Calculating frames per second in a game

Question

You need a smoothed average, the easiest way is to take the current answer (the time to draw the last frame) and combine it with the previous answer.

// eg.
float smoothing = 0.9; // larger=more smoothing
measurement = (measurement * smoothing) + (current * (1.0-smoothing))

By adjusting the 0.9 / 0.1 ratio you can change the 'time constant' - that is how quickly the number responds to changes. A larger fraction in favour of the old answer gives a slower smoother change, a large fraction in favour of the new answer gives a quicker changing value. Obviously the two factors must add to one!

This is what I have used in many games.

#define MAXSAMPLES 100
int tickindex=0;
int ticksum=0;
int ticklist[MAXSAMPLES];

/* need to zero out the ticklist array before starting */
/* average will ramp up until the buffer is full */
/* returns average ticks per frame over the MAXSAMPLES last frames */

double CalcAverageTick(int newtick)
{
    ticksum-=ticklist[tickindex];  /* subtract value falling off */
    ticksum+=newtick;              /* add new value */
    ticklist[tickindex]=newtick;   /* save new value so it can be subtracted later */
    if(++tickindex==MAXSAMPLES)    /* inc buffer index */
        tickindex=0;

    /* return average */
    return((double)ticksum/MAXSAMPLES);
}

Well, certainly

frames / sec = 1 / (sec / frame)

But, as you point out, there's a lot of variation in the time it takes to render a single frame, and from a UI perspective updating the fps value at the frame rate is not usable at all (unless the number is very stable).

What you want is probably a moving average or some sort of binning / resetting counter.

For example, you could maintain a queue data structure which held the rendering times for each of the last 30, 60, 100, or what-have-you frames (you could even design it so the limit was adjustable at run-time). To determine a decent fps approximation you can determine the average fps from all the rendering times in the queue:

fps = # of rendering times in queue / total rendering time

When you finish rendering a new frame you enqueue a new rendering time and dequeue an old rendering time. Alternately, you could dequeue only when the total of the rendering times exceeded some preset value (e.g. 1 sec). You can maintain the "last fps value" and a last updated timestamp so you can trigger when to update the fps figure, if you so desire. Though with a moving average if you have consistent formatting, printing the "instantaneous average" fps on each frame would probably be ok.

Another method would be to have a resetting counter. Maintain a precise (millisecond) timestamp, a frame counter, and an fps value. When you finish rendering a frame, increment the counter. When the counter hits a pre-set limit (e.g. 100 frames) or when the time since the timestamp has passed some pre-set value (e.g. 1 sec), calculate the fps:

fps = # frames / (current time - start time)

Then reset the counter to 0 and set the timestamp to the current time.

Increment a counter every time you render a screen and clear that counter for some time interval over which you want to measure the frame-rate.

Ie. Every 3 seconds, get counter/3 and then clear the counter.