Valve pulls Steam GPU monitor tool

Valve claims that with its latest Steam Client Beta update, its in-game overlay provides more accurate GPU utilisation figures than the Windows Task Manager itself. However, in a swift turn of events that suggests the feature wasn't quite ready for prime time, the company has since rolled back the change, stating that it “needs more testing”.

In the original patch notes (via PC Gamer), Valve explained that Task Manager can often underreport GPU usage in games that spawn multiple processes, as it monitors on a per-process basis. Steam's updated overlay, in contrast, aggregates the GPU load from all of a game's associated processes. This, they claimed, would provide a more accurate number, closer to what you'd see from dedicated third-party tools like MSI Afterburner.

Just a few days after the initial release, however, Valve pulled the beta update and re-released it without the new GPU monitoring. The patch notes were amended, and the statement comparing it to Task Manager was removed. This quick reversal suggests that the implementation proved to be unstable or inaccurate in real-world testing.

While this particular feature was clearly released prematurely, it can give us an idea of the direction Valve is heading. Bringing accurate, detailed, and easy-to-access hardware telemetry directly into the Steam overlay would be pretty helpful for PC gamers. Hopefully, the GPU monitoring is being set up for a comeback.

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KitGuru says: What GPU monitoring tool do you use? Are you happy with it, or are you willing to try out a new one like the one Valve is working on?

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