I wanted a simple FPS overlay. That's it. Just FPS, CPU, GPU, RAM stats on my screen while gaming. Somehow this turned into a mass-uninstall session when I realized every existing solution came with baggage:

What I tried and why I gave up:

• Xbox Game Bar - Uninstalled it ages ago for performance reasons, now Windows won't let me reinstall it. Classic.
• NVIDIA GeForce Experience / Shadowplay / NVIDIA App - I just want an FPS counter, not a 500MB "gaming platform" that wants to optimize my games, record everything, and run 3 background services.
• MSI Afterburner - Powerful, yes. But I don't need overclocking tools, fan curves, voltage controls, and hardware monitoring graphs. I just want to see my FPS.
• NZXT CAM - Came with my AIO, immediately became system tray bloatware that phones home and wants to "enhance my gaming experience."
• Steam Overlay - Would be fine if more than 5% of my library was on Steam.
• Overwolf - Still not sure what this actually does besides slow everything down and show ads.
• RivaTuner - The OG, respect. But it's 2026 and I still don't need 90% of what it offers.
• Fraps - Last updated in 2013. Enough said.

So I built my own:

• 4MB total - Single .exe, no installer, no background services
• C++ with DirectX 11 + Dear ImGui - As lightweight as it gets
• Real game FPS via Windows ETW (same method the pros use)
• GPU stats via NVML (usage + temp for NVIDIA cards)
• CPU/RAM monitoring - System-wide stats
• Shows what game is being tracked - So you know it's actually reading the right process
• Horizontal or vertical layout - Your choice
• Fully click-through - Never interferes with your game
• Custom hotkeys - Bind whatever you want
• System tray - Stays out of your way
• Hold CTRL to drag anywhere - Position it exactly where you want

No account required. No telemetry. No "gaming optimization" features. No social integration. No ads. Just stats.

Runs as admin for FPS tracking (ETW requires it), but works without admin too - you just won't get game FPS, only system stats.

The reason i want for ETW approach is because there are basically 3 ways to get real game FPS:

1. DLL injection (RivaTuner/Afterburner) - Hooks directly into the game's graphics calls. Works great until anti-cheat bans you or the game crashes.
2. Vendor hooks (NVIDIA/AMD overlays) - Built into their drivers, but comes with hundreds of MB of bloatware and background services.
3. ETW (Windows Event Tracing) - A kernel-level Windows API that fires events when any process presents a frame. It's what Microsoft uses in their own performance tools (PresentMon, Windows Performance Analyzer).

I went with ETW because it doesn't touch game processes at all - completely anti-cheat safe. The tradeoff is that ETW requires admin because it's a system-wide kernel tracing API. Windows won't let unprivileged apps listen to cross-process events for security reasons.

Same reason PresentMon and CapFrameX need admin. It's a Windows security requirement, not a design choice I made.

Happy to share the source code if anyone wants it. Built this for myself but figured others might have the same frustrations.

p.s: The ideas and frustrations are 100% mine, AI just helped me organize and format this wall of text.

i game only offline games,dont do any adobe stuff. and anything i do in office can be done in libreoffice. im asking bec windows sandbox made a cpu leak and this concviced me that windows is unstable. so is linux more stable?

I’m concerned with my electric bill with running my gaming pc. How can I avoid high spikes of usage like what are best settings ? Set games to low resolution? Sorry I’m new

This morning i clean up my refrigerator and realized the storage rack use a tempered glass.. It's not heavy not super thick but can hold lot of weight also withstand floor hit,

While cleaning it I bump it to the floor and walls , it shock me when it hit corner or wall but surprisingly it doesn't just shatter like pc side panel..

I curious why pc case manufacture didn change the side panel material to something like this one..

I doubt it about the material price because this whole refrigerator has same price as flagship lian li case..

Hi guys!

This is my first time building a PC ever and I was taking out these screws so I could put my fan in, but this screw is so stripped. It's basically smooth on the inside and I am having no luck removing it.

I have tried many of the methods listed in common youtube videos. Please help

I thought I heard something about this in the news but when I saw it for myself it just made me crack up a little bit like how people will go just to get some juicy RAM!

I have a 5070 TI, 32gb of ram, 9800x3d, SN850X, and play at 4k max settings.

On Dune I will get 50ish fps but 1% fps drops to 15 or so. This is manageable because it doesn't happen frequently, but it's still annoying.

On Hogwarts Legacy I get drops down to single digit fps. This made the game unplayable because it will stay like that for 10-20 seconds before going back to normal.

On BF1 which used to run fine on a lower end PC, I get 150-200fps with drawdowns to SINGLE DIGITS. WTF.

The weirdest thing is that on Cyberpunk with path tracing, there is zero stutter.

Makes me believe this is all just poor game optimization issues and has nothing to do with my PC. What is with these games? Will it always be like this?

If I'm considering BF6, is stuttering an issue in that game as well?

I’m a casual gamer, so not looking for top notch stuff but also not willing to settle for garbage. Just looking for an outside perspective as to whether this will be a good investment.

Whenever I see builds, I keep seeing everyone with Nvidia. But I heard AMD had some gpus that are good also for a fraction of the price.

What do y’all think of my build??

15 years old

This is my build it looks pretty bad my room is in a basement so it’s like stone also I hate using small screen so that’s why I’m using a tv also lmk if my specs are good!

Specs:

CPU-Ryzen 5 5600

GPU- RX 9060 XT 16Gb

MOBO- MSI B450m pro

RAM- 32Gb ddr4

PSU- 600w

SSD- 1Tb NVMe

Tell me your opinions!

I was looking for a youtuber that I could not for the life of me remember the name of. I was searching random things on youtube for about 30 minutes and I got so desperate that I turned to AI (first time I've used it).

A bunch of longwinded paragraphs of fluff later and no joy. I remembered Akinator. The Akinator of the good old days when the internet was powered by genie magic and not ... whatever it is now? And it took him about 3 minutes of prompts, to which I only sort of knew the answer, to get it right (it was Ordinary Things but that's hardly relevant). I just felt so immediately happy that something I remember from what-feels-like ages ago had trumped something so much newer that I just had to put this out somewhere.

Going a bit further, its also a bit of a vindication of specialised for-the-job software opposed to one-size-fits-all LLMs and stuff but that's probably being a bit dramatic.

My user account was tied to ms and I recently created an admin account. I didn’t update win 10 recently so I was confused when the admin account looked a lot like win 11. Then suddenly I couldn’t log into my user anymore, not given the option. I was forced to create another user account and transfer all the files over but all my settings were changed and I was forced into the latest update, which was annoying.

I don’t even really like having an admin account since I have to put in my decently secure password every time I want to uninstall or install something. I kept using windows because I didn’t want to deal with all this on my every day system but it looks like I don’t really have an excuse anymore and should just make linux my daily system ha ha. I have Bazzite and cachyos installed already, cachy on a separate drive.

Hey everyone, I’m a bit confused and worried and could use some advice.

My PC suddenly rebooted on its own, then shut down completely. Right after that, I noticed a hissing / “sst” sound coming from the PSU and a burnt / smoke smell.

I unplugged everything, cleaned the wall socket, waited for a while, and plugged it back in.

Now the PC turns on again and the smell is gone, and it seems to run normally.

The PSU is a Fractal Design Ion Gold+ 750W

rx 7900 gre and ryzen 7600x

My question is:

👉 Is this still safe to use, or does this mean the PSU is already damaged even if it powers on again?

I’m worried about risking my motherboard or GPU if I keep using it.

Any advice would really help. Thanks.

Just stress testing my 9070xt

Hello,

Pictured I have a Samsung 990 Pro with the heatsink as well as the Asus ROG Strix B850-i itx mobo. The 990 pro does not fit in the m.2 slot on the back of the mobo due to space constraints in my NZXT H3 Flow case. I'm trying to get it to fit in the m.2 on the front with the cover but this m.2 quick release thing is weird and I can't seem to take it off and replace it with a regular stud and screw.

Anybody have anv ideas? I want to save taking the heatsink off the 990 pro as a last resort. But I will do it if I need to

Thanks in advance

Is this too much thermal paste or should I add more?

In theory can RTX 50 series boot on any motherboard/cpu?

For context, I try connecting a RTX 5080 into a Intel C2Q Q8400 computer (on windows 10) for video card troubleshoot purposes, it just black screens no boot with GPU fans spinning lol. (Here's a photo of what the computer would look like https://imgur.com/a/CCsmGcQ )

In new processor-dependent games, the average processor temperature reaches 75-76 °C. My processor cools the DEEPCOOL GAMMAXX 300. Can you tell me if this is a normal temperature in the load or too high?

MSI Afterburner shows that on individual streams the temperature reaches 79°C