Why would you ever limit your Frames per Second?

[x1HxTakeNotez]

So I'm new to PC gaming and I see an option to lock FPS and this doesn't make sense to me. Why would you want to cap your FPS? I read a few post of people stating they set their caps to 60hz or 100hz. Why not let your PC try to get you as much as it can? Is there any benefits to this that I'm missing?

[x1HxTakeNotez]

A question about locked and unlocked frame rates.

Is it better to run a game locked at 72 FPS or let it bounce freely between 80hz and 120hz with G-Sync on both scenarios? Which one would look smoother?

[gwait]

Because it unecessarily overuses power since the GPU will work harder for the same visual performance. Of course the case can get more complicated if there is screen tearing, dips in frame rate or input lag.

[SilverForce]

I normally do only to reduce power (and heat) usage of my gaming computer (very compact MSI Trident 3) when is really not necessary all that extra power
For example, i now play "the division" and, my pc can do more than 60fps but, i see both cpu and gpu used at very high levels so, i prefer to limit to 50fps.I really dont see the difference in response time and everything runs much smoother and cool

Just personal preference, if you have a powerhouse (or dont care about burning unneccessary cpu and gpu cycles) or is a very recent game i dont really see reasons to limit FPS.

[eram]

Vsync off and limit fps to the refresh rate of the monitor gives you the smoothest gaming experience.

[Ogami]

If you have a G-Sync Monitor its always better to have Vsync/ocked FPS turned off. The whole point of a G-Sync Monitor is that it compensates between FPS fluctuations so you as player do not notice it.
So i would not lock the FPS.

[Winged One]

to add on what has already been said, there are also some games (usually console ports) where higher FPS cause issues.. for example, there are some games where enemy attack speed is directly tied to FPS, and as the game was originally designed for consoles that is not meant to exceed 30fps..

if you were to instead try and push it higher than that, you would be taking damage twice as fast as you were meant to, causing a level of difficulty the game was not meant to support..


you also may want to match it with your monitors refresh rate for a more smooth experience..




remember, higher numbers do not always mean "better"

[shiel]

Originally posted by theseraph1:

to add on what has already been said, there are also some games (usually console ports) where higher FPS cause issues.. for example, there are some games where enemy attack speed is directly tied to FPS, and as the game was originally designed for consoles that is not meant to exceed 30fps..

if you were to instead try and push it higher than that, you would be taking damage twice as fast as you were meant to, causing a level of difficulty the game was not meant to support..


you also may want to match it with your monitors refresh rate for a more smooth experience..




remember, higher numbers do not always mean "better"

This is true with even some newer pc titles. Skyrim remastered bugs right out(mostly physics bugs) if you let your fps run above 80 iirc. Not sure if it was patched(or even possible to patch).

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by eram:

Vsync off and limit fps to the refresh rate of the monitor gives you the smoothest gaming experience.

This. A FPS rate in the hundreds but not stable will feel horrible while solid 60 (if were talking a 60 Hz monitor here) will feel butterly smooth.
Theres a counter question to be asked: Whats the point of havimg way more FPS than the monitor can display? Except driving up your power bill by having the GPU workimg in vain, that is. And ive no idea who the hell would artificially blow up their power bill (and there are still better ways to do that).

[M!st]

I ran a power monitor a while back, With limited FPS i saved something like 80 watts of power, Say someone plays games 12 hours a day, that's around a £5 a month / £60 per year saving in electric & less heat and had a quieter rig - until it got water cooled

[Muppet among Puppets]

As always, reducing the usage of resources to what is fitting the task
is best for your hardware and related things

[Satoru]

The only real 'good' reason is to limit screen tearing. Whcih is what vsync is for.

The 'other' reason is the bad one that 99% of people cite.

The main 'fake' reason is that one time some dumb game reviewer claimed that "Diablo2 killed my laptop". Basically Diablo2's main menu screen was uncapped for FPS and so basically just rendered the main menu at like 500 fps.

This generated a ton of heat which, 'supposedly', fried the reviewers laptop

Note this led to a flurry of basically dumb people insisting "Diablo killed my computer". To which Blizzard, despite this being pure nonsense, was forced to make a placebo fps limiter on the game.

So here's the thing. Heat is not a game problem. Its a COOLING PROBLEM.

Diablo did not 'kill' the reviews laptop

THeir laptops insufficient cooling killed it.

Your GPU and CPU are designed to run 100% 24 hours a day 7 days a week for YEARS. How do you think bitcoin miner work? Do you think they're 'downclocking' those 1080TIs? NO. Do you think IBM's Watson goes "holy these Jepoardy questsions are too hard! We need to downclock the CPU" NO. They're running full bore 100% all day long. That's because they are sufficiently cooled to address the heat. The GPU/CPU has no problem running at 100% for years. As long as you have the proper cooling its not an issue. Running your CPU and GPU at 100% does not damage them. Insufficient cooling damages them. Not the act of running at 100%. This is like saying you can only drive your Ferrari at 10mph because it will overheat, but ignore the coolant line that was sliced in hafl, then blaming the engine for beign defective.

FPS limiters are fix for the wrong problem. But people don't understand this and thus insist that the game fix the fact that their cooling fans are filled with cat hair and they put a space heater behind their computers and enclose them in air tight closets at 150F.

[shiel]

Originally posted by Satoru:

The only real 'good' reason is to limit screen tearing. Whcih is what vsync is for.

The 'other' reason is the bad one that 99% of people cite.

The main 'fake' reason is that one time some dumb game reviewer claimed that "Diablo2 killed my laptop". Basically Diablo2's main menu screen was uncapped for FPS and so basically just rendered the main menu at like 500 fps.

This generated a ton of heat which, 'supposedly', fried the reviewers laptop

Note this led to a flurry of basically dumb people insisting "Diablo killed my computer". To which Blizzard, despite this being pure nonsense, was forced to make a placebo fps limiter on the game.

So here's the thing. Heat is not a game problem. Its a COOLING PROBLEM.

Diablo did not 'kill' the reviews laptop

THeir laptops insufficient cooling killed it.

Your GPU and CPU are designed to run 100% 24 hours a day 7 days a week for YEARS. How do you think bitcoin miner work? Do you think they're 'downclocking' those 1080TIs? NO. Do you think IBM's Watson goes "holy these Jepoardy questsions are too hard! We need to downclock the CPU" NO. They're running full bore 100% all day long. That's because they are sufficiently cooled to address the heat. The GPU/CPU has no problem running at 100% for years. As long as you have the proper cooling its not an issue. Running your CPU and GPU at 100% does not damage them. Insufficient cooling damages them. Not the act of running at 100%. This is like saying you can only drive your Ferrari at 10mph because it will overheat, but ignore the coolant line that was sliced in hafl, then blaming the engine for beign defective.

FPS limiters are fix for the wrong problem. But people don't understand this and thus insist that the game fix the fact that their cooling fans are filled with cat hair and they put a space heater behind their computers and enclose them in air tight closets at 150F.

Similar thought process to people thinking "I should give my system a break to cool down every hour or so" not realizing the constant heating up/cooling down is far more harmful to their hardware than just running at max.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Satoru:

The main 'fake' reason is that one time some dumb game reviewer claimed that "Diablo2 killed my laptop". Basically Diablo2's main menu screen was uncapped for FPS and so basically just rendered the main menu at like 500 fps.

I saw games that do it with 1000fps.
If you speak about dumb, you should call these games dumb.

It is not dumb to expect something not running insane would be enough to display, you know...... a menu.

With your claim, i would be stupid by reducing fps to reasonable levels.
Its not that i miss out anything, while likely having a positive effect on wearing and cost.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Muppet among Puppets:

Originally posted by Satoru:

The main 'fake' reason is that one time some dumb game reviewer claimed that "Diablo2 killed my laptop". Basically Diablo2's main menu screen was uncapped for FPS and so basically just rendered the main menu at like 500 fps.

I saw games that do it with 1000fps.
If you speak about dumb, you should call these games dumb.

It is not dumb to expect something not running insane would be enough to display, you know...... a menu.

With your claim, i would be stupid by reducing fps to reasonable levels.
Its not that i miss out anything, while likely having a positive effect on wearing and cost.

It doesnt matter if it does 1000fps

This does not harm your CPU or GPU thus having it render at that speed is fine. Your GPU and CPU are designed to run at 100%. If that means 1000fps then who cares. Its not 'dumb' because the main menu is rendering very fast.

Its dumb because there's no actual reason to reduce it to reasonable levels. 1000fps does no more harm to your CPU/GPU than 60fps/120fps/etc. If you want to reduce screen tearing and thus want your fps to sync with your monitor, sure ok that's fine. But the most common 'reason' for reducing your FPS is to avoid 'damage' to your components. And running at 1000fps does not damage anything thus making the necessity to reduce your FPS for anythign beyond screen tearing, based on a boogey man that doesn't exist.

Game limiting FPS limiters are going to look pretty silly soon as well. People are 'guessing' what limits to put in. Some put arbitary upper limts like 100fps. because no one thought 144hz monitors would exists. They do now. They're just placebo for ignorance of the real problem.

[Muppet among Puppets]

I see lets say 500 electric combo-events causing hundreds of millions events extra per second. Which i dont need.
Its rational to remove these events.

In a good software you would call that optimization. Thats what i think of it.