Steam adds FPS counter to beta client

Steam has added an oft requested framerate counter overlay to its beta client.

The FPS counter rests in the top left of the screen in similar fashion to something like FRAPS, which has been a PC gamer’s favourite to measure framerate up until now.

To see the counter, you must be opted in to the Steam beta client and the Steam Overlay must be enabled within the game. Activating the framerate viewer can be done from the In-Game settings menu in Steam.

As the framerate counter is part of the Steam Overlay, the numbers also won’t show up on any screenshots that you take from inside the game.

The overlay has been added alongside a few other tweaks to the client including reducing CPU usage for animated images or videos, improving video playback performance on Mac and Linux systems and improving Steam Overlay reload settings.

Several tweaks to Steam’s broadcast mode were also made in the update. Steam added broadcasting mode, which allows friends to watch you play games in your Steam library, to the beta client early in December 2014.

Steam has had a strong start to 2015 already and reported seeing 8.5 million concurrent users ringing in the new year on the digital distribution service according to its statistics page.