It is becoming more and more normal for users to worry about factors such as "how fast this game runs", in relation to the frames per second at which it runs. The FPS have always been important, since they influence when it comes to enjoying the game more than the graphic section itself, however it has been a few years to this part when we have many ways to see how many FPS a game runs in particular.
Either to stay calm with that newly bought PC and we want it to go to the maximum or to try to scratch all the possible FPS in a competitive game, here are some tips and tricks to see frames per second and also try to scratch a little more performance.
How to see the fps a game goes to
Although in the past it was necessary to pull programs like Fraps (which have served us so many times to take screenshots), with the current native tools in games and programs it is not necessary to resort to this type of application.
Most current games offer a frame-per-second counter. League of Legends and Dota 2 are two examples, but there are others that go beyond a simple frame counter. Games like Gears of War 4 or Overwatch allow us to know other parameters, such as network use, ping, temperature or the consumed VRAM memory that, without a doubt, are very useful to control when we have to revolutionize the fans or know when there are to lower effects to achieve better performance.
For, activate the frames per second viewerIt is as simple as going to the game options and clicking on "show FPS". If the game does not have this option, it is a good idea to go to Steam. And, the Valve application also allows us know the frames per second of the games. To activate it, we must go to '' Parameters' 'and click on' 'In the game'. Once there, we activate the FPS counter and decide the position in which we want to have the figure.
In addition to the native applications, there is a tool that is one of the best for monitoring the performance of the game and the computer itself. This is Afterburner, an MSI application (yes, manufacturers of boards, laptops, graphics, etc.) that not only allows us to see the performance of the game in a matter of frames per second.
In the video that you have just above you have an example of the data that allows us to know Afterburner in video games. CPU temperature, CPU load, GPU load and temperature, RAM and VRAM memory consumption and, of course, frames per second.
You can download Afterburner and Riva Tuner through the following link and, when configuring it, you will see that the options are very numerous. In fact, if you have a processor with 4 cores and 8 threads, or eight cores, you can monitor each of them separately, among other options.
Tricks to improve the performance of a game
There are a number of effects that come into play when we want to improve the performance of a title. Next, we will give you a list of the most common ones that we can touch and our recommendation to enjoy a good frame rate per second (60 fps or 30 fps, that depends on you and the team you have) with a game that follows looking from this century.
- Resolution: Always leave it at the native resolution of the monitor. A monitor does not work in the same way as a television, and if we rescale something or if we lower the native resolution, it shows much more. If we have a 1080p monitor, let's leave it there. Of course, we can always do super sampling. That is, if our graphics allow it, we can render at a higher resolution than the monitor has, but it is not recommended to put a 1080p monitor at 720p to scratch a few frames.
- Resolution scale: If the performance is good, we can play to increase the percentage. If we do not reach 30 or 60 fps, it is better to put it to the minimum.
- Shadows: It is one of the effects that consume the most. Before trying to play anything else, we need to adjust this parameter.
- Anti-Aliasing: There are different anti-aliasing processes in each game, but they all consume valuable resources. If we do not reach the desired rate and we have already lowered the quality of the shadows, we should lower the multiplier or deactivate it.
If you have graphics to spare, why not take advantage of it with a 144 Hz monitor?
- Effects and reflections: These additional graphic effects consume valuable GPU resources and, if we want to gain a few frames per second, it is best to go down the scale.
- Post Processing: same as effects.
- Textures: it is one of the last that we must touch if we want to enjoy the game properly. Yes, textures consume a lot of resources, but if we have graphic memory, we should not go below the "average" values.
- Vertical Sync (V-Sync): Vertical sync forces the GPU to adapt to the monitor frequency and is very resource consuming. It eliminates tearing, but it can add latency, and performance drops significantly. Better to disable it.
- Display mode: there are usually two modes: window and full screen. It is always better to play in full screen. In current titles not so much, but in the old ones there is an improvement in performance.
In addition to these tips to improve performance in games, we must have updated GPU drivers and, if we have an Nvidia graphics, use the GeForce application to automatically optimize the games to the characteristics of the PC.
How to improve performance in Fortnite and PUBG
Addition tricks to improve performance that you have above, there are two others that are important in games like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. And it is that, in these games, how good it looks or the definition of the textures does not prevail. The most important thing is to see your opponents as far away as possible.
Therefore, in Fortnite and PUBG we must touch the definition of the textures if we see that we do not reach a performance of 60 frames per second. To do this, you have to follow the previous advice, but there is an option that should be at the maximum: the viewing distance.
In addition, we must limit the frame rate to improve performance. If we do not have a monitor that goes over 60 Hz, it is silly that the game goes to 240 Hz. Therefore, deactivating the V-Sync, we have to activate the FPS limiter.
Thus, if Fortnite, or PUBG, always go between 60 and 80 fps with the current configuration, by limiting the FPS to 60 we will always have a frame-rate of 60 frames per second, without rises or falls. This gives us an advantage in terms of performance (since we will not notice strange effects) and the frame-time will be better than if we let the counter go up and down as it wants.
Beware of the integrated graphics
If you play on a laptop, this interests you. And, the most modern laptops usually have two GPUs. One is the integrated one from Intel and the other is a GPU from Nvidia or AMD. Logically, the dedicated GPU is more powerful than the integrated one and offers a much better result, so it is convenient to make sure that it is activated whenever we play.
When we are not gaming, the integrated GPU is the one working. When watching a YouTube video, for example. However, when we run a game we need graphic power, and there the dedicated graphics is activated. However, there are times when the system crashes and the dedicated GPU is not activated, so we must force said activation.
For this we go to the Nvidia application (right click with the mouse on the desktop and select application) and we go to the "3D Configuration". There, we will only have to activate the dedicated GPU or select which applications will use it yes or yes.
In AMD it is very similar. We go to Catalyst and the tab '' Interchangeable graphics application settings ''. There we must select the applications that we want to run with the high performance power plan (the dedicated GPU).
This way we force the dedicated GPU to be activated every time that application is started. And, in this way, we ensure that our laptop will use all the resources for that game.
