The Hardware Monitor

The Hardware Monitor page (sidebar: Hardware Monitor) is a deeper, sensor-level view than the Home dashboard. It reads CPU, GPU, RAM, disk and network in real time, adds frametime/percentile stats while you game, and — where your GPU supports it — lets you nudge fan speed and power limit. It does all of this without a kernel driver, which is the deliberate trade-off that keeps it out of the game process.

What it reads, and how

• CPU — usage %, an estimated current clock (base clock scaled by the processor-performance counter), thread count, and temperature if a safe WMI thermal source exposes it. CPU temp often shows temp N/A — that's honest: reading it reliably needs a kernel driver this app refuses to ship.
• GPU — on NVIDIA cards, usage, temperature, core/memory clocks, VRAM used/total, power draw and fan speed come straight from NVIDIA's own nvml.dll (it ships with the driver). On AMD/Intel, usage comes from the Windows GPU counter and temp/fan/clock from the vendor's user-mode library where available.
• RAM — used/total in GB and a percentage, from the live memory status.
• Disk — overall physical-disk activity %.
• Network — combined download/upload throughput across your real adapters (loopback and tunnels excluded).

Everything updates once per second, and the read happens on a background thread so the UI stays smooth.

Frametime and 1% / 0.1% lows

While a game or emulator is running and Guardian has detected it, the monitor shows live frame statistics:

• FPS — current frame rate.
• Frametime — average milliseconds per frame.
• 1% low and 0.1% low — the frame rate during your worst 1% and 0.1% of frames, i.e. how bad the stutters get. These matter more for feel than the headline FPS.
• A live frametime graph — flatter is smoother.

These come from the same source as the FPS gauge — on Windows 11 the game's own frames, otherwise the display's rate, labelled "Display rate" — with no injection. When no game is detected, every field reads a dash and the label says no game detected. The FPS article explains when you see the display's rate.

GPU fan and power tuning

If your GPU and driver expose safe, documented controls, a tuning panel appears:

1. Fan % — drag the slider and click Apply to set a fixed fan speed, or Auto to hand control back to the driver's curve.
2. Power limit % — drag to lower (cooler, quieter) or raise (more performance, more heat), confirm the prompt, then it's applied.

If your hardware doesn't support in-app tuning, the panel is replaced by a button that opens the official vendor tool (NVIDIA app, AMD software, or Intel Arc Control) — BRUTAL won't perform blind, undocumented GPU writes.

How it differs from the Home dashboard

• The Home dashboard is the at-a-glance summary plus the Performance Score and quick actions.
• The Hardware Monitor is the detailed instrument panel: per-sensor temperatures, clocks, VRAM, power, frametime percentiles and tuning.

Use the dashboard to decide whether to act; use the Hardware Monitor to see exactly what your hardware is doing.

Best practice

• Watch 1% lows, not just average FPS — that's where stutter lives.
• Keep an eye on GPU temperature during long sessions; if it climbs, a small power-limit reduction can cut heat with little FPS loss.
• If a sensor shows N/A, that's the app being honest about what your hardware safely exposes — not a bug.

Common issues / troubleshooting

• CPU temp is N/A. Expected on many boards — a safe WMI temperature source isn't present, and the app won't load a kernel driver to force it.
• GPU temp/clock/power missing on NVIDIA. Update your GPU driver so nvml.dll is current, then revisit the page.
• No tuning panel. Your GPU/driver doesn't expose documented controls; use the vendor-tool button instead.
• Frame stats stuck on dashes. No game detected yet — launch the game and let Guardian pick it up.