Luckily, we have the MSI Afterburner utility. But, how to use MSI Afterburner? Let’s find out! MSI’s Afterburner is every gamer’s dream. It is a graphics-based utility that can help you take control of your graphics card. From overclocking to basic monitoring, it’s capable of taking care of everything when it comes to your gaming experience.
What Does MSI Afterburner Do?
As it is clear from the introduction that MSI burner is one of the best graphic card utilities for overclocking, which helps users to make the most of their chipset. However, apart from overclocking, there are several other things that Afterburner is capable of doing so. It gives complete control over the graphics card. It is responsible for monitoring, benchmarking, customizing fan profiles, troubleshooting, and much more (keep reading to know more about the features).
MSI Afterburner Features
#1- Overclocking
Overclocking is potentially a disastrous task, however, thanks to the MSI Afterburner, which keeps this process simplified. It allows you to push your GP to its maximum capabilities while keeping the permanent hardware damage at bay. Talking about how does it do that, Well, MSI Afterburner gives you control over a variety of settings such as core voltage, temperature limit, power limit, fan speed, core and memory clock speed. This control over options is given only to find a balance between performance and capability. The recent iteration of MSI Afterburner integrates OC Scanner. OC Scanner uses Nvidia developed algorithms that can scan any model and determine the best performance and stable overclocking settings corresponding to that model.
#2- Monitoring
Since the overclocking allows you to tweak to the parameters such as GPU temperature, memory and core clock speed, FPS, voltage, and so on, it also provides a mechanism to monitor the changes. MSI Afterburner displays the changes in the series of graphs and on-screen display that can help you monitor the tweaks in the game.
#3- Benchmarking
MSI Afterburner comes with a built-in tool “Kombustor”. Kombuster is a burn-in GPU stress utility used for comparing stability and thermal performance. Kombuster provides detailed information the tweaks that you have made in overclocking along with how they will affect the performance. It is compatible with OpenGL and DirectX.
#4- Custom Fan Profiles
Heat distribution plays an important role when it comes to graphics cards. You can use a preset fan speed curveball, which makes the fan decrease or increase the speed on the basis of GPU temperature. In this way, you can safely overclock the GPU without worrying about the damages, as this feature will take care of it by determining the cooling performance when the heat builds up. This also allows you to save presets to use them later on. In this way, this utility will automatically configure to your desired settings while switching games.
#5- Predator Video Capture
Do you know you can record videos of your game with MSI Afterburner and that too very efficiently? Yes, MSI Afterburner comes with an add-on application called Predator. The Predator can record gameplay without even missing a single frame rate. Moreover, Predator allows you to capture the games in various formats such as WMV and AVI. This tool is even compatible with the H.264 codec. It also gives you leverage to configure different settings such as frame rate limit, quality, and compression types.
#6- Custom User Skins and Multi-Language Support
MSI Afterburner gives little treats to the gamers as well. It gives gamers an option to select from various different skins that give your gaming experience a makeover. There are many skins available in the app, and you can download more online. To entertain users across the globe, MSI Afterburner offers language support in several languages. You can change the language from the User Interface menu.
#7- In-Game FPS Counter
If you ask us, what is our favorite feature about the MSI Afterburner? Apart from all the rainbows and unicorns about overclocking, the in-game FPS counter is by far the handiest yet best feature. In-game FPS counter displays real-time information on how the system is working in-game. In other words, it allows you to monitor the performance of GPU while you enjoy your game!
How To Download MSI Afterburner
Downloading MSI Afterburner is no brainer. It is simply like all other games and software that you probably have downloaded once in your lifetime. And, even if you are new to this, keep following to download the MSI Afterburner.
Visit the MSI Afterburner Website, or simply just search on google for it. From the google page, find the official link for the Afterburner and go to that website Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Download” under the MSI Afterburner option. It completely depends on you; you can also download the phone app to control the utility while playing the game. Once the download completes, you need to unzip the file named as MSIAfterburnerSetup.zip The run the exe file from the file and follow the on-screen installation steps. Please note that if the installer prompts to download Kombustor, answer it in favor and install that too.
Initial Settings For MSI Afterburner
Once you have downloaded and installed the MSI Afterburner, the story doesn’t end there. There are some initial configurations that have to be done to make your Afterburner up and working just like it should. Follow the following steps to set up your MSI Afterburner:
How To Use MSI Kombustor?
Before getting into overclocking, there is one thing you need to understand, Kombustor. You need to know how the Kombustor works and how to read Kombustor before overclocking the card. Further, you also need to know what performance you are getting at base levels. To know how to do this, keep following the steps: Now, you are ready to overclock your card. We recommend searching for how users have overclocked the same card as yours for better understanding. In this way, you’ll be able to push your card to its limit.
Understanding What Overclocking A GPU does?
There is just one more thing you need to understand before going to actually start overclocking (we promise it’s the last one!). That one thing is, understanding what overclocking a GPU actually does. Firstly, the most important thing overclocking does increase the GPU’s performance by boosting the speed of the graphical processor at which it works. All GPUs have a certain running speed, which is called base speed. However, this speed might vary depending on the manufacturer. So, by overclocking the speed of the card, the GPU will, in return, increase in temperature, and thus, the more power is drained. Therefore, it is necessary to find a balance between a stable temperature and performance for the card. You should always keep in mind one thing, that every card is different even if it’s the same manufacturer and same model! For example, your GTX 1080 might have different safe high speed, while your friend’s GTX 1080 might have a different one. Therefore, we recommend testing your overclocking speeds on your own. Don’t try to push your graphics card too hard with MSI Afterburner overclocking software. Doing so will result in graphical glitches or crashing of the PC. We know this might be a nightmare, but don’t worry. You can always change your speeds back to safe levels, and for the best practice, always start slow and move it upward until you start experiencing any problems.
How To Overclock Using MSI Afterburner?
Not to scare you, but overclocking is full of risks process. Tweaking your GPU might result in damaging it permanently. But, MSI Afterburner makes this process easier. However, some common sense is a prerequisite for it. At any point you notice that you are pushing your GPU too far, stop immediately and search for it online. Follow these steps to overclock using MSI Afterburner:
How To Enable The On-Screen Display in MSI Afterburner?
Want to know how good or bad your GPU actually is? The best way to find out is by using the MSI Afterburner for On-Screen Display Benchmarking. This utility helps you easily set the software to show you the memory clock, clock speed, temperature, and much more that is related to GPU. To enable the on-screen display in MSI Afterburner, follow these steps:
How To Set A Fan Profile?
When overclocking, setting up a fan profile is necessary as it shows how efficient your GPU will run. Here are a few steps to guide you on how to set a fan profile:
Compatibility
One of the amazing things about MSI Afterburner is its compatibility. It is compatible with almost every GPU regardless of the model, chipset manufacturer, or card manufacturer. If your GPU has been made within the last ten years, the MSI Afterburner will support it; this makes the Afterburner the most versatile graphics controlling tool. The amazing features of MSI Afterburner surpass all the tests as the competitors only tend to support specific GPUs. Furthermore, this utility is free of charge and intuitive, the cherry on the top! Sources: Msi.comhttps://www.msi.com/page/afterburnerWikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RivaTuner
