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Game Development vocabulary · Rendering, Graphics & Performance

Frame rate

Meaning in game development, with examples

/ˈfreɪm reɪt/nounCore term

In game development, frame rate means: The number of images a game draws on the screen each second, measured in frames per second (fps). A higher, steadier frame rate makes the game look and feel smoother.

In Turkish: kare hızı, FPS, saniyedeki kare sayısı

How it is used

Common targets are 30 and 60 fps on consoles and higher on gaming PCs. People say the frame rate drops, dips or stutters, or that it is locked or capped at a number. Performance reviews and bug reports mention it all the time.

Example sentences

  1. The frame rate drops below 30 when too many enemies are on screen.

  2. We locked the frame rate at 60 to keep the controls consistent.

Common collocations

  • stable frame rate
  • frame rate drop
  • lock the frame rate
  • target frame rate
  • uncapped frame rate
  • optimizationWork that makes a game run faster and use less memory, battery or bandwidth, for example by simplifying models, reducing draw calls or rewriting slow code.
  • renderingThe process in which the computer turns a 3D or 2D scene, with its models, textures and lights, into the final image shown on the screen.
  • GPUShort for graphics processing unit: the chip that renders a game's images by running shaders and drawing millions of pixels every frame. The CPU handles most of the game logic.
  • profilerA tool that measures where a game spends its time and memory, frame by frame, so developers can find what makes it slow instead of guessing.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Rendering, Graphics & Performance

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