After almost 20 years, GPU benchmarking is moving past FPS

[A Guy]

In gaming, frame rate — measured in frames per second, or fps– is king. That’s been true for the 12 years I’ve been reviewing computer hardware and then some. Frames per second has ruled the roost, virtually unchallenged. Some sites now incorporate minimum frame rates or display the frame rate at each second to give gamers a better sense of what the range is — but the metric hasn’t really changed. We’re still talking about the number of frames produced in one second.

Now, that’s changing. It started in September, 2011, when Scott Wasson over at Tech Report decided to dive into what was happening inside the second. I’ll let him explain why: “The fundamental problem is that, in terms of both computer time and human visual perception, one second is a very long time. Averaging results over a single second can obscure some big and important performance differences between systems.”

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A Guy

 

[King Arthur]

FCAT sounds more like what you'd use to benchmark the internet.

...I'll show myself out now.

 

[FuturDreamz]

That's why the ATI jittering problem went unfixed for so long. FPS were high, so it didn't really measure how uneven the frame rate was.

 

[smarteyeball]

It's one of the reasons I ditched my 5970 and went to a single 580 back in the day. Traded raw for smooth.

Raw fps really counts for nothing when it's jittery. It'd rather 30 smooth than 60 jerky.

 

[chev65]

I'm with smartyeyeball on this, frame rate means nothing if there is jitter, my single 580 is still smooth as glass playing Crysis 3 high settings.