FPS has become one of the highest priorities in the modern gaming world, but if you have bad FPS, you may attempt to pinpoint precisely the cause. One theory many readers have come up with is that it might be due to their poor internet speed. Does your internet speed have any effect on the FPS you get?
Your internet speed should not affect the FPS you receive when playing video games. If online games appear to be stuttering due to poor internet, this is not your FPS dropping, but rather your computer is struggling to update the game as it receives server signals slowly.
Even after reading that, you may not perfectly understand the relationship between your internet speed and the FPS you receive. So let’s go through this topic in a bit more detail to help you get your games running as fast as possible.
How Does Your Internet Speed Affect FPS?
Unfortunately, this isn’t a question with a straightforward answer. This is because it will depend on many factors, the most important of which is what you’re judging the FPS of.
For example, suppose you’re playing a game downloaded directly onto your computer without internet connectivity. In that case, your internet speed will not impact the number of frames you get per second. But what about games that do have online connectivity? Does it still have no impact?
No, your internet speed will not affect your FPS, at least not directly. If your internet strength is poor, it may look like your game has dropped FPS, but this is likely just latency issues.
If your internet has gotten bad enough while playing an online game, you may see your character teleporting around, and you may assume that this is due to framerate issues. However, this is an issue known as rubberbanding.
Streaming Content
One of the only times bad internet may affect your FPS is if you are streaming content. For example, if you are trying to stream a movie on Netflix and your internet is struggling, you may notice that the video begins skipping frames.
In this case, your poor internet connection is interrupting your frame rate.
Another time your internet speed may affect your FPS is when trying to stream a video game through a streaming service. Streaming video games is a newer service offered by services like PS+. Again, the framerate may worsen if your internet signal drops while video game streaming.
What Affects FPS?
Many different factors can affect your computer’s FPS. However, before we can determine what affects your FPS, we first need to discuss what exactly FPS is.
FPS, or Frames Per Second, is the number of times your computer (or any device) refreshes its screen per second. A higher FPS will lead to animations like scrolling looking smoother, which is more desirable for most consumers.
Although your computer’s FPS can be affected by several factors, the most common ones that will lead to FPS problems are your graphics card (GPU) and your CPU. This is because the graphics card and the CPU make your computer refresh the screen.
What is the CPU?
The CPU is the device that sends instructions to the graphics card, telling the graphics card to refresh the display. The graphics card is what generates the image that the monitor displays.
If either of these parts is slow on the draw, then the number of frames your computer can generate per second will lower.
There is a direct relationship between your CPU, GPU, and maximum FPS. If your CPU is underpowered, your GPU will not get signals to refresh the screen fast enough, lowering your FPS.
Likewise, if your GPU is underpowered, it won’t be able to generate the pictures requested by the CPU fast enough, lowering your FPS.
Thankfully, this means that all you have to do to raise your FPS is upgrade your CPU, your GPU, or both if needed.
Upgrading Your CPU
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX line is some of the best graphics cards on the market. For example, the GeForce RTX 3060 (on Amazon) can increase your FPS significantly when combined with the proper hardware.
Regarding CPUs, Intel has some of the best on the market. For instance, the Intel Core i5 (on Amazon) is a CPU that works excellently with the GeForce RTX 3060, creating some outstanding FPS values.