Benchmarking software measures a computer's power by recording the speed at which the machine completes a particular task. Fraps, a commercial program produced by Beepa Pty. Ltd., includes benchmarking tools for computer games. These benchmarks measure the render speed of individual frames in a game's animation. By comparing benchmarks of the same game across computers, reviewers can determine which pieces of computer hardware perform better. Using benchmarks at home helps identify your computer's maximum potential.
Purpose of Benchmarking
Benchmarking a computer serves a number of purposes. At its most basic, benchmarking determines how well a particular program runs on a specific computer. This helps users decide if the program will work on their machines. Benchmarking also provides a consistent standard for comparing the power of multiple computers. Although many types of benchmarking exist to test computers' processors, hard drives and more, Fraps benchmarking exclusively tests computer games. Because most games use the computer's video card heavily, Fraps benchmarking can determine a video card's performance.
Overlay
The most basic benchmarking tool in Fraps, the overlay displays the number of rendered frames per second in real time. To use the overlay, set the desired overlay location and toggle hotkey in the FPS tab of Fraps. Open a computer game and press the hotkey to display the overlay. Some game actions will utilize more of the video card's power, so play normally while watching the overlay number to properly gauge the benchmark.
Advanced Benchmarking
Fraps includes a separate benchmarking hotkey, also set up in the FPS tab. Pressing this hotkey will begin a benchmark log. The log will record until you press the hotkey a second time. You can also set a time limit to end the log automatically. The options in the FPS tab determine what data Fraps saves to the log. The FPS option records the current frames per second once per second. Frametimes logs the time each frame rendered, down to the millisecond. Enabling Minmaxavg logs the minimum, maximum and average frame rates over the entire log, as well as showing the total number of frames and the log duration.
Considerations
Several factors may negatively effect a benchmark's results. If a computer or particular game has vertical sync enabled, it will enforce a limit on the frames per second. Running other applications in the background might slow down a computer, dropping the benchmark results. Fraps' other features, such as the screen recorder, will add an additional strain on the computer, lowering the benchmark. The overlay itself can impact the render speed, though usually not by much. Fraps offers an option to only update the overlay once per second to counteract the slowdown.
Tags: frames second, video card, basic benchmarking, benchmark results, computer games, Fraps benchmarking, most basic