Why you should NEVER run games in unlocked FrameRate

[Sethioz]

In past 10 years or so, I have noticed wave of extremely stupid people who keep running games in unlocked framerate and then whine that their PC is overheating and they get poor performance.
I see lot of topics in counter-strike 2 discussions on steam, where total idiots use RTX 3000 or RTX 4000 series cards and run unlocked framerate and then whining and wondering why they get stuttering and poor performance.

I play cs2 with GTX 1080 in 1440p, i get solid 60fps and GPU usage is ONLY 20-30% and they whine that they get poor performance with RTX series cards, that's because they are idiots who don't understand why you should NEVER run unlocked framerate in any game.

Why is unlocked framerate bad idea:
When running unlocked framerate, your GPU is under constant 100% load and in order to process all those frames, your CPU is also under higher use as CPU is what needs to process all this info and feed data to GPU. Even tho GPU does most of the work when processing graphics, CPU is still needed to give data to GPU.
This data is being sent via motherboard, which also has circuits and wires (in case you didn't know). This also puts massive load on south-bridge on your motherboard. most people are too stupid to even check, but your motherboard can get extremely hot aswell, that's why most modern motherboards have built-in heatsinks that you can notice on top of various sections.

Running unlocked framerate is equivalent to driving car in 1st gear only, revving engine to the max and using only clutch to regulate speed, anyone who understands how cars work, would realize that this kind of car ABUSE would break the car within days, if not hours. It makes engine and clutch overheat and wear out fast, your car will consume insane amount of fuel aswell.
This is what you are doing to your PC when running unlocked framerates in a game.

Reason why some games stutter and even crash with unlocked framerate, is because imagine this:
You have 2 cars, but you try to run them using same engine and fuel tank and fuel pump.
1 car's engine is under 100% load at all times, engine is revved to the max and it has some load behind it aswell, like tractor pulling events, where super powerful tractors are pulling extreme weights.
This means car 1 is using all the engine power.
but when car 2 needs to do anything at all, this power has to be taken from car 1. so let's say car 1 is pulling weight and then even 1% of that power is allocated to car 2, then car 1 will "stutter" and can slow down significantly and would take some time to get back up to speed.
It's kind of like releasing acceleration when driving at high speed. let's say you driving 200km/h and release acceleration for 1 second, due wind resistance and friction between moving parts and between ground and tyres, will cause your car to lose significant amount of speed. on a normal street car, you might go from 200 to like 180 by just releasing acceleration for 1 second, but it will take you like 10 seconds to get back from 180 to 200.
This is the kind "stuttering" that is happening in a PC when your GPU is under 100% load and other components need to draw power, that's why you stutter and lag in games when running unlocked framerates.

Some games are better programmed and they allocate a buffer for that purpose, so they keep some extra power in case it's needed for other purposes, but most devs don't do this, because it is your own fault if you are stupid enough to run unlocked framerates.

But what kind of framerate should i run then?
You should always sync your framerate with what your monitor can support.
if your monitor is 120 hertz (120hz), it means your monitor can refresh the image 120 times per second, which translates to 120 frames per second aka 120fps.
So with 120hz monitor, lock your framerate to 120fps.
it's best to use vsync to prevent screen tearing, but some games produce input lag when using vsync, in that case disable vsync and use framerate limit instead. if game doesn't provide framerate limit, then do it in your graphic's card settings.
in case of nvidia, use nvidia control panel and make a profile for the game (if it doesn't already exist) and limit framerate in there.
i haven't used AMD for over 10 years, but same thing exists for AMD, just find the control panel and limit the framerate there.

NOTE that running 120+ fps on 120 hertz monitor is POINTLESS, because 120 hertz monitor is not able to display more than 120 frames per second! your monitor is simply NOT capable of showing them, so if you run more than 120fps on 120hz monitor, you are WASTING resources and killing your GPU for no reason at all.
as explained before, 120 hertz means that your monitor is capable of refreshing the image 120 times per 1 second aka 120fps. anything above and frames will be dropped, uneven amount of frames is also causing screen tearing due the fact how images are drawn on your monitor (line by line). some modern monitors have sections, but they still cause screen tearing if you use wrong framerate.

Human eye can't see over 150 hertz
research confirms that average human eye is not capable of seeing over 150 hertz in normal conditions, in certain "lab" conditions, some people have been able to make difference up to 500 hertz, but those are SPECIAL conditions, such as using special background, lighting and colors.
in normal conditions, like looking on your monitor, you won't notice difference above 150 hertz. some people have better senses and can maybe notice up to 250 hertz, but that's extremely rare.
so all of those who are like "fafafafa i get 55555 framerate fafafafaf" are just pure and simple RETARDS who don't understand how their own body works nor how computers work.
go faffafafaf yourself you morons! it's so annoying how retards have no idea that having 3249392 framerate is USELESS as you can't even see it!

Power consumption
most people never even realize it, but modern computers can take quite a lot of power. at this point my PC is quite old, but when under load, it still takes about 350 watts of power, this includes 2 monitors and LED keyboards and mice. remember that USB is still POWER, your headset takes power aswell.
i was playing dual universe, which is EXTREMELY BADLY OPTIMIZED and this made me extra 25 eur bill at end of month. that's right, 25 eur on top of regular power usage.
unlike most people, i actually talk from experience. i use smart power plugs that monitor power usage and make monthly reports on how much power was used.
when you're constantly playing in unlocked framerates, then your PC WILL use much more electricity, which also means it gets much hotter.

NOTE - due high power consumption, other devices on your PC can also malfunction, such as USB devices. i have seen lot of people whine that their mouse or keyboard "turns off" when playing, that's EXACTLY why it's happening. their PC is drawing so much power that some USB devices become unstable. this indicates you have issues with PSU tho. you need to check the ratings on your PSU, not the overall wattage, but specific amp ratings on each rail, some PSUs put more power into motherboard, which feeds USB and everything else connected to motherboard, like RAM and CPU, while some PSUs are more GPU focuses and output more amps on 12v rail.
overall wattage can be like 1000w, but this doesn't mean anything if certain parts of the PC aren't getting enough power and this can easily happen if you running unlocked framerates without knowing what your PSU ratings are.

PC overheating / heat management
when running games in unlocked framerate, this also means your entire PC will get much hotter than usual, this can also cause all sorts of issues. for example your network adapter (usually built-in) can also overheat as it's built into the motherboard.
i once had Asus wifi adapter that was overheating and throttling / lagging due that, it was driving me nutz, until i finally realized that the adapter itself was getting super hot. probably faulty adapter, but just saying that heat in computers can cause serious issues.
it was external adapter and not related to unlocked framerate, but it's just example how heat can cause issues.

I was also doing some crypto mining and password cracking on my old GTX 980 and even tho it was just GPU under load, it caused so much heat to build up in south-bridge of motherboard, that it cracked the CPU cooler bracket. one day PC was off and when i turned it on, it quickly climbed to like 60c when idle, i then opened it up and realize that CPU cooler bracket had broken. this can only happen due constant heat as this is how universe works. temperature is just energy, it's how fast particles move on subatomic levels and the faster they move, the more space they occupy, in other words, hot materials expand due this factor. when certain type of plastic expands too much, it cracks under pressure. that's exactly what happened to my CPU cooler bracket.

heating issues can also lead to broken hardware. solder on circuit boards will heat then cool and eventually starts to show micro-cracks. you're probably able to see them under microscope. this doesn't instantly break your hardware, but can cause artifacts, game crashes, PC crashes ..etc.
if this happens to your GPU, it's possible to fix it, but it's not easy. you have to take GPU apart and remove everything from the circuit board, everything that can be removed, fans, wires ..etc
then put it into oven and "cook" it for about 15-20 minutes, however i'm not sure about temperature. you have to look up the temp at when solder starts to soften, but not melt.
idea is to make all solder so hot that those micro-cracks in the circuit board will "heal". i think solder that is used on circuit boards should melt around 185c, so you might want to keep temp around 170c for 15-30 mins.

bUt WhAt iS UnloCkedFraMeRaTE foR thEn?
stress testing
benchmarking
comparison vs other hardware (aka benchmarking)
for example there are websites that show the maximum amount of framerate certain cards can pull in certain games, this gives you good idea how much more powerful a certain GPU is compared to another.



BOTTOM LINE / CONCLUSION - your PC should NOT break when running unlocked framerate as PC should be able to run under 100% load for long periods of time, BUT it won't get you stability. it will cause stuttering, lag and occasional software crashes.
even in windows when running crypto miners, password cracking software or rendering videos, entire windows is lagging and stuttering. this is normal behaviour. i have left my PC to render videos for 10+ hours and no issues, but during that period i'm not able to use my PC properly as it lags and stutters on every step. this is exactly what happens in games when running unlocked fps.

If your PC is overheating and/or software is crashing, then you should check your hardware as most likely something is overheating beyond what it should be. I have built PCs my entire life and i always mount front fan, which significantly reduces internal temps. both of my main PCs have 3 large fans in front, which helps with heat a lot.
my GPU never goes over 65c, even with hot weather and CPU usually never over 60c (liquid cooling).

best way to prevent such issues, is not running unlocked fps. simple as that.