This is a real frame-rate counter, not an estimate. It measures how many frames your browser actually renders each second using the browser's own requestAnimationFrame timing, then reports the current, average, peak and 1% low figures — the same metrics hardware reviewers use.
How to check your FPS
Press "Start FPS test" above. The counter measures your browser's real frame rate in real time and reports current FPS, average FPS, peak FPS and the 1% low. Toggle the stress test to add GPU and CPU load and see how your frame rate holds up under pressure.
Leave it running for at least ten seconds for a stable average. Because browsers cap rendering at your display's refresh rate, a 60 Hz monitor will read close to 60 fps and a 144 Hz monitor close to 144 fps — that ceiling is your display, not your graphics card.
What is a 1% low, and why does it matter more than average FPS?
The 1% low is the frame rate of your worst 1% of frames. It matters more than the average because stutter is what you actually feel — a game averaging 90 fps with 25 fps lows feels far worse than a steady 60 fps.
This is why the counter reports it separately. When you are diagnosing stutter in a big open world like GTA 6, a collapsing 1% low usually points at VRAM exhaustion or slow storage rather than a weak GPU.
What FPS should you aim for?
| Frame rate | Feel | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| 30 fps | Playable, noticeably soft input | Console quality modes, minimum-spec PCs |
| 60 fps | Smooth and responsive | The standard PC target; console performance modes |
| 120 fps | Very smooth | High-refresh displays, competitive play |
| Below 25 fps | Sluggish and hard to aim | Below the playable bar — lower settings or upgrade |
Steam FPS counter, Nvidia FPS counter, AMD and MSI Afterburner
To turn on the Steam FPS counter, open Steam › Settings › In Game and set "In-game FPS counter" to a screen corner. The Nvidia FPS counter lives in the GeForce Overlay (Alt+Z › Performance), the AMD FPS counter is in Adrenalin's Performance Metrics overlay (Ctrl+Shift+O), and the MSI Afterburner FPS counter — via its RivaTuner overlay — remains the most customisable of the lot.
Those overlays measure a specific game; the counter on this page measures your browser and display. Both are useful — an in-game overlay tells you what a title is achieving, while a browser test quickly confirms your display's refresh rate and whether your system is throttling. If you are wondering which is the best FPS counter, the honest answer is that they all read the same underlying frame times: pick whichever is already installed. However you phrase it — FPS meter, FPS checker, frame rate checker or frames per second counter — they are the same class of tool, and the one on this page needs no install at all.
Frame rate vs refresh rate: what is the difference?
What does frame rate mean? Frame rate is how many frames of a game or video your hardware produces per second, measured in FPS (frames per second). Refresh rate is how many times per second your monitor can display a new frame. Your visible frame rate is capped by the lower of the two, which is why a 60 Hz display shows at most 60 fps no matter how fast your GPU is.
This refresh rate vs frame rate mix-up is the single most common source of confusion when people test their FPS. If this tool reports a number close to 60, 120 or 144, you are almost certainly seeing your monitor's refresh ceiling rather than a hardware limit.
How to increase frame rate on PC
- Turn on DLSS, FSR or XeSS — the single biggest free performance win on modern GPUs
- Drop shadows, volumetrics and ray tracing before you drop texture quality
- Check you are not VRAM-limited: if lows collapse but the average holds, lower textures
- Update your graphics drivers — day-one game-ready drivers routinely add double-digit gains
- Close background browser tabs and set Windows to the high-performance power plan
- Install the game on an NVMe SSD so texture streaming keeps pace