My limited FPS : 60

Question

I have learn OpenGL programming for some time.And I found a very strange phenomenon : my FPS(Frame per Second) always stays about 60,no matter the program is very easy or a little complicated.Actually,my computer is bought last year and the performance is good.The graphics card is nVidia GTX570,CPU is I7.

So I make a experiment:run the same program on my computer and my friend's computer.This program implements shadow mapping:

The FPS in my computer is about 60. But when I run it in my friend's computer,The FPS is more than 400.

But my computer's performance is obvious better than his.Now I post our computer's parameter.

My computer:

tgt.init (Info)  GLEW version: 1.7.0
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  OS version: Windows 7 (build 7600)
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  OpenGL Version: 4.2.0
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GTX 570/PCIe/SSE2
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  GPU Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation (NVIDIA)
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  Texturing: yes, max size: 16384, 3D: yes, max 3D size: 2048
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  Texture features: 32 units, NPOT, rectangles, compression, 16x anisotropic
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  Framebuffer Objects: yes, max 8 color attachments
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  Shaders: yes (OpenGL 2.0), GLSL Version 4.20, Shader Model 5.0
tgt.GpuCapabilitiesWindows (Info)  Graphics Driver Version: 8.17.12.9573
tgt.GpuCapabilitiesWindows (Info)  Graphics Driver Date: 2012-02-09
tgt.GpuCapabilitiesWindows (Info)  Graphics Memory Size: 1280 MB

My friend's computer:

 tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  OS version: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (build 7601)
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  OpenGL Version: 4.2.11566 Compatibility Profile Context
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  OpenGL Renderer: AMD Radeon HD 6620G
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  GPU Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc. (ATI)
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  Texturing: yes, max size: 16384, 3D: yes, max 3D size: 8192
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  Texture features: 16 units, NPOT, rectangles, compression, 16x anisotropic
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  Framebuffer Objects: yes, max 8 color attachments
tgt.GpuCapabilities (Info)  Shaders: yes (OpenGL 2.0), GLSL Version 4.20, Shader Model 5.0
tgt.GpuCapabilitiesWindows (Info)  Graphics Driver Version: 6.14.10.11566
tgt.GpuCapabilitiesWindows (Info)  Graphics Driver Date: 2012-03-09
tgt.GpuCapabilitiesWindows (Info)  Graphics Memory Size: 512 MB

I am very curious and I cannot figure it out.Should I do some settings for the graphics card?Could some one tell me how to solve the problem?

Answer 1

What @Thomas said, it's VSync.

You can disable it in your applicaton using:

• GLFW: glfwSwapInterval(0); (0 = off, 1 = on)
• SDL: SDL_GL_SetAttribute(SDL_GL_SWAP_CONTROL, 0);
• FreeGLUT: I'm not aware of this being possible, use your GPU settings as a fallback