G‑Helper

In-Game Hardware Overlay

G-Helper has a built-in hardware overlay: a small on-screen display that sits on top of your game and shows FPS, temperatures, fan speeds, power draw and load while you play. It covers what most people install RivaTuner Statistics Server or MSI Afterburner for, except it’s already in G-Helper and there’s nothing extra to install.

The FPS counter follows whatever game is in the foreground, so you don’t set anything up per title. Alt-tab between games and it tracks the active one.

G-Helper hardware overlay in Full mode showing 63 FPS, GPU 73°C / 3200 RPM, CPU 67°C / 2000 RPM, a stacked CPU and GPU power chart, 86.0 W and 13.4 W power draw, and 75% / 6% usage bars

What it shows

  • FPS of the active game, read from the present queue (DX10/11/12 and Vulkan)
  • GPU temperature, in °C
  • CPU temperature, in °C
  • GPU fan speed, in RPM
  • CPU fan speed, in RPM
  • GPU power draw, in watts
  • CPU power draw, in watts
  • A stacked chart of the last 60 seconds of CPU and GPU power
  • GPU load, as a percentage and a vertical bar
  • CPU load, as a percentage and a vertical bar

When the discrete GPU is off (Eco mode or GPU disabled), the GPU temperature reads -- and its power, load and chart are hidden, because the laptop isn’t using it. CPU readings and fan speeds keep updating.

Display modes

Hold Ctrl + Shift + Alt and click the overlay to cycle through three levels of detail, so it takes only as much room as you want:

  • Light: FPS, CPU and GPU temperature and power. The most compact.
  • Default: adds fan RPM and the power chart.
  • Full: adds CPU and GPU load bars and percentages.

The shot above is Full mode. Default mode drops the load column:

G-Helper hardware overlay in Default mode showing 188 FPS, GPU 82°C / 5000 RPM, CPU 80°C / 4400 RPM, the power chart, and 106.9 W and 21.7 W power draw

Hotkeys

  • Ctrl + Shift + Alt + O: toggle the overlay on or off. It’s also in the tray (G) icon menu as Hardware Overlay.
  • Ctrl + Shift + Alt + Click: cycle the display mode (Light, Default, Full).
  • Ctrl + Shift + Alt + Drag: move the overlay around the screen.
  • Ctrl + Shift + Alt + Mouse wheel: scale it from 50% to 300%, in 10% steps.
  • Ctrl + Shift + Alt + Middle click: reset the scale to 100%.

To drag or scale, hold the keys with the cursor over the overlay. That’s how it tells a deliberate adjustment apart from the same keys being pressed in a game. The overlay snaps to the nearest corner and keeps its position and size after a restart, a resolution change, or a monitor swap.

The toggle defaults to Ctrl + Shift + Alt + O. Like every G-Helper shortcut you can remap it, and you can also bind the overlay to a custom hotkey action. The full hotkeys reference lists the rest.

Where it works

The overlay draws on DX10 and newer games (DirectX 10/11/12 and Vulkan). Very old games that use exclusive full-screen mode may not show it. Running those in borderless or windowed mode lets it through.

Turning it on

The overlay is in recent G-Helper builds, so grab the latest version first. Then press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + O, or right-click the tray icon and pick Hardware Overlay. Start a game and the stats show up in the corner.