EMZETT.FPS
In short: Frames per second — the number of individual frames displayed per second, e.g. in video or games.
In more detail: Higher FPS values feel smoother, but require more computing power from the CPU/graphics card. Classic cinema/film productions often use 24 FPS, games frequently target 60 FPS or more, especially competitive titles where reaction time matters.
In Depth
Frame time consistency
The FPS number alone only tells half the story — equally important is consistency (“frame time consistency”): a game averaging 60 FPS but with heavily fluctuating frame times (sometimes 10ms, sometimes 30ms between two frames) feels noticeably choppier than one with a steady 50 FPS, even though the pure average is higher. That’s why professional hardware tests, besides average FPS, also measure “1% low” values (the worst 1% of all measured frame times), which give a more realistic picture of actual gameplay feel than pure averages.
Monitor refresh rate as an upper limit
Monitors also have their own refresh rate (measured in Hz — 60 Hz means the screen updates 60 times per second), which sets a hard upper limit on how many frames can actually be visibly displayed. More FPS than the display’s Hz are wasted without special synchronisation techniques, or cause visible “screen tearing” — a visual glitch where a new frame arrives in the middle of the screen building up an image, so the top and bottom parts of the screen briefly show two different frames, visible as a horizontal “tear” in the image.
Synchronisation techniques
- V-Sync: waits with frame output for the next monitor refresh, completely prevents tearing, but can cause additional input lag.
- G-Sync (Nvidia) / FreeSync (AMD): instead let the monitor itself dynamically adjust its refresh rate to the graphics card’s current FPS output — solves the tearing problem without the input-lag downside of classic V-Sync, but requires compatible hardware on both sides.
CPU vs. GPU limitation
Whether FPS is limited by the CPU or the graphics card depends heavily on the specific game scene: complex game logic, AI calculations and physics simulations tend to load the CPU, while high-resolution textures and elaborate lighting/shadows tend to load the graphics card. A “CPU bottleneck” occurs when a faster graphics card no longer increases FPS, because the CPU can’t keep up with preparing frames — a common problem with older CPUs combined with very powerful, new graphics cards.
FPS in web development
The term FPS isn’t limited to games: smooth web animations and scrolling also target 60 FPS, matching the usual 60 Hz refresh rate of most screens — each individual frame only has about 16.7 milliseconds for layout computation, styling and rendering, before visible stuttering occurs. Browser developer tools offer dedicated performance profilers that measure exactly these frame times and show which JavaScript or CSS operations are responsible for stutter.