Performance & FPS – Keeping RaceLab Smooth
Tips to keep your games smooth while using RaceLab overlays – whether you run triples, ultrawide or VR. [1] [2]
Performance basics
Overlay impact
In-game settings
PC & GPU tips
VR & triple screens
Quick checklist
Goal: Good, stable FPS first – then add “nice to have” overlays on top, not the other way around.
Performance basics – what actually costs FPS?
Biggest performance killers
- Running very high resolutions (triples / 4K / VR) with maxed graphics.
- Heavy post-processing (motion blur, depth of field, strong AA, high shadows).
- Too many windows on top of the game (overlays, browser windows, tools).
- Background apps quietly using CPU / GPU (browsers, launchers, recording apps).
What RaceLab overlays add
- Each overlay is a small extra window that must be drawn and updated.
- More overlays or very large overlays = more work for your GPU and CPU.
- Transparent overlays and animations cost slightly more than simple static ones.
- On modern PCs, RaceLab is usually a small part of the total FPS cost – but on older systems every bit matters.
How to reduce impact from RaceLab overlays
Keep only what you really use
- Disable overlays you don’t actively look at during the race (especially big timing blocks).
- For practice, keep more information; for races, keep only the essentials (relative, fuel, flags, key data).
- Avoid stacking many overlays in one corner – spreading load can sometimes behave better.
Layout and size choices
- Use one main timing overlay instead of several small ones doing similar jobs.
- Make overlays only as large as needed to read comfortably at your viewing distance.
- If you race in VR or triples, keep overlays closer to the centre; this often allows smaller, lighter widgets.
In-game settings that matter most for FPS
These settings usually give the biggest FPS gains in sims like iRacing, ACC, rFactor 2, AMS2, F1 and LMU. [3]
Graphics sliders to try first
- Reduce shadows (and shadow distance) one or two steps.
- Lower reflection quality / number of visible cars in mirrors.
- Turn down or disable motion blur, depth of field and screen-space reflections.
- Cut crowds, trackside objects and environment detail slightly – big gain for small visual loss.
Resolution and display mode
- Use your monitor’s native resolution, but avoid unnecessary super-sampling where possible.
- “Borderless windowed” or “Windowed (fullscreen)” usually behaves best with overlays.
- If FPS is unstable, enable a sensible FPS cap (for example 60 / 90 / 120) to reduce spikes.
- On VR headsets, lower render scale a little before lowering other graphics – this is often a big win.
PC & GPU tips before blaming RaceLab
Clean up background load
- Close browsers, launchers and apps you don’t need while racing.
- Check Task Manager for anything constantly using CPU or GPU in the background.
- Pause large downloads, cloud sync or Windows updates when you’re on track.
Drivers & basic maintenance
- Keep GPU drivers reasonably up to date (no need to chase every single version).
- Use your GPU control panel to disable forced extra filters on top of the game where possible.
- Make sure your sim and RaceLab are installed on a reasonably fast drive (SSD preferred).
Extra notes for VR and triple-screen users
VR specific tips
- Use borderless or windowed display mode with overlays rather than exclusive fullscreen.
- Keep the number of active overlays low in VR, and test changes in a quiet practice session first.
- Restart the VR compositor (SteamVR / OpenXR) if overlays start to appear behind the view or feel “sticky”.
Triple-screen & ultrawide
- Set up your triple or ultrawide resolution first, confirm FPS is stable, then add overlays on top.
- Avoid stretching one overlay all the way across all three screens unless absolutely needed.
- Place key overlays on the centre screen; this reduces eye travel and often lets you keep them smaller.
Quick “Performance & FPS” checklist
- ✅ Game runs smoothly with no overlays – if not, fix base FPS first.
- ✅ Only essential overlays enabled for racing (relative, fuel, flags, key info).
- ✅ Heavy graphics options (shadows, reflections, crowd detail) tuned down a little.
- ✅ Background apps closed; no hidden downloads or CPU hogs running.
- ✅ For VR / triples: correct resolution set and stable before overlays are added.
Step-by-step Performance & FPS checklist
Use this section when someone says “my FPS is bad” or “RaceLab overlays killed my performance”. Walk through the cards from left to right. You don’t have to do every step at once, but try to keep the order roughly the same so it’s easy to repeat.
Quick health check
1. Confirm the basics (before changing settings)
- Ask what FPS they normally expect and what they get now (e.g. “120 → 45 FPS”).
- Check screen type: single / ultrawide / triples / VR. Note that triples + VR are always heavier.
- Confirm refresh rate and resolution in Windows and in the sim both match (e.g. 2560×1440 @ 144 Hz).
- Verify GPU drivers are up to date (NVIDIA / AMD software, or Windows Update if needed).[1]
- Check nothing heavy is running in the background (browser with many tabs, recording, extra overlays, etc.).
Tip: If FPS is suddenly awful after a Windows update or driver change, roll back the last change first before changing graphics settings everywhere.
PC & GPU tuning
2. Windows & GPU control panel checks
- Set Windows Power Plan to “High performance” or “Ultimate / AMD Ryzen High Performance” (not “Power saver”).[2]
- In NVIDIA / AMD software, set a game-specific profile for the sim (iRacing, LMU, ACC, etc.).
- Prefer “Let the application decide” for Anti-Aliasing / V-Sync. Only force overrides if you know exactly why.
- Check the sim is using the dedicated GPU (laptops especially): in Windows “Graphics” settings assign the sim to “High performance”.
- Disable unnecessary overlays that hook into the game (other overlay tools, FPS counters, streaming tools) temporarily to compare.
Tip: Ask the user to test one race session with only RaceLab running (no extra overlays, no browser sources in OBS) and compare FPS.
In-game graphics
3. Game graphics settings that matter most
- Lower or disable the heaviest options first: shadows, reflections, mirrors, crowd, particles, motion blur, and very high AA levels.[3]
- Use a reasonable FPS cap (e.g. 72 / 90 / 120) instead of unlimited – this reduces stutter on CPU-limited systems.
- For triples, always confirm correct triple screen configuration (bezel, FOV, correct resolution per screen) – wrong projection can look stuttery even at good FPS.
- In VR, start with vendor “recommended” or “balanced” preset, then slowly increase only one setting at a time.
- After any big change, restart the sim fully (some engines only apply changes cleanly after a restart).
Tip: Many sims have an official “performance” or “low-latency” guide. Link the user to that guide as the long-term reference and note the key lines on your site.[1]
4. When overlays or streaming hurt FPS
- Confirm if the user is: just driving, or driving + streaming/recording (OBS, ShadowPlay, etc.).
- Explain that browser sources, animated widgets, and extra browser windows all cost CPU & GPU time.
- Ask them to test:
- RaceLab running with overlays off → note FPS.
- RaceLab with just one core overlay (Relative / Standings) → note FPS.
- Full overlay pack + stream → note FPS again.
- If streaming, prefer hardware encoding (NVENC / AMD equivalent) with a reasonable bitrate instead of maxing everything.
- Close unused browser tabs that are still rendering RaceLab pages (especially if they have live timing or extra overlays running in the background).
Tip: One or two simple overlays usually cost very little. Big FPS drops often mean a combination of heavy game settings, high-resolution streaming, and several browser sources all stacked together.[4]
Still feels wrong
5. If FPS is still bad after the basics
- Grab basic specs from the user: CPU, GPU, RAM, monitor type, resolution, and storage (HDD vs SSD/NVMe).
- Check for thermal throttling: ask if fans suddenly ramp up and FPS drops, or if they see very high CPU/GPU temps.
- Ask if other games also have FPS issues. If yes, it might be a wider PC problem (not just RaceLab or the sim).
- Look for known issues in the current sim version (e.g. a bad patch causing stutters or specific track/car FPS problems).[3]
- Document what you tried and add a short note to your internal “Bugs & Issues – Performance & FPS” section so you can spot patterns over time.
Tip: When multiple users with similar hardware report the same problem after a specific update, treat it as a potential bug and link it to your Quarterly Bug Report page.
Sources & references
- Official sim-racing performance tuning guides (iRacing / similar): general guidance on GPU/CPU load, driver updates, and sensible graphics defaults. ↩ back
- Microsoft & hardware vendor docs on Windows power plans and “High performance” modes improving CPU behaviour under load. ↩ back
- Game-specific graphics optimisation notes (e.g. shadows, mirrors, reflections and particles as key FPS killers in modern sims). ↩ back
- Streaming and overlay performance notes from OBS / GPU vendors regarding browser sources, hardware encoding and capture load. ↩ back