Is it possible to find out what is the monitor frame rate in javascript?

Question

1. First, Is it possible to find out what is the monitor frame/refresh rate in javascript (60Hz for most LCD monitors)?
2. Second, is there any way to say execute a function after every X frames?

Several people asked why I need this. Here is the context: I have an animation (an endless loop that renders one frame after another). The output of each iteration needs to be synchronized with monitor refresh rate, otherwise tearing will happen. The way I am doing it right now is to use setTimeout(loop, 16) within the loop method. Its sort of working. The second parameter needs to be 1/(refresh rate), and that is why I asked this question.

Answer 1

You may have some luck on modern browsers using window.requestAnimationFrame with a trivial callback that measures the time between successive invocations and from that calculate the FPS.

You should also be able to easily skip your render function every nth invocation to reduce the desired frame rate.

I put a rough example at http://jsfiddle.net/rBGPk/ - the math may be slightly wrong but it should be enough to show the general idea.

Answer 2

The solution below works by measuring the number of milliseconds between two consecutive animation frames.

Warning: It often returns an incorrect FPS because sometimes an animation frame is skipped when your CPU is busy with other tasks.

// Function that returns a Promise for the FPS
const getFPS = () =>
  new Promise(resolve =>
    requestAnimationFrame(t1 =>
      requestAnimationFrame(t2 => resolve(1000 / (t2 - t1)))
    )
  )

// Calling the function to get the FPS
getFPS().then(fps => console.log(fps));

Tips

• Do not abuse setInterval and setTimeout for real-time rendering
• Instead use requestAnimationFrame
• Review the MDN Tutorial on Timeouts and Intervals, particularly the section on requestAnimationFrame

Answer 3

This is robust method, using the requestAnimationFrame method.

function calcFPS(opts){
    var requestFrame = window.requestAnimationFrame ||
        window.webkitRequestAnimationFrame ||
        window.mozRequestAnimationFrame;
    if (!requestFrame) return true; // Check if "true" is returned; 
                                    // pick default FPS, show error, etc...
    function checker(){
        if (index--) requestFrame(checker);
        else {
            // var result = 3*Math.round(count*1000/3/(performance.now()-start));
            var result = count*1000/(performance.now()- start);
            if (typeof opts.callback === "function") opts.callback(result);
            console.log("Calculated: "+result+" frames per second");
        }
    }
    if (!opts) opts = {};
    var count = opts.count||60, index = count, start = performance.now();
    checker();
}

The higher the value of count, the more accurate the value of the FPS, and the longer the FPS test will take.

Additional logic can be used to round to 15/12s, ie 24, 30, 48, 60 120... FPS.

---

Here's the compiled version (with rounding to 3 FPS):

function calcFPS(a){function b(){if(f--)c(b);else{var e=3*Math.round(1E3*d/3/(performance.now()-g));"function"===typeof a.callback&&a.callback(e);console.log("Calculated: "+e+" frames per second")}}var c=window.requestAnimationFrame||window.webkitRequestAnimationFrame||window.mozRequestAnimationFrame;if(!c)return!0;a||(a={});var d=a.count||60,f=d,g=performance.now();b()}

---

Used like so:

calcFPS(); // Only logs to console (you can remove the console log,
           // making this call redundant)

calcFPS({count: 30}); // Manually set count (the test should take 500ms
                      // on a 60FPS monitor

calcFPS({callback: useFPS}); // Specify a callback so you can use the
                             // FPS number value

var FPS = 0, err = calcFPS({count: 120, callback: fps => FPS = fps});
if (err) FPS = 30;