What Is FPS in Gaming? Frame Rate Explained

What frame rate means

Frame rate is the number of individual images, or frames, that a gaming PC produces in one second. Each frame is a complete picture drawn by the graphics card and sent to the monitor. The term FPS stands for frames per second, and it is the standard way to describe how many of those images appear in a second of play.

A higher frame rate means more images are drawn each second, which makes fast motion look more connected. When the frame rate is low, movement can appear broken up, and the picture may update noticeably slower than your mouse or keyboard input. The visible jumpiness that happens when the monitor and the graphics card are out of step is called screen tearing, and it is one of the reasons players pay attention to both frame rate and refresh rate.

Frame rate is produced by the combination of the CPU and the graphics card. The CPU prepares the game scene, and the graphics card turns it into the images you see. The amount of graphics memory on the card, its processing cores, and the CPU's speed all influence how many frames can be produced each second. A gaming PC that pairs a capable graphics card with a processor that can keep up will reach its frame rate target more consistently.

Frame rate vs. monitor refresh rate

Refresh rate is a property of the monitor, measured in hertz, which is how many times per second the display updates its image. A monitor with a 144 Hz refresh rate can show up to 144 frames each second. The frame rate from the graphics card and the refresh rate of the monitor need to work together. If the graphics card produces fewer frames than the monitor can show, the display simply repeats what it is given. If the graphics card produces more, the extra frames may not all be visible.

Variable refresh rate technologies let the monitor adjust its refresh rate to match the frame rate the graphics card is delivering at that moment. This keeps frames in step and helps avoid tearing and stutter. NVIDIA G-SYNC is one example of this technology, and it is listed as a feature across GeForce RTX graphics cards. G-SYNC monitors are part of the reason frame rate and refresh rate are best chosen together.

For most desktop play, the practical advice is to match the frame rate target to the monitor's refresh rate. If a monitor can display 165 frames per second, a gaming PC that can consistently produce around that many frames makes full use of the display. This is covered in more detail in the guide to monitor refresh rate.

What decides how many frames a PC can produce

The graphics card is the main part that determines how many frames a game renders each second. Its processing cores, graphics memory, and how fast it can move data all matter. On NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 Series, for example, models range from the RTX 5060 with 3840 CUDA cores to the RTX 5090 with 21760 CUDA cores. More cores generally mean the card can handle more graphics work per second. The memory config also scales, from 8 GB on the RTX 5060 up to 32 GB on the RTX 5090, which helps when a game uses lots of textures and detail.

The CPU plays a supporting role. It prepares each frame before the graphics card renders it. A processor with more cores or a higher boost clock can keep up with a strong graphics card more easily. Intel's Core and Core Ultra processor names include clues about their capability; for example, a suffix like K indicates a desktop processor, and a higher number within a class generally points to more features such as cache or clock speed.

Software also affects frame rate. NVIDIA DLSS is a rendering technology that reconstructs high-resolution images from a lower-resolution input, which can increase the number of frames produced. The RTX 50 Series adds DLSS Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, which can generate extra frames to improve smoothness. Game settings such as resolution, detail level, and ray tracing all change the load on the graphics card, and those settings are part of how players tune their frame rate.

What frame rate is enough for different kinds of play

The frame rate that feels right depends on how you play. For competitive play, a higher frame rate can mean a more responsive feel because the time between your input and the on-screen result shortens. Players who focus on fast, reaction-based games often prefer gaming PCs and monitors that can sustain a high frame rate. The guide to esports gaming PCs and the 240 Hz monitor guide cover this kind of setup.

For large single-player worlds and games with lots of visual detail, the graphics card is often the limit. These titles tend to put a heavy load on the graphics memory and processing cores, and the sustained frame rate may be lower than in competitive games. A strong GPU with more memory, such as a card from the RTX 50 Series with 12 GB or 16 GB, handles this kind of load. The 4K gaming PC guide and the 1440p gaming PC guide compare systems for high-detail play.

Streaming adds a second workload. While a game is running, the PC also encodes a video stream, which takes resources. NVIDIA's dedicated encoder, called NVENC, is an independent section of the GPU used to encode video, so it lifts that work off the CPU. This matters for anyone who wants to stream and play from the same machine. The guide to gaming PCs for streaming explains what to look for.

Windows settings that help frame rate

Windows includes features that can affect how many frames your games produce. Windows 11 has optimizations for windowed games that reduce latency and can increase frame rates for DirectX 11 and later titles. It also has Auto HDR, which expands the range of colors that games can produce. Cross Adapter Scan Out, or CASO, is another Windows 11 feature that can reduce latency and increase frame rates on systems with both integrated and discrete GPUs.

The operating system also has a minimum hardware requirement. Windows 11 needs a graphics card compatible with DirectX 12 or later with a WDDM 2.0 driver, along with a 720p display and 8 bits per color channel as minimums. These are baseline requirements for the OS, not recommendations for gaming performance. A gaming PC that meets these minimums will run Windows, but the frame rate in games depends on the graphics card and CPU working together at a much higher level.

Other Windows 11 features can indirectly support a steady frame rate. Game Mode and the energy recommendations in Settings are both part of the Windows 11 feature set. The article on optimizing Windows for gaming goes into these settings in more detail.

Common frame rate misunderstandings

A common misunderstanding is that a higher frame rate is wasted on a monitor with a lower refresh rate. A 60 Hz monitor can only show 60 distinct frames each second, so a frame rate far above that may not all appear on screen. However, a higher frame rate can still reduce input latency, because the graphics card finishes each frame sooner and the latest input is reflected in the next frame. For players who care about responsiveness, a frame rate above the refresh rate still has value.

Another misunderstanding is that more graphics memory always means a higher frame rate. Graphics memory capacity and frame rate are related but different. Memory capacity helps a game hold more textures and detail without slowing down, while the speed of the graphics card's cores and its memory bandwidth decide how many frames it can actually draw each second. The RTX 5070, for example, has 12 GB of GDDR7 memory with a 192-bit interface and 672 GB per second of bandwidth, while the RTX 5080 has 16 GB, a 256-bit interface, and 960 GB per second. The higher-bandwidth card can move more data per second, which helps with frame rate at high detail settings.

A third misunderstanding is that the CPU does not matter once the graphics card is strong enough. Every frame starts as CPU work before it becomes a GPU image. If the CPU is much slower than the graphics card, it can become the bottleneck and hold the frame rate below what the GPU could otherwise deliver. This is why gaming PCs are balanced, pairing a capable CPU with a capable graphics card rather than one very strong and one very weak.

What to pick for your play

Questions

Is a higher frame rate always better?

Not always. Your monitor can only display as many frames per second as its refresh rate allows. Beyond that, a higher frame rate can reduce input latency, but the visible difference depends on how far above the refresh rate the frame rate goes. The best setup matches a frame rate target to the monitor's refresh rate.

What is the difference between frame rate and refresh rate?

Frame rate is how many images the graphics card produces each second. Refresh rate is how many times per second the monitor updates its picture, measured in hertz. They need to be in step for smooth motion, which is what variable refresh rate technologies like G-SYNC help with.

Does graphics memory affect frame rate?

Graphics memory capacity and frame rate are different. Memory capacity helps a game hold more textures and detail, while the speed of the card's cores and its memory bandwidth decide how many frames it draws per second. Both matter, but they answer different needs.

Can the CPU limit frame rate?

Yes. The CPU prepares each frame before the graphics card renders it. If the CPU is much slower than the graphics card, it can hold the frame rate below what the GPU could otherwise deliver. Balanced gaming PCs pair a capable CPU with a capable GPU.

Do I need a 240 Hz monitor for a high frame rate?

A 240 Hz monitor can display up to 240 frames per second, which is useful for competitive play where responsiveness matters. For most other play, a monitor at 144 Hz or 165 Hz matched to a PC that can sustain that frame rate is a good balance.

Does Windows affect frame rate?

Windows provides the environment games run in. Windows 11 includes optimizations for windowed games that can reduce latency and increase frame rates, plus features like Auto HDR. The operating system also has minimum hardware requirements that a gaming PC must meet to run at all.