Frame rate explorer
Two monitors, one movement. Choose a frame rate for each and watch how smoothness, the size of the jumps between frames and the strobing of the wheel change.
Frame rate comparison
Measuring your display’s refresh rate…
How to use the tool
- Choose a frame rate for monitor A and monitor B. Both show exactly the same moment of the scene.
- If your display can’t keep up (typically 60 Hz), switch on ¼× or 1/10× slow motion — frame timing is preserved exactly, just slower.
- ‘Show positions of recent frames’ draws outlines where the object was in the previous frames: the distance between them is the jump the eye has to bridge.
- The ‘Step’ button moves scene time on by 1/120 s — you can see which rate has already recorded a new frame and which hasn’t yet.
Every control also works from the keyboard: Tab moves between groups, the arrow keys change the choice within a group. If reduced motion is switched on in your system, animations don’t start by themselves.
What it tells you
What the simulation shows honestly
Each monitor shows the frame a camera would have recorded at that instant (sample and hold). Motion blur is deliberately not simulated — it depends on the shutter, not on the frame rate; see the Shutter angle tool.
The limit of your display
A screen refreshes, for example, 60 times a second. You will not see rates above that in real time — some frames are never displayed. The tool estimates your refresh rate and tells you when to slow down.
The wagon-wheel effect
A wheel with 8 spokes turns 2.9 times per second. At a low frame rate it turns through almost the full angle between spokes from one frame to the next, so it can appear to stand still or turn slowly backwards — the same effect you see on car wheels in films.
| fps | frame duration | frames in 10 s |
|---|---|---|
| 24 | 41.67 ms | 240 |
| 25 | 40 ms | 250 |
| 30 | 33.33 ms | 300 |
| 50 | 20 ms | 500 |
| 60 | 16.67 ms | 600 |
| 120 | 8.33 ms | 1,200 |
More in the articles
Sources
Last checked: . The tool runs entirely in your browser and sends nothing anywhere.