How to see your FPS in FiveM (and measure them properly)

Short answer

To see your FPS in FiveM, press F8 to open the console, type cl_drawfps true and hit Enter. If you want more data (ping, packet loss, CPU and GPU usage), use cl_drawperf true. To hide them, type the same thing with false.

Seeing the number is easy. Measuring properly is the hard part, and that’s what the second half of this guide is about: if you don’t always measure the same way, you won’t know whether a setting actually helped.

Before you start

• No backup needed. These commands only show info on screen; they don’t touch any FiveM or GTA V files.
• Which FiveM. This guide was made with FiveM Legacy. The commands are listed in the FiveM documentation. On FiveM Enhanced, which is still in early access, things may be different. If you don’t know which one you’re on, check FiveM Legacy vs Enhanced.
• Join a server. The commands work in-game, so the most useful thing is to try them once you’re on a server, which is where you actually play.

The commands, one by one

To turn off any of the four, type the same command with false. For example, cl_drawfps false.

Step by step

1. Join the server you usually play on and wait for everything to finish loading. The first few seconds are usually worse because the game is still loading stuff.
2. Press F8. The FiveM console opens at the top of the screen.
3. Type cl_drawfps true and hit Enter. You’ll see the FPS counter.
4. Close the console with F8 again. The counter stays on screen while you play.
5. If you want the full panel, open the console again and type cl_drawperf true. It shows FPS, ping, packet loss, CPU, GPU and graphics card temperature all at once.
6. To hide everything, open the console and type cl_drawfps false and cl_drawperf false.

If the counter is gone after you restart FiveM, just type the command again.

What to look for in each stat

FPS

It’s the number of frames per second your PC draws. Higher is usually smoother, but what you notice most in PvP isn’t the max number, it’s the drops: when it suddenly dips in a gunfight or when you reach an area packed with people.

CPU and GPU

With cl_drawperf you can see how hard each one is working:

• GPU almost maxed out: the graphics card is what’s holding you back. Lowering graphics settings usually helps. Check the PvP graphics settings guide.
• GPU with headroom and low FPS: the bottleneck is usually somewhere else, like the processor, memory or the server’s scripts. Lowering graphics won’t help much there.
• High GPU temperature: if the graphics card gets very hot, it can throttle its performance to protect itself. Make sure your PC has good airflow.

Ping and packet loss

Ping is how long your connection takes to reach the server and come back. Packet loss is data that gets lost along the way. If you have packet loss, in PvP you may notice people “skipping” around or shots not registering. This has nothing to do with FPS: it’s the network.

netgraph

It’s a graph of your connection. It helps you see whether problems come and go (spikes) or are constant. If the graph shoots up right when you feel lag, the problem is most likely your network and not your graphics card.

resmon

resmon true opens a list of the server’s resources and how much CPU and memory each one uses. It’s really useful for one thing: finding out if the problem isn’t your PC, but a heavy server script. If one resource always sits at the top with values way higher than the rest, that resource is probably eating your performance. You can’t fix it yourself, but you can let the server staff know.

How to measure properly to compare settings

This is where almost everyone fools themselves. You change a setting, look at the counter, see a higher number and think it worked. But maybe you were just looking at the sky. To compare for real:

1. Same spot. Pick a specific point on the map and always go back there. A busy area is better, like the city center, because that’s where it shows the most.
2. Same camera. Always face the same direction with the same zoom. Looking at the ground or the sky changes the number a lot.
3. Same weather and time. Rain, night or fog change what your PC has to draw. If the server changes the weather, compare under similar conditions.
4. Same server, around the same time of day. With more players online, the game asks more of your PC.
5. Wait a bit. Stand still for a while before checking, and go by the number that shows up most often, not the highest peak.
6. Change one thing at a time. If you change five settings at once, you won’t know which one helped and which one made things worse.
7. Write down the results. A note on your phone is enough: what you changed, where you measured and what you saw.

And most important of all: watch the drops. A setting that raises the average a little but gets rid of stutters is worth more in PvP than one that raises the max and leaves the drops the same.

If something goes wrong

• F8 doesn’t open anything. Make sure you’re in-game in FiveM and not in another program’s main menu. If your keyboard doesn’t have direct F keys, you may need to hold the Fn key at the same time.
• I type the command and nothing happens. Check that it’s spelled right, with a space before true. Commands are lowercase, like in the table.
• The NVIDIA overlay counter doesn’t show up. That’s normal: FiveM usually blocks that overlay, and according to its documentation, turning it on has caused game crashes. Use cl_drawfps, which is FiveM’s own.
• My FPS looks fine, but the game stutters. Check resmon and netgraph. Stutters often come from a heavy server resource, memory or cache, not from your graphics settings. In optimize FiveM we explain what to do in each case.

Quick questions

Does showing FPS lower your FPS?

What it draws on screen is tiny. Even so, when you’re done measuring, turn off cl_drawperf and resmon so they don’t cover your screen during fights.

Is there a “good” FPS number for PvP?

It depends on your PC, your monitor and the server. What we do know is that in PvP, stable FPS matters more than a very high peak.

What now?

With the counter on, you can test settings for real. Start with the best graphics settings for PvP guide and, if you want our free optimizer for Windows, join the Discord and we’ll tell you where to download it.

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