FCAT Frametime Recording GTX 980 and 980 SLI
Frametime and latency performance
With a benchmark technology called FCAT on the following two 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.
| Frame time in milliseconds |
FPS |
| 8.3 | 120 |
| 15 | 66 |
| 20 | 50 |
| 25 | 40 |
| 30 | 33 |
| 50 | 20 |
| 70 | 14 |
We have a detailed article (read here) on the new FCAT methodology used, and it also explains why 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 17 ms. 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?
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.
Frame Pacing Enhancements Single GPU
Above the frame-time FPS plat of the test run @ 2560x1440 performed with a single GeForce GTX 980 and the card setup in SLI . Above is the indicator of performance relative to percentiles. E.g. 50% of the frames is roughly rendered at 48 FPS for a single GeForce GTX 980 and 75'ish FPS for the setup in SLI. Let's zoom into frametimes though.
Smooth performance without any significant enough stutters. As you can see both combo's do extremely well but there deefinitely is a bit more frame latency with SLI. Below you can see the cards combined in a chart.
