FCAT Frame Experience Analysis Tomb Raider

With a new benchmark technology called FCAT on the following three pages we will look into Frame Experience Analysis. Basically with the charts shown we are trying to show you graphics anomalies like stutters and glitches in a plotted chart. Lately there has been a new measurement introduced, latency measurements. Basically it is the opposite of FPS.

• FPS mostly measures performance, the number of frames rendered per passing second.
• Frametime aka Frame Experience recordings mostly measures and exposes anomalies - here we look at how long it takes to render one frame. Measure that chronologically and you can see anomalies like peaks and dips in a plotted chart, indicating something could be off. 

We have a detailed article (read here) on the new FCAT methodology used, and it also explains whay we do not use FRAPS anymore.

Frametime - Basically the time it takes to render one frame can be monitored and tagged with a number, this is latency. One frame can take say 17ms. Higher latency can indicate a slow framerate, and weird latency spikes indicate a stutter, jitter, twitches basically anomalies that are visible on your monitor.

What do these measurements show?

But basically what these measurements show are anomalies like small glitches and stutters that you can sometimes (and please do read that well, sometimes) see on screen. Below I'd like to run through a couple of titles with you. Bear in mind that Average FPS matters more than frametime measurements. It's just an additional page or two of information that from now on we'll be serving you.

Tomb Raider Frame Experience Analysis

Above, a percentile chart of the 30 seconds @ 2560x1440. In this particular chart we plot FPS and place it in relation to percentiles.

• For this FPS chart HIGH = BETTER.
• 50% of the time measured frames is doing 125 FPS. 
• To the right you'll notice that the last 5% of the frames is at roughly 10 FPS or lower. This is another and valid way of looking at performance.

For comparative reasons and a little extra scaling in the charts we included the Radeon HD 7970 GHz, GeForce GTX 780 Single and a GeForce GTX Titan.

For this FPS chart LOWER = BETTER. Above, the card at 2560x1440. As you can see (follow the green line) there are no stutters recorded whatsoever, indicating a butter smooth and steady gaming experience..

Small note, the one stutter/glitch (blue) for GTX 780 was my bad, I started a program in the background. 

The plot is averaging roughly 7ms to roughly 10ms per rendered frame. With this chart, lower = better. Huge spikes above 40-50ms can be considered a problem or indicate a low framerate. Spikes below 5ms indicate a frame being dropped or inserted.