How to Disable In-Game Overlays to Fix Lag & FPS Drops?

When you’re playing games and begin to notice performance issues like lag, frame drops, or input stutter, a common but often overlooked cause is in-game overlays. These overlays are designed to enhance your gaming experience by offering quick access to features like:

• Screen recording
• FPS counters
• Friend lists and chat
• Performance monitoring tools

However, despite their utility, overlays run in the background and consume a noticeable amount of system resources (especially CPU and GPU cycles). In performance-demanding titles, this background activity can:

• Interfere with real-time rendering
• Introduce input latency
• May cause crashes or graphical instability, especially on mid-range or older hardware.

To eliminate unnecessary resource usage and improve performance, we recommend disabling any non-essential in-game overlays.

Below are steps to disable overlays from commonly used applications like NVIDIA GeForce Experience, AMD Radeon Software, Steam, Discord, and others

Disable Windows Game Bar Overlay

1. Press Windows + S to open search, type “Game Bar settings“, and select the matching result.
2. Toggle off the switch for “Record game clips, screenshots, and broadcast using Game Bar” to disable it completely.

Disable AMD Radeon Overlay

1. Launch the AMD Adrenalin software on your PC.
2. Click the gear icon (Settings) in the top-right corner of the application window.
3. Select Preferences from the left-side menu.
4. Find and disable the “In-Game Overlay” toggle switch.
5. Close the AMD app – changes are saved automatically.

Disable NVIDIA GeForce Overlay

1. Open the Windows Search (Windows key + S), type “NVIDIA App“, and launch the application.
2. In the NVIDIA App, locate and click the Settings (gear icon) on the left sidebar.
3. Under the General tab, find the “In-Game Overlay” option and toggle it Off.

Disable EA App Overlay

1. Launch the EA Play application on your computer.
2. Click the hamburger menu icon (☰) in the top-left corner to open the main menu.
3. From the menu options, select Settings.
4. Navigate to the Application tab and scroll down to find the In-game overlay section.
5. Toggle the In-game overlay switch to the Off position.

Disable Ubisoft Connect Overlay

1. Launch Ubisoft Connect on your computer.
2. Click on your profile icon in the upper-left corner of the launcher, then select Settings from the menu.
3. Navigate to the Interface tab and disable the option labeled “Enable in-game overlay for supported games” by toggling it off.
4. Close and restart Ubisoft Connect for the changes to take effect.

Disable Steam Overlay

1. Launch Steam and click the Steam menu in the top-left corner (next to “View” and “Friends”).
2. Select Settings from the dropdown menu, then click In-Game in the left sidebar.
3. Uncheck the box next to “Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game” to disable it.
4. Click OK to save your changes. The overlay will now be disabled for all games.

Disable Discord Overlay

1. Launch the Discord application on your computer.
2. Click the gear icon (⚙️) near your profile picture in the bottom-left corner to open User Settings.
3. In the left sidebar, select Game Overlay under the Activity Settings section.
4. Toggle off the switch for Enable in-game overlay to disable all overlay features.