MSI Afterburner On-Screen Display: Setup Guide for Bottleneck Hunting

What you'll see

After 5 minutes you'll have an in-game overlay showing CPU usage per core, GPU usage, VRAM, frame time and temperatures, the four numbers that tell you exactly where a bottleneck lives.

Install

1. Download MSI Afterburner (it bundles RivaTuner Statistics Server).

2. Install both. Reboot if asked.

Configure the overlay

1. Open Afterburner → Settings → Monitoring.

2. Tick: GPU usage, GPU temperature, GPU memory usage, CPU usage, CPU per core, CPU temperature, RAM usage, Frametime, Framerate.

3. For each, click "Show in On-Screen Display".

4. RivaTuner → set position to top-left, size to your taste.

What to watch in-game

• GPU usage, should be 95-100% if you are not CPU-bound.
• CPU per core, see if a single core is pegged (engine bottleneck).
• Frametime, should be flat. Spikes above the dotted line = stutter.
• VRAM, over your card's capacity = texture pop.

Pair with the calculator

Once the overlay tells you where the limit is, the bottleneck calculator tells you whether the upgrade you are eyeing actually moves the needle. Combine both and you stop guessing.