FAQ

Why are the FPS important?

The server FPS ("frames per second") represent the rate at wich the server looks for incoming network packets and answers to them. The absolute value is not so important (as long as it's higher than the tickrate), as low FPS will basically only add an additional latency (i.e. slightly raise the ping). More important is the stability, as FPS drops will result in an "edgy" game play (usually FPS drops are referred to as "lags"). Also permanent small variations might affect the game play, as they might result in an unprecise interpolation.

What do "Mean FPS", "Peak FPS" and "TIME RMS" mean?

"Mean FPS" is the average FPS. The mean value is not calculated directly from the FPS values, but from the frame times (the inverse of the FPS values). Thus it might seem lower than one would expect from the graph. This way it really gives the true number of frames rendered per second.

"Peak FPS" is the FPS value that has been encountered most frequently. This value is less sensitive to FPS drops than "Mean FPS" and thus is used by some calculations. Higher values are generally better, but the difference between 500 and 1000 is only small.

"TIME RMS" is a measure of the variations of the measured FPS values. The FPS should be as constant as possible, so smaller values are better. Typically everything below 10 is good. For an exact definition of the RMS see Wikipedia. These values are not based on the FPS values but on the time durations for each frame (i.e. the inverse of the FPS).

"TIME RMS w/o drops" is the variation of those FPS which are not considered as "drops" (see next question).

What is meant by "FPS drops"?

"FPS drops" is the number of measured FPS values which deviate strongly from the Mean FPS Value (see below), given as a percentage relative to the number of measurement points. This can be understood as the number or probability of (usually small) lags.

What does the "Quality Index" mean exactly?

The "Quality Index" is calculated from the Mean FPS and the TIME RMS values. The weighting of the values needs still fine-tuning, so currently this is provided as a BETA-TEST only. Please also keep in mind, that the quality of a game server is not only defined by the FPS. Especially the internet connection plays also a very big role, mainly affecting the ping (btw: the bandwidth does not play any role, unless smaller than 10 MBit/s or so). For Half-Life 1 based games (e.g. Counter-Strike 1.6) a good Quality Index does not mean the server is good, there are other things (which I do not know much of) that are very important for the quality.

Before you start shouting at your server provider for reaching a low Quality Index, check that your server settings are correct. Especially a low Mean FPS value can easily be caused by a bad configuration of the server (in particular, check fps_max and sys_ticrate). If you are running the servers on your one root server remember that only you are responsible for the quality! I am using the smallest root available at my provider but reach "very good" to "perfect" with four running servers on the root!

If you want to contribute to the improvement of this feature, test a few different servers (at least 3) and send me the graphs together with your own judgement of the server quality (ingame test required!).

What happend to the Top 10?

After a complete crash of our root server, all data was lost. I decided not to reopen the Top 10, as the past had shown that it will only be used for server providers to fight each other. That was not intended. In particular some providers prepared some test servers only to get into the ranking, but what solt was much worse.

Unfortunately it is still very easy to fake good results. Some of the used tricks cannot be detected on principle. So always trust independent measurements only!

How can I improve the quality of my server?

If you are running your Server on your own root-server with Linux, you can optimize e.g. with the following HOWTO:

http://wiki.fragaholics.de/index.php/EN:Linux_Kernel_Optimization

I have another question not listed here!

Please ask any questions in our forums, or in the QuakeNet on channel #fragaholics.de. In urgent cases (and only then) you can reach us via mail: support at fpsmeter dot org