Hello!
I recently upgraded from a 5 year old second hand PC to a new pre built. With the old rig, I couldn’t get above 30fps even on low settings, but now I can play on 100+ while on Ultra.
I know by default the foreground fps is capped at 100, so when I removed the cap I saw my fps can reach up to 200 doing old raids and around 120 in m+. Is there any downside to removing the fps cap, and aside from petty bragging, what actual advantage is there to having higher fps than that? I’m not the most tech savvy player, hence the question.
I really appreciate any response, thanks!!
Keeping your fps in your freesyng/gsync range is best. If your fps is faster than what your monitor can display that might be wasted resources.
1 Like
no matter your fps, you will only see the number of frames your monitor is capable of displaying. so by leaving your fps cap unlimited, your hardware will be working hard to produce as many frames as it can, while you see basically no difference. capping your fps at your monitor’s max refresh will allow you to see your max fps without wasting resources.
1 Like
Will wasting resources quicken deterioration?
In and of itself? No. But the extra electrical flow it causes, and the additional heat that creates, will expedite electromigration. Since it also needs to be cooled it will expedite the mechanical death of any fans involved, as mechanical wear increases exponentially with speed.
Of course, whether that reduces the life expectancy by a relevant amount is the big question. If you’re planning to replace every 2 years you’ll not notice. Even every 5 years and you’re unlikely to experience a difference.
3 Likes
In addition to this, there’s a few situations (mainly laptops and compact PCs, but maybe bad fan curves could do it too) where uncapped FPS can lead to frame spikes due to the GPU running as hard as it can, getting too hot, throttling itself until it cools sufficiently (dropping your FPS), and then return to running as hard as it can again repeating the cycle, all for frames you’ll never see.
1 Like
Depends on the game, some people say they feel a difference when playing games like cs:go with an uncapped frame rate even on a 60hz display. My friend caps his refresh rate at 300fps when he plays Counter Strike Source.
I agree with what everyone else said though, lower temps do help when it comes to longevity of components.
So from what I gather, unless the increased frame rate garnered from an uncapped FPS is noticeable and beneficial to me, I’m better off capping my FPS to increase the lifespan of my new pc? Especially since I’m a novice at any parts installation?
On a side note I had no idea a $600 prebuilt would be so much better than my old pc. Lol. Was expecting a slight upgrade, not a complete QOL improvement.
1 Like
Out of curiosity, what were you upgrading from? Graphics and storage especially have come quite a long way in the past 5-10 years. CPUs too to a lesser extent.
I am not 100% sure of every part, as it’s something my brother in law built and gave me after he became uninterested in pc gaming.
I do know the mobo is a asus a68hm-k and it had a Gigibyte 720 card. It also had a HDD with an SSD I recently purchased.
Capping at a maintainable FPS can also benefit older GPUs that struggle, particularly if dips below 60 FPS are frequent.
Several years back I had an old secondary rig that could reach 80+ FPS in ideal circumstances, but continually bounced between 50 and 80 as the camera would swing around or combat effects would increase. That bouncing would produce intrusive stuttering and choppiness. Capping FPS to 48 eliminated that bouncing and created a dramatically better, relatively steady, and responsive gameplay experience.