How crazy are you about your frames per second?

[ZedClampet]

For me, as long as I can get at least 45 fps, I'm usually content with it. I should point out that I don't play competitive games anymore where the framerate might matter more. But I'm more of a beautiful graphics kind of guy. I'd rather play Red Dead 2, for example, on Ultra at 45 fps than play it on Medium at 70 fps. That's just an example, as my current computer will play everything that I've tried at 60 or better, but I'm sure there's something coming around the corner that it will struggle with. There always is.

Anyway, I've read user reviews that call 50 fps "unplayable". What do you all think?

 

[Pifanjr]

It's hard to say since I don't have a FPS counter visible while playing. If I had to guess, I'm probably fine with 40 fps, maybe even 30 fps for turn based games. To me, 60 fps still sounds like the maximum amount anyone would ever need, even though I know that's not true.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Turn based games or it really doesn't matter to me either. In 3d action games, like a Sekiro, Control or Doom I keep it over 60 constantly as much as possible.

Part of that is because I now have a freesync monitor and if frames dip below 48 it stutters for a moment. When I had a 60 Hz monitor I would also adjust settings down until it never dipped below 60 using adaptive sync for the same reason.

There's almost always graphical settings that have a huge impact on frames that can be adjusted down with little to no visual difference.

Playing Dark Souls remastered recently and happened to notice in the menu I had it set to 60 fps. I changed it to 144 and the difference in smoothness was very obvious straight away. I was honestly surprised how massively different it looked and felt.

 

[Zloth]

With Red Dead there's shooting, so I would rather stay up in the 40's at least. Flat out action, like Doom, I want to get in the 60's. With other games, I start to get annoyed by the framerate in the upper 20's somewhere, but I still might live with it. X4: Foundations tells me not to do volumetric fog and anti-aliasing at the same time, but I do anyway. The framerate in a nebula drops into the teens but, as long as I stay out of fights, it still works well.

 

[Brian Boru]

It's hard to say since I don't have a FPS counter visible while playing

Same here, I couldn't tell you the FPS of any game I've played. Games look and play fine for me on my 60Hz TV, without any stuttering, tearing or other artifacts—and that's what matters to me, not what numbers underlie it all.

I think FPS is mostly hype, similar to megapixels for cameras and DPI for mice. It's something marketers latched onto and proceeded to create a demand for higher numbers, with a lot of success. Now FPS, DPI and megapixels are almost truisms for consumers.

You might find these articles helpful—in a nutshell, there may be some performance benefit for some action gamers beyond 60Hz, and there can be a wider experience benefit for more people beyond 60Hz. Resolution seems to be more important than FPS.

How many frames per second can the human eye really see?

30 fps? 60 fps? If you've ever debated framerates, the cognitive researchers we spoke to have some complex answers for you.

www.pcgamer.com

Human Eye FPS: How Much Can We See and Process Visually?

Your eyes and your brain are doing a lot of work to process images — more than you may realize. Learn more about how many frames the human eye can see per second, if you can test human FPS, and more.

www.healthline.com

PS I play at 1920x1080 on a 60Hz TV. The newest action game I've played is Far Cry New Dawn. My eyes are old, but glasses-powered!

 

[Arstotika]

the entire shaban started like in 2014, people really became obsessed with 60 fps crap when in reality it doesn't even work and it didn't work for the long time. To have 60 fps you need to have a monitor of high enoguh Hz higher than 80 while most people didn't even have that, it was such foggy subject at that time so people didn't know anything about fps, and yet the companies managed to turn it into a trick to make it look like it is the most important. Well, good on them.

 

[mikeisekim]

I've never truly worried about my FPS if it's not getting in the way of the game itself. I have a few friends I talk to online, and they genuinely get irritated when they see the game dip to 60 - which in a way makes sense if you have crazy hardware, but I've never thought of it as just so important that I could never look past it.

Maybe it's just the types of games I enjoy or the time period. It was easy to get swept up in FPS hysteria around the release of the PS4/XBONE I think. I just think back to playing TF2 when I was like 13 though on a stock Dell with a GT 610 and having a blast, though, lol. It's always nice to have, but if it's not unplayable, than hey why not play it.

Anyway, I've read user reviews that call 50 fps "unplayable". What do you all think?

That's absurdity.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

When you see the difference side by side between 60 fps and 144 steady its very obvious in an action game, I'm sure nearly everyone could tell immediately on the same model of monitor.

Not that 60 fps or even 30 fps is unplayable, your reactions and eyes adjust to whatever you are using. I've been working on the Dark Souls playthrough I mentioned for about 10 hours at 60 fps and I didn't even think about it.

Having said that I don't know whether as many could differentiate between say, 100 and 144 as easily. I would imagine that some people are more sensitive than others, especially as its trainable. Like the PCG article @Brian Boru linked suggests.

 

[Colif]

My monitor is capable of 1440p at 144hz but my 2070 Super maxes out at about 100hz or so I hear, it really depends on what you play I guess. I sort of need a better GPU before I can go nuts with this monitor. Maybe next one will. I always buy monitors thinking about future. last one was 4k, my 980 never stood a chance so I downgraded to 2k since i had been running the monitor at it anyway on desktop. I don't get buying a monitor every PC, are you nuts?

I don't think about refresh rate, I don't play games that I need to care too much, Provided its not a slide show I get by.

 

[Zloth]

My monitor is capable of 1440p at 144hz but my 2070 Super maxes out at about 100hz or so I hear....

Eh? I don't think so. It all depends on what you've got it doing. If you play some 3D game from the 90's, it will max out that monitor easily. There should be some sort of throttle on it, actually, to keep it from trying to draw 800fps and overheating.

 

[Brian Boru]

I always buy monitors thinking about future … I don't get buying a monitor every PC, are you nuts?

Thankfully, not that much. I buy a TV when the current one dies, also thinking of the future.

 

[Colif]

I generally do the same. I killed a monitor once from turning it off by the switch every night because I didn't like the flashing blue light it had in my bedroom. After killing it, I just got used to putting a speaker in front of activity light and ignoring it. Then I swapped away from using Samsung monitors on last purchase and LG don't have an activity light, darkness is so nice at night.

My last 3 monitors probably span 15 or more years. I had a 1080p screen for about 8 or so years until my family bought me a 4k monitor in 2015 and I had to upgrade GPU to actually run screen... just run it, the GTX 960 I had up until this point couldn't handle the necessary refresh rate and screen would complain about no signal. Had to get a 980 just to use screen.

My 4k screen got some marks on it I couldn't remove, the only thing on this screen now is dust. I only clean the dust off when it starts to get visible ... like right now. Its easier to see dust on it when screen isn't on.

There should be some sort of throttle on it, actually, to keep it from trying to draw 800fps and overheating.

i think max speed of 144 is its throttle? Or do you mean the GPU?

 

[Pifanjr]

My 4k screen got some marks on it I couldn't remove, the only thing on this screen now is dust. I only clean the dust off when it starts to get visible ... like right now. Its easier to see dust on it when screen isn't on.

My screen has some marks on it I can't remove either, ever since my wife thought it would be nice for the cats to watch a bird video and the cat attacked the screen. It's actually company property as well, so I'll have some explaining to do if I ever have to bring it back to the office again.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'll have some explaining to do if I ever have to bring it back to the office again

"Cat jumped me as I was putting it in the car, sir"

 

[Frindis]

Most of the time I am comfortable with 60fps, with the exception of games that are more faced paced, like Warzone or CSGO. I'm a sucker for graphics, so I'd rather have everything on Ultra, than having to go high/medium for higher fps.

 

[Colif]

don't let cats near PC keyboards, they can perform key combos humans can only dream of and it can end badly with PC doing weird things you didn't think were possible. Its been a while since i helped someone with a cat related PC problem.

 

[mainer]

As to 50 fps being unplayable, PFFFT, I say! For me, anyway. I don't monitor my fps on a regular basis, I can tell when playing if the fps is really lagging. If the game is running smooth with no sudden drops, I'm fine. I don't play online games like MMO's, and certainly not competitively. I only play single player games, or in games with multiple modes, in the single player mode.

I prefer a big screen with the best graphic fidelity I can squeeze out of a game (and even then, graphics aren't the primary concern, immersion and gameplay are). My current monitor is a 60hz 43" 4k monitor from Philips:
Philips BDM4350UC Review | PC Monitors
While maybe not a "true" gaming monitor, it gives me the graphic fidelity and screen size I like, and the fact it I can only achieve a max of 60 fps is not an issue.

I have the FRAPS utility installed, but the only time I use it is if I'm testing a lot of mods and what to see how that affects performance. It depends on the game I'm modding, but take Skyrim for example. I mod that game heavily with textures, weather and water effects, and lighting. Lighting mods, especially ENBs can really tank a games fps. It's really the only time I monitor my fps. Otherwise, it's just visually as I play.

 

[Johnway]

Mercifully not for the last few years. But when i've got an aging mid rig and i want to play an FPS or (heaven forbid) an online multiplayer shooter like BF3 then yes i go crazy. I want to get the most frames get the edge on people, make sure my shots connect etc etc.

i think i remember playing F.E.A.R demo excessively (i probably played it 10-20 times) trying to tweak and adjust my settings. yes i can play the game but i wanted to squeeze every frame i could to do the game justice.

but since my aging pc with its 1070GTX can still run games at a highish spec i don't really care a this point. most game seem to run fairly well these days without needing to prep a 3070. Something i would like but at this point i might as well buy a whole new rig with one inside....

 

[Ryzengang]

I'm not as crazy as some people but it definitely matters to me. Really low FPS or very bad frame pacing will actually cause me to put down games because it can affect me negatively (e.g., headache, motion sickness). But overall, it depends. Generally, I'm fine with a locked 60. 30 FPS is pretty bad but it obviously depends. If I'm playing something like Civ 6 I don't really care. It is worth noting that frame pacing/consistency is significantly more important than the actual FPS on average. I mentioned a locked 60 but if I'm getting a consistent 50 that'll be fine. The exception is for fast-paced games like Doom Eternal. I strongly prefer having 90+ FPS in fast-moving games.

 

[Pifanjr]

I do get annoyed with inconsistent FPS by the way. I couldn't play Far Cry 4 because it kept having micro-stutters, especially while driving.

 

[Alm]

I imagine 45+ is good enough for me.

30 is a bit noticeable. I don't play many pvp shooters any more and I haven't had a game be noticeably bad for a long time.

 

[Brian Boru]

I have the FRAPS utility installed

Since that seems to have been abandoned 8 years ago, you might need an alternative soon:

Fraps Alternatives: 25+ Similar Screen Recorders and Screenshot Tools | AlternativeTo

The best Fraps alternatives are OBS Studio, ShareX and SimpleScreenRecorder. Our crowd-sourced lists contains more than 50 apps similar to Fraps for Windows, Linux, Mac, Online / Web-based and more.

alternativeto.net

 

[mainer]

Since that seems to have been abandoned 8 years ago, you might need an alternative soon:

Fraps Alternatives: 25+ Similar Screen Recorders and Screenshot Tools | AlternativeTo

The best Fraps alternatives are OBS Studio, ShareX and SimpleScreenRecorder. Our crowd-sourced lists contains more than 50 apps similar to Fraps for Windows, Linux, Mac, Online / Web-based and more.

alternativeto.net

Yeah, I kind of wondered about that. I've had it on several PCs over the years, and it served it's purpose well enough when I used it, which is seldom and only for mod testing. But thanks for that link, I'll look into getting something more up to date.

 

[Zloth]

If you have GeForce Experience installed, just do ALT-R (I think) and it should show your framerate info.

 

[mainer]

If you have GeForce Experience installed, just do ALT-R (I think) and it should show your framerate info.

I do, and that's an option I hadn't considered. I rarely actually open it, unless I'm updating a driver, and hardly ever use to optimize a game's graphic settings. I do use the photo mode and screen shot features, but hadn't really looked into it for other features.