The Difference Between 30 FPS and 60 FPS When Gaming
Last updated on August 11th, 2022 at 01:02 pm
Most people want to have the highest FPS when gaming, and it’s true. The higher FPS you have the smoother your game will run.
However, it isn’t always possible to own an expensive gaming rig that produces hundreds of FPS when playing a game.
For this reason, I did some research on how noticeable FPS can be when you are playing a game.
Most games created have a recommendation of 60 FPS when playing, but for those of you who don’t have computers powerful enough to play games at this FPS does it make that big of a difference?
Is there a big difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS?
Most people who are not used to playing at a high FPS rate will not notice a difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS, but when playing a competitive game 60 FPS will give you an advantage because it is producing double the frames per second. For casual games, the difference isn’t even that noticeable.
If you have never had experience with a high-performance computer then playing at 30 FPS will not be a problem as you can barely notice the difference.
However, if you are used to playing at an FPS higher than 100 then playing a game at 30 FPS might be a struggle because you are used to the smoothness of over 100 frames per second.
How Does Higher FPS Give You an Advantage When Gaming?
Having a higher FPS in-game will give you an advantage because your game is refreshing the frames much faster which will allow you to see your opponent before they see you.
Take playing a shooting game at 30 FPS compared to 60 FPS for example. Playing the game at 30 FPS will have your game refresh only 30 times in one second. When playing at 60 FPS your game will refresh 60 times every second.
This means when you are playing at 60 FPS your game’s frames are refreshing twice as fast as they would be when they are being played at 30 FPS.
This means that you will see twice as many movements with 60 FPS then you would with 30 FPS. Gives you the advantage because those extra movements will allow you to see your opponents and allow you to react quickly when it is important.
Here is a video that shows you the difference between FPS when playing CS:GO; a competitive shooting game.
As you can see the higher FPS you play the bigger advantage you have because objects and movements on your screen will be shown faster allowing you to have a better reaction time.
At What Point Does Increasing FPS in a Game Stop Doing Anything Noticeable?
While having a lot of FPS in a game might seem great, is it really worth buying a computer rig that can reach 600, 700, or even 800 FPS while gaming?
I would say anything over 240FPS is a little overkill and you really won’t be able to tell the difference.
The reason for this is that you can be getting insane FPS in-game, but if your monitor’s refresh rate can’t keep up with it then you won’t be able to see a big difference.
Learn more about monitor refresh rates here.
Although you can play at high FPS with a low refresh rate monitor it is not worth it because you will experience screen tearing.
Having an awfully high FPS such as 600 – 800 FPS will actually give you a really bad experience when gaming because you will experience a large amount of screen tearing. To avoid this you should use G-Sync on your computer so that your FPS and refresh rates are matched up together.
It is possible to play games at these high FPS ranges even with these monitors, but I would not recommend playing a game over 100 FPS past your monitor refresh rate as it will ruin your gaming experience.
Is 144 FPS Noticeable?
Playing a game at 144 FPS is very noticeable compared to playing a game at 60 FPS.
Jumping from 60 FPS to 144 FPS will show a very noticeable difference in game smoothness and performance, especially if you match your FPS with a 144Hz monitor.
144 FPS is very noticeable to people who are used to playing a game at 60 FPS or less because you will instantly be able to see more than twice the amount of frames being processed in the game you are playing.
To learn more about this I made an article that goes in-depth on “What The Difference is Between Refresh Rate and FPS”.
This allows for smoother transitions and faster reaction time, which can become very important if you are a competitive gamer.
Can You See 144 FPS?
The human eye can see 144 FPS very easily, but you will need to own a 144Hz monitor or better because having a 144Hz monitor or better will allow your monitor to register the 144 FPS on your screen.
