Glossary:Frame rate (FPS)
Graphics and video
Resolutions
Video settings
- Field of view (FOV)
- Windowed / borderless fullscreen
- Anisotropic filtering (AF)
- Anti-aliasing (AA)
- High-fidelity upscaling
- Vertical sync (Vsync)
- Frame rate (FPS)
- High dynamic range (HDR)
- Ray tracing (RT)
- Color blind mode
Hardware
Key points
- For wiki purposes a game is considered to support high frame rate when the frame rate can reach at least 120 FPS.
- Higher frame rates makes gameplay feel and look smoother.
- High frame rates will make the GPU / CPU work much harder, resulting in high temperatures. This is more significant if there is no frame cap set.
General information
Frame rate or frame frequency, often measured in frames per second (FPS), is the frequency (rate) that images (frames) render. It is a general concept not unique to computer video games.
Frame rate affects the quality of a game experience, very low fps can hinder or distract from gameplay. High FPS looks good - smooth and fluid and low FPS looks bad - choppy and laggy. This is because in games frames are generated perfectly and interactively controlled so it's easier to notice jerky movement where in other media motion blurring is occuring naturally. Many games do offer motion blurring as graphical option but it's simulated and can distract even more as you can't clearly what's happening in fast paced points.
There are several differend frame rate comparison sites including 30vs60, Bo Allens comparison and UFO test. Content on YouTube and GIFs are usually bad to compare as they usually lower overall quality significally[1] as well as show only FPS to certain degree; Gifs are 50 FPS max and most content on YouTube is 30 FPS as 60 FPS support was only announced June 2014[2]. Also keep in mind that games are interactive media so smoothness doesn't only show but it also feels when you are actually playing.
FPS is different for every game and setup, it depends on both software and hardware. Rendering is very complicated. Generally, more powerful and expensive hardware has higher FPS. However, problems with FPS are not always easy to solve, and there may be no solution.
Measuring FPS
An FPS counter is a simple way to show frame rate, and averages FPS over a short period of time.
Most games will have a key combo or console command to show or toggle a counter. See game specific articles.
Alternatively, many overlays can show counters, including Fraps, MSI Afterburner, EVGA Precision, RivaTuner, Xfire, and others.
Increasing FPS
Generally easiest and most effective way to increase games FPS is to simply lower graphical fidelity. This is also one of the greatest advantages of PC gaming overall as some users may want to have smoother experience at the cost of overall eye candy. Generally speaking newer the game is and with higher settings your computer has to work harder to make frames which results lower overall FPS.
However if you are experiencing surprisingly low FPS there may be issues in the game itself; see games article to see if there are fixes for the issue.
If you have really low FPS even with minimum settings best solution is to try upgrade the hardware. Some games allow going even lower settings with configuration files but usually this is manual work and results may not be satisfactory.
High Frame Rate
Key points
- 120Hz and 144Hz monitors can show extra frames for much smoother gameplay.
- Screen tearing and stuttering are less visible when more frames are shown.
- Ability to play in stereoscopic 3D.
- Many games cap the frame rate at 60 FPS or below.
- Some games don't work correctly when the cap is increased.
- This should not be confused high frame rate in videos, where it usually means exceeding over 24 FPS.
Regular 60Hz monitor refreshes 60 times per second so it can only show 60 FPS and it's usually useless to go beyond that. With higher refresh rate monitors it's possible to show more frames which result even smoother and even more responsive gameplay, but just like with resolution differences with higher values are smaller, but still make gameplay more enjoyable and reduce need for features like motion blurring and vsyncing but also require more powerful machine.
Without Vsync you see less tearing and stuttering as time those are shown is much lower. However there are technologies that can adjust screens refresh rate according to games frame rate, these include Nvidia Gsync[3] and Dynamic Refresh Rate aka FreeSync which is part of DisplayPort standard[4]. Gsync is available in selected models and can be installed in some older models where FreeSync should be available in models supporting 1.2a Display port standard.
Stereoscopic 3D
One of less used features of high frame rate display is ability to play and view content in stereoscopic 3D. There are few reasons for this; it usually requires buying seperate 3D glasses kit with transmitter, some displays only support certain GPU e.g. "Nvidia 3D Vision Ready" monitors usually only work with Nvidia GPU and if game haven't been done this in mind there may be problems with crosshair, shadows, object depth, etc.
Also virtual reality devices use stereoscopic 3D.
Using 3D HDTVs
Most 3D HDTVs do not accept a 120Hz input but this can be forced; see True 120Hz from PC to TV for testing results.
LightBoost
With some monitors it's possible to turn on LightBoost which almost completely eliminates motion blurring. As of Spring 2014, a few Asus, Samsung and BenQ monitors support it. It's normally used when viewing 3D image so it's not useable with regular use by default. There is few ways to enable this with Asus and BenQ monitors and easiest way is ToastyX Strobelight program. With Samsung monitors simply set refresh rate to 120 Hz from PC, then from monitor change “Response Time” to “Normal” and then turn 3D on.
Issues fixed
Frame rate capping
- Mostly High Frame Rate display issue, but may be issue even with some games on regular 60Hz monitors! With lower end machines it may even be more viable to cap the frame rate to 30 FPS if frame rate is jumping between 30 and 60.
- Usually even if high frame rate monitor isn't supported game is still playable but with lower frame rate compared to monitors refresh rate. However with some cases developers haven't even though of possibility of monitors above 60Hz and simply design game around this idea and force vsync to avoid problems. This can make game behave unexpectedly including games physics go haywire throwing objects everywhere, games clock running faster changing gameplay and game running over double the speed.
- Usually this kind of behaviour is fixed with patch either fixing behaviour or capping the frame rate but with some cases and especially older games this usually isn't the case or fix provided doesn't work optimally.
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Change monitors refresh rate to 60Hz and enable Vsync [Vsync] |
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Adaptive/Dynamic vsync with half refresh rate setting [Vsync] |
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Nvidia Inspector [Cap], instructions below |
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Radeon Profile Tool [Cap], instructions below |
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Dxtory [Cap], "limit video FPS" under "Advanced" |
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RivaTuner Statistics Server [Cap], instructions below |
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