You’re mid-game, or maybe just clicking around your desktop, and suddenly there it is. A little box of numbers tucked into the corner of your screen. It’s haunting you. Seeing FPS, GPU, CPU, and LAT blinking at you is like having a backseat driver constantly shouting your car's oil pressure while you’re just trying to drive to the grocery store.
It’s distracting. It’s clunky. And honestly, if you didn’t turn it on yourself, it feels like your computer has been possessed by a very nerdy ghost.
Most of the time, this happens because of a "fat finger" moment. You hit a keyboard shortcut by accident. Or, maybe a recent driver update decided to be "helpful" by enabling a performance monitoring suite you never asked for. If you are wondering why is my PC showing FPS GPU CPU and LAT, the answer usually lies within one of three major culprits: Nvidia GeForce Experience, AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, or the Windows Game Bar.
The Nvidia Shadowplay Culprit
If you’re rocking an RTX or GTX card, Nvidia’s "Overlay" is the most likely suspect. It’s a powerful tool, sure, but it has a habit of popping up when you press Alt + R. That specific shortcut toggles the performance overlay.
People do this all the time while trying to hit Alt + Tab or other game-specific binds. Suddenly, you have a readout of your frame rate, your GPU utilization, and that "LAT" metric, which stands for latency—specifically, the time it takes for your system to process a frame.
To kill it, you don't need to uninstall anything. Just hit Alt + Z to bring up the main GeForce Experience dashboard. Click the little "Settings" cog icon. Look for "HUD Layout." From there, click on "Performance" and select "Off." Boom. The numbers vanish. If you want to prevent it from ever happening again, you can actually unbind that Alt + R shortcut in the keyboard shortcuts menu so your accidental presses don't trigger the monitoring ghosts.
That Pesky Windows Game Bar
Not an Nvidia user? It might be Microsoft's own built-in tool. Windows 10 and 11 come with the Xbox Game Bar pre-installed. It’s meant to help with recording and social stuff, but it has a "Performance" widget that shows—you guessed it—CPU, GPU, VRAM, and RAM usage.
Sometimes this widget gets "pinned." When a widget is pinned in Game Bar, it stays on top of every other window, including your web browser and your games. It looks like a floating translucent box.
You can toggle the Game Bar by hitting Windows Key + G. Look for the Performance window. If there is a little pin icon that is highlighted, click it to unpin. Or, just close that specific window within the overlay. If you hate the Game Bar entirely, you can go into your Windows Settings, head to "Gaming," and just flip the switch to "Off" for the entire Game Bar system. It saves a tiny bit of system resources too, which is always a nice bonus for older rigs.
AMD Adrenalin: The Red Team’s Version
AMD users aren't safe from this either. AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition has a very robust performance logging system. The default shortcut to toggle this overlay is Ctrl + Shift + O.
It’s remarkably easy to hit that combination accidentally if you’re playing a complex strategy game or an MMO with lots of keybinds. AMD’s overlay is usually more colorful than Nvidia’s, often using red or white text. To get rid of it, you can either hit that shortcut again or open the AMD software, go to the "Performance" tab, and then "Tracking." On the right side, you’ll see "Overlay." Toggle that to "Disabled."
Understanding the "LAT" Metric
Let’s talk about that "LAT" for a second. It’s the one that confuses people the most. While FPS (Frames Per Second) is common knowledge, "LAT" or "Render Latency" is a bit more technical. It measures the delay between the CPU receiving an input and the GPU actually spitting out the frame to your monitor.
If you see this number spiking, it means your game might feel "heavy" or unresponsive, even if your FPS is high. Nvidia calls this "Reflex Latency" in some menus. If your PC is showing this, it’s actually trying to help you diagnose lag, but unless you’re a competitive pro-player, it’s mostly just cluttering up your view of the beautiful graphics you paid for.
Other Third-Party Sneaks
Sometimes it’s none of the big three. If you’ve ever downloaded MSI Afterburner to overclock your card, it usually comes bundled with something called RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS).
RTSS is the gold standard for benchmarking, but it’s aggressive. It will show its On-Screen Display (OSD) in almost anything that uses 3D acceleration. If you see text that looks a bit like an old digital watch—usually in bright purple or green—that’s RivaTuner. You’ll need to find the little monitor icon in your system tray (near the clock), right-click it, and either close it or toggle "Show On-Screen Display" to "Off."
Steam also has its own FPS counter, though it’s much more subtle—just a small green number. You can find that in Steam Settings > In-Game > In-game FPS counter. It won't show CPU or LAT, though, so if you're seeing those, Steam isn't your culprit.
Why did it start showing up now?
Software updates are the usual trigger. Sometimes an update resets your preferences to "Default," and the manufacturers think everyone wants to see their stats. Other times, it's a "New Feature" highlight that stays on until you manually dismiss it.
There's also the "Performance Overlay" in specialized monitors. Some high-end gaming monitors from brands like ASUS or LG have a physical button on the back that toggles a hardware-level FPS counter. This won't show CPU or LAT (because the monitor doesn't know what your CPU is doing), but it's another layer of junk that can clutter your screen.
How to permanently clean up your screen
If you’re tired of these things popping up, the best move is a "scorched earth" approach to shortcuts.
- Nvidia Users: Open GeForce Experience > Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts. Change "Toggle Performance Overlay" to something impossible to hit, like Alt + F12, or just delete the shortcut.
- AMD Users: Open Adrenalin > Settings > Hotkeys. Click the hotkey for "Performance Overlay" and press "Delete" to unbind it.
- Windows Users: Go to Settings > Gaming > Xbox Game Bar and turn off "Allow your controller to open Game Bar" and the general toggle.
Actionable Next Steps
- Identify the Color: If the text is green, it's likely Nvidia or Steam. If it's red/white, it's AMD. If it's blue or purple, it's likely MSI Afterburner/RivaTuner.
- Try the Shortcuts: Press Alt + R (Nvidia) or Ctrl + Shift + O (AMD) first. Most of the time, this fixes the issue in one second.
- Check the System Tray: Look for icons like a small lightning bolt (Afterburner) or a computer screen (RivaTuner) and right-click them to close.
- Disable "In-Game Overlays": If you don't record your gameplay or use instant-replay, you can completely disable the "In-Game Overlay" in your GPU settings to save some RAM and prevent accidental pop-ups.
- Update Drivers: Sometimes a bug causes the overlay to stick. A clean driver install using DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) can wipe all these settings if they are truly stuck.
By following these steps, you’ll regain your screen real estate and get back to actually enjoying your PC rather than staring at its vitals.