RaceLab Performance Tips
RaceLab is lightweight, but when several overlays, dashboards and streaming tools run together, even a powerful PC can lose FPS. These tips show how to keep overlays smooth, sims responsive, and performance consistent across sessions.
- Optimise RaceLab overlays for your system and screen setup.
- Use browser hardware acceleration and sensible refresh intervals.
- Monitor overlay FPS and browser GPU load.
- Test with and without streaming or recording to isolate drops.
1. Overlay layout & size
- Keep total overlay count reasonable; start with core ones (Standings, Relative, Radar).
- Large browser windows or ultra-wide layouts use more GPU memory.
- For triple-screens, spread overlays efficiently—avoid off-screen panels.
- Use static overlays for endurance racing where FPS stability matters most.
2. Browser settings & acceleration
- Ensure Hardware acceleration is enabled in the RaceLab browser.
- Update to the latest RaceLab beta for performance and memory fixes.
- Disable background browser extensions or overlays not in use.
- Restart RaceLab after long sessions to clear browser cache buildup.
3. Update frequency & telemetry
- Use the default telemetry rate unless your sim plugin recommends otherwise.
- Faster refresh rates mean more CPU/GPU load; balance smoothness with efficiency.
- If overlays lag behind, check UDP port speed or sim telemetry delay settings.
- For LMU and rF2, confirm that telemetry ports aren’t shared by other tools.
4. Monitor usage & quick checks
- Open Task Manager → Performance and confirm RaceLab GPU usage stays low.
- Watch Chrome/Edge GPU process memory: if it climbs above 1 GB, restart overlays.
- Compare FPS with overlays on/off — differences over ~10% may indicate layout overload.
- Log FPS before/after updates; some RaceLab versions include rendering optimisations.
Use this guide when troubleshooting “RaceLab lowers my FPS” reports or when helping users set up their first custom overlay layout. It pairs with the CPU / GPU Tuning and Performance & FPS pages for full-system optimisation.
Step-by-step RaceLab performance tuning
Use these steps when users say “RaceLab is killing my FPS” or “overlays feel heavy”. Start by simplifying the layout, then adjust browser settings, test with and without streaming, and finally look for patterns that point to specific overlays or sims.
1. Clean up the overlay layout
- Ask the user which overlays they are running: Standings, Relative, Radar, Fuel, Advanced Panel, Chat, dashboards, etc.
- Temporarily switch to a minimal layout: one timing overlay (Relative or Standings) + one essential extra (Fuel or Radar).
- Remove duplicate information: for example, don’t run three big timing boxes that all show the same data.
- Resize very large browser windows or ultra-wide overlays so they only cover the visible area they actually use.
- For triples, keep overlays inside the main view area and avoid placing big elements far out on side screens.
Tip: Save a “Lightweight” RaceLab layout preset for support. You can send the same preset to users with similar hardware and screen setups.[1]
2. Browser settings, hardware acceleration & updates
- Confirm that Hardware acceleration is enabled inside RaceLab’s browser (or the browser used for overlays).[2]
- Ask the user which RaceLab version they run; suggest updating to the current stable or beta if it includes performance fixes.
- Close extra browser tabs and windows that show RaceLab layouts but aren’t actively used (they still consume GPU/CPU).
- On long sessions (endurance racing), restart RaceLab between stints to clear browser cache and memory growth.
- On laptops, confirm that the browser and RaceLab processes are using the dedicated GPU, not integrated graphics.
Tip: If GPU usage from the browser process slowly climbs during a race, a quick restart of RaceLab can recover performance without touching sim graphics settings.[3]
3. Compare overlays, streaming & “sim only”
- Ask the user to do three short tests on the same combo (track, car, session type):
- Test A: Sim only, no RaceLab, no OBS.
- Test B: Sim + RaceLab with lightweight overlay layout.
- Test C: Sim + RaceLab + OBS/streaming with their usual scene.
- Compare FPS and “feel” between A & B. If FPS is the same, RaceLab itself is not a major problem.
- Compare B & C. If FPS only drops during C, focus on OBS settings (encoder, bitrate, resolution, FPS).
- Suggest hardware encoder (NVENC / AMD) for streaming and reasonable stream FPS (30 or 60) for most systems.
- Write down which of the three tests felt worst – that’s where you spend your tuning effort.
Tip: In your bug/issue notes, mark whether the problem only appears when streaming. It prevents RaceLab from getting blamed for OBS issues.[4]
4. Typical “RaceLab is heavy” reports & quick responses
- “FPS drops when I open overlays” – check if they added several large overlays at once or run extra browser windows off-screen.
- “Triples feel laggy with overlays” – ensure correct triple configuration in the sim and keep overlays away from extreme edges of side screens.
- “VR stutters with RaceLab” – suggest a very minimal overlay layout and confirm VR render resolution is not pushed too high.
- “Fine alone, bad when streaming” – change encoder to hardware, lower stream resolution/bitrate, and cap in-game FPS moderately.
- “It got worse after an update” – note sim + RaceLab version, check for known issues, and test with your lightweight layout on the same combo.
Tip: Add short examples of these patterns to your “Bugs & Issues – Performance & FPS” section, so you can link cases together over time.
Sources & references
- RaceLab community layouts and support discussions on running only core overlays for best FPS on mid-range hardware. ↩ back
- Browser and overlay performance notes on using hardware acceleration for Chromium-based overlays in sim racing tools. ↩ back
- Practical advice from sim-racing streams on restarting overlay/browser processes to recover GPU memory after long sessions. ↩ back
- Streaming and encoding best-practice tips (NVENC/AMD encoders, FPS caps and bitrates) from sim racing content creators and OBS documentation. ↩ back