Difference betwen capping and unlimited FPS?

[Vyrex]

Some games let you do this and i just always let it on unlimited but i have wonder why theres a option even for it? Isnt higher fps just always better? Why would i cap it to 60 if i can ge tto 80? Im not too familiar with pc software so im asking

[Blaagh]

theres always a tradeoff with unlimited vs vsync on

unlimited has
+ better response on input (mouse/gamepad)

but also
- higher power consumption / heat
- screen tearing (display parts of 2 different frames)

oh and if you have a 60 Hz monitor those extra frames will just be dropped anyway

[Yujah]

Many (older, but even some relatively recent) games tie timing to framerate. GTA4 famously so for example, with the most famous example there being unable to climb up to the helicopter in the final mission due to the game having (effectively) set "tap X times per frame" and this then becoming unattainably fast when far above the 30 FPS maximum of the PS3/Xbox360 that the game was originally designed for.

In fact the game ties all internal timing to framerate and it's as such far worse than just one such individual example. Bikes skid around all over the place, mini-games are unbeatable, so on, so on -- and the same is in fact true for quite a few games I have. I'm mostly "a legacy gamer" so most are old, but not even all, and it goes from simple puzzle games, via adventures, to action games, to...

That is, sometimes an FPS-cap is quite definitively needed. But there's of course also always the fact that if you're playing an e.g. puzzle-game on a 60Hz monitor that you have really no need for 500 FPS and might as well save power by capping to 60.

[Vyrex]

I see so for example im playing borderlands 3 and i get around 90 FPS on unlimited, is there a reason to cap it to 60? Besides saving on energy. Like does my game run better if i cap it maybe?

Altough in this case it probs makes no diff but as a generel question if my game would run slightly better performance wise if i cap it

[Yujah]

Probably not. I don't know Borderlands 3 but shall assume it's "high FPS compatible" -- and I do believe it's a shooter which means that even if you'd be on higher FPS than your monitor's refresh rate you'd still have some supposedly useable advantage as to input latency.