MSI Afterburner Setup Guide

MSI Afterburner is a free GPU utility that works with graphics cards from any manufacturer despite its branding, providing a monitoring overlay, fan curve control, and clock/voltage adjustment in one interface. Setting it up correctly from a fresh install — including its bundled RivaTuner Statistics Server component for the overlay — takes a few minutes and avoids the confusion new users often hit with its dense, technical-looking main window.

Quick answer

Download Afterburner from MSI’s official site, keep RivaTuner Statistics Server selected during installation for overlay support, then configure the on-screen display layout and fan curve from the settings menu. The core monitoring features work immediately after install with no configuration required; overclocking and custom fan curves are optional steps you can skip entirely if you just want monitoring.

Installing Afterburner and its overlay component

Download Afterburner directly from MSI’s official site rather than a third-party mirror, since GPU utility software is a common target for bundled unwanted software on unofficial download sources. The installer includes RivaTuner Statistics Server as a separate, typically pre-selected component.

If you already have a different monitoring or overlay tool installed from a GPU vendor’s own software suite, it’s worth closing it before installing Afterburner for the first time, since two overlay-capable tools attempting to initialize at the same time during a fresh install can occasionally produce a confusing conflict that’s easily avoided by simply not having both active during the installation process itself.

RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS) is what actually draws the on-screen overlay during gameplay — Afterburner’s main window handles configuration and control, but the overlay itself depends on RTSS running in the background. Leaving this component selected during install is necessary if you want the in-game overlay feature.

RTSS also functions as a standalone frame rate limiter independent of Afterburner’s other features, which is worth knowing since it gives you a driver-agnostic way to cap frame rate that works consistently across both NVIDIA and AMD hardware, useful if you want a frame rate cap set slightly below your monitor’s refresh rate for the G-Sync or FreeSync consistency reasons covered in our GPU settings guides, without needing to rely on each individual game’s own frame limiter implementation.

After installation completes, both Afterburner and RTSS typically launch automatically and can be set to start with Windows through their respective settings, which is convenient if you want monitoring available every session without manually launching the software each time.

The main Afterburner window presents a dense set of sliders and readouts that can look intimidating at first — for pure monitoring purposes, you don’t need to touch most of them, which is worth knowing before assuming the interface requires deep configuration to be useful.

For a first-time install, it’s worth spending a few minutes clicking through each labeled slider and reading its tooltip before changing anything, simply to build a mental map of what’s available. Most players end up using only three or four of the roughly dozen controls on offer — core clock offset, memory clock offset, power limit, and the fan tab — with the rest left at default indefinitely, so familiarizing yourself with the layout once up front saves confusion later when you do want to make a specific change.

A practical detail for anyone who has previously installed a driver-vendor overlay (NVIDIA App’s or AMD Adrenalin’s own overlay feature) alongside Afterburner and RTSS: both can technically run at once, but overlapping overlay features between a vendor’s own software and Afterburner is one of the more common sources of a duplicated or glitching on-screen display, and disabling the vendor’s built-in overlay in favor of Afterburner’s (or vice versa, picking one and disabling the other) is a cleaner setup than trying to run both simultaneously.

Configuring the on-screen overlay

Afterburner’s settings include an “On-Screen Display” or monitoring tab where you select which hardware statistics to display during gameplay — common choices include frame rate, frame time, GPU and CPU temperature, GPU and CPU usage, and clock speeds.

You can adjust the overlay’s position on screen, its size, and which specific metrics are shown, since displaying every available sensor at once can clutter the screen unnecessarily — most players settle on a small handful of the most relevant stats (FPS, frame time, temperatures) rather than the full list.

A keyboard shortcut, configurable within the same settings area, toggles the overlay on and off during gameplay, useful if you want it available for troubleshooting but don’t want it visible during every normal session.

Screenshot and video recording shortcuts are also configured through the same RTSS settings area, letting you capture a specific moment showing your current overlay stats alongside the game itself — useful documentation if you’re seeking help troubleshooting a specific performance issue in a community forum, since a screenshot showing frame time, temperatures, and usage percentages together gives anyone helping you far more to work with than a description alone.

If the overlay doesn’t appear in a specific game after this setup, check whether that game uses strict anti-cheat that blocks overlay hooks — this is a per-game limitation similar to the conflicts covered in our guide to fixing FPS drops, not a sign the Afterburner configuration itself is wrong.

A reasonable starting selection for players setting this up for the first time: frame rate, frame time, GPU temperature, and GPU usage percentage covers the core diagnostic information most troubleshooting scenarios need, without cluttering the screen the way displaying every available sensor at once would. You can always add more detailed readouts later once you know which specific ones you actually reference during troubleshooting.

Setting up a custom fan curve

Afterburner’s fan tab lets you define a custom curve mapping GPU temperature to fan speed percentage, letting you prioritize either quieter operation at moderate temperatures or more aggressive cooling than the GPU’s default factory curve provides.

A conservative approach for a first custom curve is a gentle, gradually increasing curve rather than an aggressive jump, since a fan curve that’s too aggressive at low temperatures can make the GPU noisier than necessary for the actual cooling benefit gained.

Test any new fan curve under a real gaming load or a benchmark run, checking both the resulting temperatures and noise level, rather than assuming a curve is correct just because it looks reasonable on the graph — actual behavior under load is what matters.

If you decide a custom curve isn’t working out, resetting to the GPU’s default automatic fan behavior is available from the same tab, so this isn’t a change you’re stuck with once applied.

A useful reference point when building your first curve: many stock GPU fan curves keep fans at or near 0% (fanless) below roughly 50-55°C, then ramp up more steeply as temperature climbs toward the GPU’s throttle point. A custom curve that starts its ramp a little earlier — say, beginning gradual spin-up around 45-50°C instead of waiting until 55°C — often achieves a similar peak temperature with less abrupt, more gradual (and often quieter-feeling) fan speed changes, since it avoids the fans needing to catch up quickly from a standing start.

Basic clock and voltage adjustment

Afterburner’s core sliders for core clock offset, memory clock offset, and power limit let you apply a mild overclock or, combined with a voltage curve adjustment, an undervolt. These changes require testing for stability rather than trusting a single value to work correctly on every individual GPU, since silicon quality varies between units of the same model.

Small, incremental changes tested one at a time — rather than pushing several sliders to aggressive values simultaneously — make it much easier to identify what’s actually stable versus what’s causing crashes or artifacts if something goes wrong.

Our dedicated guide to undervolting a GPU with Afterburner covers this specific process in more depth, since undervolting for lower temperatures at maintained performance is one of the more common reasons players go beyond basic monitoring setup.

Applying changes through Afterburner’s sliders takes effect without a restart, and you can reset any individual value back to its default by right-clicking the relevant slider, making this a low-risk category of adjustment to experiment with.

A mistake worth flagging for anyone new to this specific slider set: the power limit slider isn’t the same thing as a clock offset, and raising it alone without also adjusting core clock offset typically just gives the GPU more headroom to sustain its existing boost behavior rather than directly increasing clock speed — the two settings work together rather than one substituting for the other, which is a common point of confusion for players expecting the power limit slider alone to produce a clock speed increase.

Saving profiles and startup behavior

Afterburner supports saving multiple configuration profiles, letting you switch between, for example, a quiet everyday profile and a more aggressive gaming profile without reconfiguring settings manually each time you want a different behavior.

Setting Afterburner (and RTSS, if used) to launch automatically with Windows, along with applying a saved profile on startup, means your fan curve and any clock adjustments are active as soon as the system boots rather than needing to be manually reapplied each session.

If you use a saved overclock or undervolt profile, confirm it’s actually being applied correctly after a fresh restart by checking the sliders’ current values in Afterburner’s main window, since a profile that isn’t set to auto-apply on startup will silently revert to default until manually reloaded.

Saving separate profiles for different scenarios is worth the small extra setup effort even if you only ever use one actively — a documented “known good” default profile you can revert to quickly if a later experiment with more aggressive clocks turns out unstable saves you from having to remember and manually re-enter your original working values from memory.

Using Afterburner alongside other monitoring or overlay tools

Running Afterburner’s overlay alongside Windows’ own Game Bar overlay, Discord’s overlay, or a streaming tool’s overlay simultaneously can occasionally cause conflicts, since multiple tools hooking into the same game process don’t always coexist cleanly.

If you notice display glitches, a missing overlay, or reduced stability with multiple overlay tools active, disabling all but one and re-enabling them individually helps isolate which combination is causing the problem, similar to the troubleshooting approach covered in our Game Bar troubleshooting guide.

HWiNFO64 can run alongside Afterburner without conflict for more detailed sensor logging, since the two tools generally read hardware sensors without competing for the same overlay rendering resources the way multiple on-screen overlay tools can.

A practical way to identify a genuine conflict versus an unrelated issue: close every overlay tool except Afterburner and confirm the game launches and displays the overlay normally on its own first, establishing a working baseline. Then reintroduce one additional overlay tool at a time, testing after each addition, rather than enabling everything at once and trying to guess retroactively which combination caused a problem you’re now seeing.

When Afterburner isn’t the right tool

If you only want basic frame rate monitoring without any interest in fan curves or clock adjustment, Windows’ built-in Game Bar overlay or a simpler dedicated FPS counter may be sufficient without needing Afterburner’s fuller feature set.

If you’re specifically troubleshooting deep hardware diagnostics — detailed voltage rail behavior, comprehensive sensor logging over time — HWiNFO64’s more extensive sensor exposure and logging capability complements Afterburner’s more streamlined, gaming-focused interface rather than replacing it.

If you’re on a laptop rather than a desktop, be aware that Afterburner’s overclocking and fan curve controls are often more limited or entirely unavailable, since many laptop GPUs and cooling systems are locked down by the manufacturer’s own firmware in ways a desktop card typically isn’t. In that case, Afterburner’s monitoring overlay still works normally, but you may need the laptop manufacturer’s own utility (if one exists) for fan and power tuning rather than relying on Afterburner’s sliders to do anything on that specific hardware.

Troubleshooting Afterburner setup issues

Overlay doesn’t appear at all: confirm RTSS was installed alongside Afterburner and is running (check the system tray), since the overlay depends on that separate component being active, not just Afterburner’s main window.

Afterburner won’t detect the GPU correctly: confirm your GPU driver is properly installed and current, and consider a clean reinstall using DDU if a recent driver change coincided with the detection issue.

Fan curve changes don’t seem to apply: confirm the profile was actually saved and applied, and check that no conflicting software (a GPU vendor’s own fan control utility running simultaneously) is overriding Afterburner’s settings.

System becomes unstable after applying clock or voltage changes: reset all sliders to default immediately using the reset button, then reapply changes more conservatively and one at a time if you want to try again.

Settings don’t persist after a restart: confirm “Start with Windows” and “Apply overclocking at system startup” (or similarly named options) are enabled in Afterburner’s general settings if you want your configuration to survive a reboot automatically.

Overlay text appears but the numbers all read zero or dashes: this typically means Afterburner isn’t currently detecting an active 3D application, since it only populates game-specific stats (FPS, frame time) once a supported game is actually running in the foreground — the overlay itself working correctly at the desktop with placeholder or system-wide values is a different, expected state, not a bug.

Frequently asked questions

Does MSI Afterburner only work with MSI graphics cards?

No, despite the branding, Afterburner works with GPUs from any manufacturer — NVIDIA, AMD, and others. It’s one of the most widely used GPU utilities regardless of your card’s brand.

Do I need to install RivaTuner Statistics Server separately?

It’s typically bundled with the Afterburner installer and offered as an optional component during setup. It’s required specifically for the on-screen overlay feature, so leave it selected during installation if you want that functionality.

Is it safe to leave Afterburner running in the background all the time?

Yes, its resource overhead is minimal, and many users leave it running continuously, minimized to the system tray, for ongoing fan curve control and overlay access without needing to relaunch it each session.

Can Afterburner damage my GPU if I change settings incorrectly?

Extreme, sustained settings outside safe limits carry risk, but Afterburner’s default sliders operate within ranges the software considers reasonable, and most changes (fan curves, moderate clock offsets) are safely reversible by resetting to default.

Why doesn’t my overlay show up in a specific game?

Some games with strict anti-cheat systems block overlay hooks by design, which affects Afterburner’s overlay the same way it affects other overlay tools like Game Bar. This is a per-game limitation, not a sign Afterburner is misconfigured.