40-FPS Over buffer range? 2002-2003 information.

[Futuretech]

TL;DR: At bottom.

I'm putting this on A51:BBF because it's something that I never really seen discussed if at all in such way.

Sometime around the late, 2000s-before the transition of the 2010s whereby I was gaming. I ran into an old article on a french website. If I recall it might have been the same one that talked about CRT response time vs LCD when LCDs were beginning to take over and CRT and in a few years Plasma were on their way to be phased out.

One thing it mentioned that I've never really seen much is after buffer or over buffer.

To explain let's take the standard 60FPS. A game is optimized to this range and retains 60FPS as much as possible perhaps even if lucky the game runs 60FPS 100% of the time any drop in performance is so minute and so minimal that it is a sub-1% issue.

The article mentioned that they've explained how games operate better with better performing equipment, obviously. But the gamers that run at a fixed framerate or could be run higher you shouldn't increase without knowing something first.

We all know that running a game higher than 60FPS is the PC property best value. But this article and from what I tried to research with poor success if at all. Only recently re-researching with the various AIs out there to see if they found anything when I was re-thinking my past.

So the article in question goes: The After Buffer or Over buffer should be 40FPS minimum. So your playing CS 1.6 100FPS let's say it's running at 100FPS but dips so your framerate with a uncapped amount for testing hits 105-107. Well if your running 100FPS all the time and it seems nice it dips below and triggers various effects.

So you should be at 140FPS minimum so that if ANY dip it hits the buffer of the system rather than crashing into the visible spectrum of your framerate. If your playing say COD-4:MW as I recently discovered it's still being played both on PS3 and PC particularly competitively as of the coof era and even now as of the current 2025.

So your playing with magic numbers like 125, 250, or 333. Well if your using a poorer computer and hitting 125-150. You might be at the 125 Quake magic number. But having 40 Frames above 125 at 165 and then capping after testing as best as possible makes you run 125 as much and as close to 100% as possible. Or 250 or 333.

In the past during the development of console games depending on depth of usage of hardware these games were programmed at 30, 60, and anywhere in between for example some Schmups at 59.99 or 57.456 etc.etc. Optimization on older consoles using assembler or other lower level languages eeked out every ounce of performance possible.

With modern games these games run on consoles designed for a target or a target range for example you can build a game and it runs on the PS5/Xbone at 300FPS but as you add detail and process the development it is dropped minimum to 60 or some other number. Or uses VRR to use a frame target to feel smooth. Sorta like how some game engine might run a game at 13,000FPS but after adding characters and textures etc.etc. it hits 79FPS as an example.

My question is has anyone ever tried to develop games at 100FPS for example say you have a modern game on PC or Console for 60FPS. It hits 100FPS maybe hits 105-107 just the minimum needs to be 40FPS. Some might say the game would be interesting to run at 100FPS but if doing that it fluctuate and be a burden on the player thus the company would be blamed for poor optimization. But if you cap it at 60FPS it's just there as close to or at 100% 60FPS.

If these modern games coming out these console games, PC games, and mixed games whereby it's a console port. Why do they target 30, 45, 60 etc.etc. but instead of focus on targeting these traditional 30/60 they add 40 above and cap to 30/60. For example a 30FPS game that is heavy would hit 70FPS capping it at 30 stays 30 all the time you use QFT/VRR to reduce the 33.33ms latency to a more acceptable range for 120Hz (8.33) as example. But with that buffer you never dip below 30FPS.

Even games of the past like the Killzone series and some other heavy PS3 games dipped below the 30 mark with people stating they feel it. If anyone is wondering is because the first release PS3 used 128MB XDR RAM and later models were given 256MB XDR RAM. I believe M.A.G. [Massive Action Game 128 vs 128 256 player FPS game] was another game that had noticeable issues stressing the PS3 to the max.

So is there any people out there wanting to test out this 40-FPS over buffer? Or is this an invalid performance metric, a relic of the past when computers and other factors were not as present as modern day with information, optimization, and other metrics.

It's just I see people benchmarking games and benching protocols and it's like Hitman 3 as an example 298FPS or some other game and it's like okay it runs at 10s to hundreds of frames higher but what about the smoothness or optimizations. I've recall reading some companies just wait for brute force methods and simply let the game run at higher framerate without any in-depth power programming of optimization such as in-line or full on assembler or delving into the various tools like DX, OGL and engaging in deeper hardware properties. I know companies now a days optimize a lot in many cases but sometimes it just gets to the point they brute force it.

TL;DR: You possess a game at 60FPS or some other FPS range but allow it to go 40-FPS above minimum 40 if it's higher great. And you cap it in full to some range you want. And if you leave it with that 40-FPS above range it should in theory and information of the past never dip below or if it dips it's such a minute amount that it is a decimal drop of a frame. ex: 60-59.9-60-60-59.8 etc.etc.

Is this even needed in modern games or like I said is it just a relic of bygone era?