What is "acceptable" frame rate for gaming?

[Zoltar]

I just ordered a 8600GT MSI card. I have been reading a lot of reviews on various games and how the load on the card affects frame rate. My question is, and I know this is super subjective, is how low of a frame rate can you go and still play the game somewhat smoothly?

[him61]

I think that 20-30 is the lowest that the average gamer would like to deal with.

[EXreaction]

Depends on the kind of game...

Some games are fine at 10fps or less, while some need 40-60fps to be able to play it decently.

[Zoltar]

Interesting. I just got Serious Sam ii and am interested in first person shooter games.

[KarmaKiller]

FPS games you want at least 40fps IMO..

Those are the most demanding games.

I also wanted to say I've used that exact card you ordered in a couple of builds. It's a super nice card IMO. It played all the games I threw at it on high settings with no lag..

[Zoltar]

Cool. Am going to do the upgrade this weekend. The card was the only thing I did not have thorough confidence in.

[pullmyfoot]

well if your gonna play the more demanding games then get at least a 8600GTS. the 8600GT is just on the boderline of the lower end of mid range cards for the 8 series. take a look. http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html

[JRB3]

I reckon about 45 FPS is a good average framerate because then when things start to happen ,like for example peoples heads exploding and blood flying everywhere at the same time as five or so people are firing machines gun at you, your framerate will probably drop to around 25/30 FPS or so. If things get too choppy (stuttering due to low FPS) just turn down or off some eye candy like shadows also knock down the AA or AF.

[ShyguyXPC]

yeah I agree, the absolute minimum I'll "accept" is 25fps, but it depends on the games... most FPS games you'll want 40 to 45fps as Karma & JRB3 said, & as JRB3 also said, once you get into heavy action in the game, frame rate will drop, but shouldn't drop down below what is acceptable...

also bear in mind, a lot also has to do with what resolutions your running as well, & the hardware you have in the system...

like suggested above, Shadows & anti-aliasing are some of the biggest culprits in low frame rates, but even then, you might be able to get away with keeping some of those options & just drop your resolution down one notch, sometimes I'll be running a game at 1280x1024 or even as high as 1600x1200 with everything maxed, & due to the maps I'm playing, all I have to do is drop down to 1024x768 & things will smooth out to a good frame rate.

also, as many of us who Play a game called Joint Operations knows, even having the best hardware available, depending on the maps & the effects people put in them, some of those games & maps can bring the best hardware to its knees, not that the visuals are that impressive, far from it, but its just the game, textures used & other coding crap that tends to drop frame rates like a rock. (in that game, one of the biggest lag inducers as far as graphics is the damn water fountain & water fall effects, walk into one & you could be doing 100+fps, prior to it, only to have your fps drop down to 10fps

I usually game with v-sync on, so I never see fps over 60fps, but even still at times with enough explosions & action going on, I can quite often have my fps drop to 20 or so easily... only lasts for a brief moment, but its still very annoying.

& I'm running a 320MB 8800GTS, another member in our clan is running a Quad SLI setup with 2 7950GX2's & same thing happens. got another member who runs a Quad Core & 8800GTX, 64-bit Vista & 4+ GB's of RAM & same things happen to them.

so it can often times be just the game itself & how well it was programmed & all that.

but yeah, when you get it all setup, I'd try to balance it out, between graphics settings & Resolution settings, so your getting about 40-50fps on average if you can.