Do you often notice during the game that your picture slows down, as if the monitor freezes for 1-2 seconds? If not, then you most likely have very powerful computer performance. If so, then the situation can be assessed exactly the opposite. All the “brakes” in games are related to the number of FPS (Frames Per Second), that is, the number of frames per second that the video card issues on the monitor screen. For movies, the optimal number of FPS is always 23-25 frames, and in games 50-60 (in some projects, especially those ported from consoles or even in console exclusive, the usual FPS is 30 frames).
The number of FPS in the game depends on the power of your computer. This primarily concerns the processing power of the video card and processor, as well as RAM (random access memory). Naturally, the higher the FPS in the game, the more coherent gameplay is provided to the gamer. Besides these factors, the frame rate also depends on your monitor. If you have a screen refresh rate of 60 Hz in your system settings, then the maximum number of frames will be 60, if 75 - then 75 and so on. Now video game developers strive for excellence in the graphic component of their projects, and therefore with each game, the system requirements for your computer become more and more. Many players simply are not able to upgrade their PC every year, and therefore they have to be content with medium and low settings, the lack of smoothing, tessellation and other graphic charms of video games.
What to do if there is no money for high-quality modernization of your personal computer? The answer is quite simple and banal - buying a console. The fact is that the current Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are identified by price with top-end video cards. Based on this, it is easier to buy a set-top box once and enjoy spending time in the virtual world without any difficulties, rather than throwing out a considerable amount of money on powerful computers. Of course, for wealthy gamers, the best choice will still be a top-end PC, because it is able to reproduce the beauty of graphics in details using the DirectX 11 settings, which, unfortunately, you will not see on the current generation consoles. Also, a large number of console exclusives (Red Dead Redemption, Heavy Rain, Halo and others), which, probably, will never visit a PC, are tipping the scales towards the choice of a console. And finally, some statistics: in the USA, Japan and some countries of Western Europe, the number of consolers is close to 90%, which cannot be said about Russia.
If you are still a devoted fan of the PC, but you can’t update it slightly, then the FPS in games can be raised in several ways. We will describe the most effective of them.
So the first one. It consists in the detailed configuration of your video card for game mode. Your task is simple: go to the control panel of the video card (ATI or Nvidia) and set the maximum performance in games. The second way is updating the drivers for your video card and DirectX libraries. As a rule, this helps to raise the FPS in the game by 5-10 frames. If the above actions did not help, then you should intervene in the system itself: clean the registry, disable all unnecessary services for Windows to function, and other little things that "clog" the RAM of your PC. If you use an antivirus, then stop it before entering the game, since it absorbs a large amount of PC resources. It's all. Nothing helped? So, you have only one way out - the modernization of obsolete parts. By the way, in order to see the FPS in the game, you need to download the appropriate program. Examples of these include GameBooster, FPSTools, Fraps, and others like them, of which there are countless on the Internet today.
Finally, we will tell you about one more thing. You should not mix the concept of FPS described in our article with the video game genre. FPS games are first-person shooters, which, by the way, are one of the most popular genres in the game world. This abbreviation stands for First Person Shooter. Do not confuse these concepts!