settings or use MSI afterburner for hardware monitoring.

RTSS will display the framerate in real-time, but if you want accurate performance results, use MSI afterburner for hardware monitoring. You can also use GPU-Z to get the RTSS overlay to function properly because it uses fewer resources than Afterburner.

For Nvidia cards, go into the NVidia control panel, go to manage 3d settings, then the global settings tab for maximum pre-rendered frames. Decrease it from the default 3 to 0. This will remove the framerate cap that is imposed by default on Nvidia GPUs.

For AMD cards, enable “turbo core” in the overdrive section of the CCC control panel. This allows you to unlock your card’s potential and get better performance than what MSI afterburner or RTSS would usually display.

To sum up, use MSI afterburner for hardware monitoring the framerate and the GPU temperature. It is visualized in real-time so it is easy to see.

Use RTSS for more advanced options like customizing the colors of the overlay, changing opacity levels, setting different sides on which you want to display what information on your screen, etc.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I display my framerate with RTSS?

Go to the video capture menu in MSI afterburner and select custom text. Adjust where you want the text to appear (top left, top center, etc.) then type your desired information into the box detailing what you want to be displayed on the screen. Save your changes by clicking ‘OK’, then exit out of this menu.

How do I change the hotkeys for RTSS?

Go into your settings and you will be able to adjust the hotkeys there.

Why is my video choppy when playing a game?

Make sure “shadowplay” is disabled. This is done by going into the Nvidia control panel, click manage 3d settings then the global settings tab for maximum pre-rendered frames. Decrease the default value of 3 to 0.

How do I display my GPU temperature with RTSS?

Go into your video capture settings menu and type ‘GPU temperature’ in the custom text box. Adjust where you want this information to appear on the screen and save your changes by clicking ‘OK’. Exit out of this menu and when playing a game, the temperature will display

How do I open MSI afterburner/RTSS?

Press shift + F1. To close it, press shift + F1 again.

How do I adjust the transparency of the overlay?

Go into video capture properties and change it there. You can make it completely transparent or just slightly visible.

How do I disable RTSS on windows startup/exit?

Go into your settings menu, then click the ‘Hotkeys’ tab. Select ‘Startup’ and choose what hotkey you want to use. It will automatically disable the overlay on startup. If you want it to be enabled back on startup, select ‘Exit’. You can also do this vice versa – have RTSS activated upon exiting a game or other programs.