Frametime vs FPS

[Srnewbee]

I stopped playing games a while ago due to microstutters. The FPS counter was clearly at 60+FPS majority of the time, but it just did not feel very smooth. It felt jittery. After educating myself about frametime, I downloaded riva tuner and I limited by FPS to 50. My frametime became consistent and the games were enjoyable again. In your opinion, which is better? high FPS but erratic frametime or stable frametime but sub 60fps?

[PlayStation 2]

It all depends on context to me.

I honestly find racing games in particular to be a lot more enjoyable locked at my TV’s refresh rate of 60Hz rather than letting it run all over the place simply because it doesn’t look weird.

I let FPSes run wild because, to me anyway, the frame rate does matter more than the smoothness of the image coming out in those games. The response in the FPSes I play (mainly TF2 and older Call of Duty games) require more than what v-sync forces me at.

[Shimejii]

You need a good graphics card and you need a good monitor. Having a 2080ti but a 60 hz panel is pointless for instance, and having a 240hz monitor but a GTX 1050 would also be pretty pointless. 

 

I prefer Consistent FPS at around 200-240 fps in shooters (1440p 144hz screen) For Response time and latency. In some games limiting it to 240 is better, others as long as you arent getting massive frame dips or stutters its okay to leave it to no limit.

[Srnewbee]

1 minute ago, Shimejii said:

You need a good graphics card and you need a good monitor. Having a 2080ti but a 60 hz panel is pointless for instance, and having a 240hz monitor but a GTX 1050 would also be pretty pointless. 

 

I prefer Consistent FPS at around 200-240 fps in shooters (1440p 144hz screen) For Response time and latency. In some games limiting it to 240 is better, others as long as you arent getting massive frame dips or stutters its okay to leave it to no limit.

that's insane bro... you play at 240 fps??? I have a ghetto LG 75hz ultrawide so I cap my FPS to 75 since at high FPS, my GPU makes an annoying coil whine noise.

[Shimejii]

2 minutes ago, Srnewbee said:

that's insane bro... you play at 240 fps??? I have a ghetto LG 75hz ultrawide so I cap my FPS to 75 since at high FPS, my GPU makes an annoying coil whine noise.

I could play at 300FPS, but Fortnite and some other games have pretty big frame dips so i limit it to 240. Also Unreal Engine also has a "Feature" that makes your guns shoot more bullets at certain FPS then others. So for instance if you shoot the same gun at 60 fps and 240 fps, the 240 fps will shoot more bullets. Certain engines have this and it can be an annoyance, but im able to do it so

[Wh0_Am_1]

27 minutes ago, Srnewbee said:

I stopped playing games a while ago due to microstutters. The FPS counter was clearly at 60+FPS majority of the time, but it just did not feel very smooth. It felt jittery. After educating myself about frametime, I downloaded riva tuner and I limited by FPS to 50. My frametime became consistent and the games were enjoyable again. In your opinion, which is better? high FPS but erratic frametime or stable frametime but sub 60fps?

Honestly it depends on the game, if I am playing battleship games like World of Warships, Dreadnought, or games like World of Tanks, I would be willing to go down as 30 fps, but in FPS games, nothing below 60, I even OC'ed my ancient G206HQL to 75 hz.

[Srnewbee]

okay, now I am starting to see a pattern. For competitive online gaming, FPS is the king. For casual offline gaming, frametime is king. Does this sound about correct?

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 hours ago, Srnewbee said:

 In your opinion, which is better? high FPS but erratic frametime or stable frametime but sub 60fps?

I will always take consistent frame time over FPS any day. Inconsistent frame time makes it impossible to do accurate or consistent timing. This is especially necessary for games that rely on timing like fighting and rhythm games. Even outside of that, stutters are not very pleasant at all. It just makes performance look worse than something consistent.

[Srnewbee]

okay, I am a bit confused.

@Dan Castellaneta and @Mira Yurizaki

dan says for First person shooter, it is better to let your FPS run wild to get in more inputs.

Mira claims that frametime is more important so you can get more accurate timing.

 

Theoretically, if you are above 50fps, then I think frametime should be more important. Having the option of matching your input every 1/50th of a second sounds better as opposed to having your input being randomly paired with a frame. Because theoretically, even if you run at 140 fps, the first 139 frames can be presented in the first 1/4 of a second and the 3/4 of the second could be occupied by the last frame. But this is just my understanding so I could be gravely mistaken. Enlighten me. I think Mira's arg. sounds more cogent.

[Mira Yurizaki]

5 minutes ago, Srnewbee said:

Theoretically, if you are above 50fps, then I think frametime should be more important. Having the option of matching your input every 1/50th of a second sounds better as opposed to having your input being randomly paired with a frame. Because theoretically, even if you run at 140 fps, the first 139 frames can be presented in the first 1/4 of a second and the 3/4 of the second could be occupied by the last frame. But this is just my understanding so I could be gravely mistaken. Enlighten me. I think Mira's arg. sounds more cogent.

That sounds about right. You can have an FPS of 140 even though most of those frames are bunched up and this will effectively look like a much slower frame rate. This is basically the same issue with microstuttering: even though a benchmark tool will show something fast, you may not perceive it to be such because some frames are only present for a fraction of a refresh time while the next one is present for much longer. However what you provided is a severe case.

 

Basically if you were to plot frame times, like this example:

You want to avoid spikes as much as possible. The clump of spikes in this chart was when the benchmark looked like it was stuttering despite the fact that on average it was getting a very high frame rate.

[Srnewbee]

@Mira Yurizaki

Yes, I am aware that my example was very very extreme. I just said it in order to stretch the logic. But realistically tho, at what frame rate should you choose fps over consistent frametime at 50fps?

For example, in a real scenario, a fps of 140 would not be as extreme as I said it. So the interval between each frame is still smaller as opposed to 50fps at a consistent frametime.

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, Srnewbee said:

But realistically tho, at what frame rate should you choose fps over consistent frametime at 50fps?

It depends on how bad the frame time variation of the first scenario is.

[xAcid9]

Frametime over FPS for me. I play almost all of my games with locked FPS/VSYNC for butter smooth graphic.