Here’s a quick one for you that’s come up in the Game Debate world recently. Do you guys play with an FPS counter when playing your favourite titles? Do you enjoy knowing at every moment how you and your rig is coping with the game you’re indulging in? Do you enjoy being able to see the performance so you can tweak your system to get the best out of your system? Or do you think it’s over thinking things and you should just play the game? Let’s hash this one out.
As a bit of backstory, this one’s come about as recently one of us has gotten our hands on a delicious GTX 1060, and it wasn’t until the FPS counter was turned on that we saw that something was amiss, getting nowhere near the performance we expected. That got us talking. Is it worth having one there all the time?
I for instance always play with MSI afterburner overlay on, as it tells me my CPU and GPU usage as well as FPS, allowing me to work out what’s bottlenecking my system at the time (my rig is mediocre at best). But you can also use a program like FRAPs or even just use the Steam overlay to see how well you’re rig is running the titles that are going to kick the living crap out of your rig, for instance like The Witcher III: Wild Hunt.
But maybe you’re a purist, not wanting your screen to be clogged up with all these numbers. I mean you’ve got the PC you’ve got in order to enjoy the nicest experience you can, Jon is of that mind exactly. Surely you don’t want unsightly high contrast digits all over the place?
So lay it on us. Are you a purist, believing that if the game is running poorly you’ll know regardless of a counter? Or perhaps a tech head that want to know every last bit of info you can about your system? Or maybe you’re in between, only needing the counter when you feel it’s necessary? Let us know in the comments below!
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Only for the 1st hour to see if my fps is still 60,if it's below 60 I disable or put a couple of settings to med.I don't care about the quality of the game if i have fun :)
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always
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I do but I shouldn't. I freak out when my FPS drops under 60. I need help.
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You're not alone mate :)
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You have a lot of company!!
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Sometimes pc gaming is alot like audiophilia. You use the game to test your pc, not the other way around.
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When playing old games (where I'm sure I can hit 60fps all the time), I don't use FPS counter.
Same as it is mentioned above, I use the Afterburner to find out what bottlenecks my system in the specific games.
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I also use the RTS fps limiter function in case I would be playing demanding games without vsnyc off to make sure I don't go over 60fps and waste energy and temperature.
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msi afterburner never has failed me
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It did for me when I overclocked my GPU too much haha
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I use CAM to monitor my fps
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I am really lucky to have a pretty beast rig so most of the time i don't, but when a game starts stuttering or lagging i use it to find out a reason why!
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I use it when I get a new game so that I can work out what settings I can get away with so that I can still hit 60fps
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i dont think there are any games that you cant run on ultra 60fps so you dont actually need it.
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i use both msi after burner riva tuner and fraps at the same time.
i set msi and riva on top left screen and fraps on top right screen
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but msi and rivatuner can also show frames so why 2 apps? :P
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i donot know i love both
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lol i do exactly the same thing. Having fraps in a bigger font size just to look at fps and riva tuner lil smaller for more details (gpu fan+temp+usage, cpu temp+usage, vram capacity+speed etc)
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yeah
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I like using Steam's FPS counter. Small but easy to see (With the high contrast setting turned on)
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whenever I can, though sadly I don't know of any really good OpenGL fps counter (fraps and rivatuner are directx-only)
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I've been using a custom implementation of CEGUI, it auto-detects Steam games and has features which can fix frame pacing on games like Fallout 4.
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I don't favour Steam
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Why don't you favor steam?
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For non-Steam games, you just put the right dll files into the game's directory.
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@Pcfan because I am against DRM services, I like the "old way" of being able to just install game and play,
I like for ex. GOG where you can buy game (often even boxed version), download complete installer on whatever PC you want and then move it and install on whatever PC you want, without being forced to install some client, be online, activate online and nonsense like that,
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I am pretty sure afterburner/rivatuner works with OpenGL. The only thing that I think doesnt work with it is Vulkan.
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but doesn't work on Mac OS(X) or Linux as far as I know, so quite unusable for me nowadays
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That would explain why my MSI Afterburner doesn't work on DOOM.
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For me I have it turned on for when I play intensive games, but then I just don't bother to turn it off when its things like steam, so its on permanently.
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Steam has a nice one, whenever it drops below 60 I modify my settings so it never drops below without sacrificing a lot of quality
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I used to but now there really is no point as i can run every DX10 or under compatible game at at least 30fps at low.
If I am experiencing slow down that'll most likely be in a newer game which'll most likely have a benchmark option
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I just use the benchmarking tool (if available) just to test between a few settings, but only if I experience some lag / stuttering; If I don't notice any difficulties, while trying to play, I don't really care about frame rates
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msi afterburner all the way
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i play every game with one msi afterburner
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I play with an FPS counter just to see how bad my rig has become while playing on full low settings at 720p. (Never hitting these 60fps... :'( )
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Well, I always put V-sync on and it really isn't hard to tell when it's more than 50 fps and I always play on such preset to be >50. Why use a counter then?
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Of course.
If anything gets messed up,any fps loss,i look at the readings and try to figure whats the problem.