Case study: Fraps; as an unreliable benchmarking tool?

Here a games;
Capitalism II. Year of release : 2002

Graphics of Capitalism II are on par with Sim City 2000. (On a side note; capitalism is a GREAT games)

Looks at the fps;
15


Maybe it's because this games is having issue with fraps... or fraps is an unreliable benchmarking tool for this kind of games.

I remember doing the same thing with Civilization 4. Fraps told me that I was running at 12-15fps(but I thought it was correct since I had a x3100). Even if the games felt like was running at 25fps.

What would be cool, would be if someone having a good GPU was able to test Civ4 with fraps and tell us what kind of fps does it show.

 

I have never had a problem with Fraps. In CoD, CS:S, WoW, BF2 etc. it has always reported the same as the command line. (Wow... that was WAY too many anagrams.)

 

update your drivers. what deos the preformace feel like

 

Meneither. In games that have built-in fps displays like crysis, bf2 and far cry, it shows the same fps as Fraps.

 

I'm pretty sure Capatalism II has a v-synch cap or something. You could try editing an .ini file, if you felt you REALLY needed those extra FPS'...

 

I don't need those extra FPS, the games is smooth like.... like... something smooth.

I'll look for the .ini files. There is a big possibility that the games is capped... I would like to see benchmark of Civilization 4 with a good GPU.

 

*Sigh* ... Alright, i'm no expert on this field but i remember i read about something in this forum that.

Not all games need to be... what's your standard? Say, 30+ fps to be smooth to play.

It depends, FPS game for example will normally within the range of 30~60 +/- fps in order for you to feel "smooth" during the game play. Well, how fast the game take place will effect how many fps in order for you to feel it as smooth.

And, how much one's eye can pick does matter too.

Search around and you will find more interesting discussion although most of them are....

"you idiot i said the game need 60+ fps to be able to play it smoothly"

"no you are the idiot i feel fine playing on 30+ fps"

No offence if any of you offended by that. =P

[EDIT]

Oh darn it, i did not answer your question though.

Well, i will not say fraps as a unreliable/bad benchmarking tool as i believe its only effective when you're comparing on the same title.

My suggestion is, don't care about it and as long as you don't feel difficulties playing one game, why bother to check how much fps are the game current running? Sometimes it will do you no good as it might spoil your impression towards your "smooth" gameplay. Such as... now.

 

for counter-strike players...
Type this in Console: "net_graph 1" OR "net_graph 2" OR "net_graph 3"

1,2,3 depending on how detailed u want it.. & Ya Its displays the FPS

1 is the most elaborative about network data packets showing graphs
2 is moderately elaborative
3 offers basic information about data packet sent/received


anyway..Each shows FPS

 

Judging from the screenshot it doesn't appear as if there would be a whole lot of animation and that game, and if there's no animation there's really no reason for the game to be rendering at 100fps.

Games where you have a view from above (such as Civ4 and SimCity) generally will not need 30fps to look smooth. It's mainly just first person shooter games that require 30/60 fps for smooth gameplay.

 

Rise of Nations used to run at 15-20 fps on my old laptop and I never really noticed that it wasnt smooth. So yeah it depends on the game your playing.

 

A lot of RTS games are frame-rate capped. Not sure exact reason why, and don't even want to guess as it'd be coming out of my butt.

Either way, why does one care about 100 fps in a game like Capitalism?

 

It's not just that. FRAPs only measures screenshots where there is some processing in the background.

 

I had FRAPS on by mistake while running 3DMark06 and the FPS counters were identical. It's a good and quick way to see any effects on performance if you adjust game settings.

 

I never realize Mine Sweeper is such graphic intense game

 

RTS are not "capped" in the traditional sence. As in purposly crippled. They just have fixed clock cycles based on multiple factors (read difficulty level) so they render to a specific tick on the clock that equates to a segment of time in the simulation that they are running.

 

Fraps Is more of a program for fps.
i notice when doing frap testing with act of war