How Bad Frame Pacing Can Make Games Feel Awful

howtogeek.com:

There you are, immersed in the latest gaming masterpiece, only to find that something isn’t quite right. A jarring stutter or a jittery sensation that’s detracting from the smooth, engaging experience you’re used to. Say hello to bad frame pacing.

Frame pacing refers to the regularity of the time intervals between each frame displayed on your screen. In a perfect gaming world, each frame would be displayed at a consistent pace. For instance, a game running at 60 frames per second (FPS) should ideally show each frame every 16.67 milliseconds. Sadly, games don’t always live up to this ideal, and that’s where the issue lies.

When the intervals between frames become irregular, you’re experiencing bad frame pacing. This inconsistency can lead to a sensation of choppiness, stuttering, or even discomfort while playing a game, regardless of whether the overall frame rate is high.

Bad frame pacing can make games feel downright terrible, especially in fast-paced or visually complex titles, where fluid motion is vital for immersion and enjoyable gameplay. A few telltale signs that you’re grappling with bad frame pacing are:

What makes bad frame pacing so infuriating is that regular FPS counters look normal, yet the game feels as if it’s stuttering. To detect bad frame pacing, you need to have something called a frame time graph. This will show you the internal between frames in milliseconds.

You can use software such as Riva Tuner Statistics Server to overlay the graph along with other more traditional frame rate meters while you play. This will tell you clearly if this is the issue or not.

If you’ve pinpointed bad frame pacing as the source of your gaming troubles, you can take several simple measures to tackle the issue and restore the