FPS, 1% lows and frame time: how to read your results

Average FPS tells you how many frames were delivered per second on average. It does not tell you how they were spaced. A game can average 90 FPS and still feel rough if a few frames take far longer than the rest.

Frame time

Frame time is the milliseconds between two frames. At 60 FPS the ideal is 16.7 ms; at 144 FPS it is 6.9 ms. Smoothness comes from keeping frame times steady, not just short.

1% and 0.1% lows

Stress My GPU collects every frame time into a histogram, finds the slowest 1% (and the slowest 0.1%) of frames and reports their average as FPS. This is a percentile-window method. It is not the minimum, which is dominated by a single unlucky frame, and it is not the average, which hides outliers.

If your 1% low is close to your average, performance is smooth. If it is far lower, you are seeing stutter even though the average looks fine.

Stability and pacing

Stability measures how much frame times vary overall. Pacing measures how many frames arrive near the typical interval. Both matter, and the SMG Verdict reports them separately because they can disagree: a run with rare large spikes can have good pacing and poor spike control.

Why FPS is capped

Browsers synchronise drawing with your display. A 60 Hz monitor caps a light test at about 60 FPS. When you see exactly your refresh rate with very steady pacing, your GPU has headroom. Increase intensity or resolution to find its limit.