FPS Questions
What do the options do?The Overlay Display Hotkey lets you assign a button that will toggle the frame rate counter between the four corners and off. To change the Hotkey, click in the box and type a new key to be assigned this function. Clicking Disable will stop the Hotkey from having any effect.
The Benchmarking Hotkey lets you assign a button that can be used to determine the average frame rate between any two points in a game. To change the Hotkey, click in the box and type a new key to be assigned this function. Clicking Disable will stop the Hotkey from having any effect.
The overlay corner indicates the region of the screen that the framerate counter will be displayed in. Choose a corner that doesn't obstruct important information in the game's display. If you select Disabled the frame rate counter will not be displayed on screen.
Selecting "Only update overlay once a second" will only change the frame rate counter once a second.
On Vista machines that use the 3D desktop you can enable the option to "Monitor Desktop Window Manager". This will show the framerate counter for the DWM and also allow you to take screenshots and record movies from the desktop.
The "Stop benchmark automatically" option allows you to specify a fixed duration for the benchmark. Once the number of seconds has elapsed the benchmark will automatically stop and the results will be written to disk.
Finally, detailed benchmark statistics can also be saved to disk. These are written in standard CSV files that can be imported directly into a spreadsheet. All files are automatically named/timestamped and saved in the benchmarks subdirectory. Currently there are 3 files written for each benchmark when this option is enabled:
How can I average the framerate between two points?
While in the game press the key you assigned to the Benchmarking Hotkey. This will mark the start of where averaging is to take place. A green box is displayed to let you know that logging has begun, and then the counter is removed for maximum accuracy. When you want to end the benchmark, press the Hotkey again. The average framerate will now be displayed in a red box. Full details are also saved in the file FRAPSLOG.TXT in your Fraps folder, and into the benchmark directory if you have detailed statistics enabled.
What is the maximum framerate Fraps will show?
Fraps will show a maximum framerate of 9999 fps on screen. If you need to know precise framerates above this you must use benchmarking and find out the value from FRAPSLOG.TXT, or from the detailed statistics (if you have this option enabled).
Why doesn’t Fraps show above 30fps, 60fps, 75 fps (or any other framerate) in my game?
This can be due to several reasons.
Many games have internal limits that prevent them rendering faster than a certain framerate. In some cases this can mean they are locked at a maximum framerate of only 30fps.
Another possibility is that you have Vsync enabled. Vsync is used to synchronise the output of your graphics card with the display of your monitor. When your graphics card has finished rendering the next frame it waits for the monitor to finish displaying the current one before switching to the new one. This means that the maximum framerate you can obtain will be equal to the refresh rate of your monitor (which is usually 60hz, 75hz, 85hz, or 100hz).
If you disable Vsync then your graphics card will continuously render without waiting for the last frame to be displayed in its entirety. With fast graphics cards this means that your monitor may switch to a new frame halfway down the screen. This effect is known as tearing as there appears to be a visible line separating two different halves. Due to this, you should generally leave Vsync enabled except when benchmarking.
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