FCAT Frame Experience Analysis Hitman Absolution

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?

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.

Hitman Absolution Frame Experience Analysis

Above, the percentile chart of the 30 seconds gaming @ 2560x1440. Here we plot FPS and place it in relation to percentiles.

• 50% of the time measured frames is doing roughly 45 FPS.
• The last 5% of the frames is at roughly 39 FPS. 

Please let me remind you of the fact that this is measured at a monitor resolution of 2560x1440, hence the low FPS for this product.

On this 30 second run the graphics card manages to remain below 30ms mostly, we see much more stuttering in the chart. With this chart, lower = better. Huge spikes above 40-50ms can be considered a problem like a stutter or indicate a low framerate.

The GeForce GTX 770 performs great.