I measured that I am getting 50-55 FPS in my game. I am measuring the FPS by looking over the last 200 frames, computing it using clock() and time(), both give the same answer. I thought this was a bit low because I'm not doing too much...rendering some text, a few thousand points, mesh, fog, thats basically it. Well, I did some profiling...and it turns out that I get the exact same FPS when I remove EVERYTHING from my render loop leaving just: dxDevice->Clear(0, NULL, D3DCLEAR_TARGET | D3DCLEAR_ZBUFFER, D3DCOLOR_XRGB(154,168,214), 1.0f, 0); dxDevice->BeginScene(); //nothing dxDevice->EndScene(); dxDevice->Present(NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL); Literally, theres nothing else in the timing loop. Yes, I am running in Release mode, and every single speed optimization that Visual studio can do is turned on. If I comment out dxDevice->Present, then it jumps up to like 600 FPS, and then if I turn off the others it goes up to practically infinity (as expected). What I dont understand is...why is this the bottleneck? And rendering a large mesh with 1024 tex + text overlays + dynamic generation of point sprites...none of these things even make a noticeable increase in the FPS. So it seems that 50 is the BEST possible fps I can achieve under any circumstances then....yet I have seen higher FPS reported to me in games and demos that other people have compiled! Im using: Geforce 6600GT 128MB 3 GB ram Athlon 3800+ 2.01 GHz dual core proc

You probably have v-sync enabled (meaning that your frame rate is limited to your monitor's refresh rate) - you'll want to check what your presentation interval is set at under your D3D device settings. To force v-sync off you'll want to set the presentation interval to 'immediate' - search your DX SDK docs for presentation interval and everything should be there :)

Yes!!! Thank you!

Hey, have you got your presentation parameters set to vsync by any chance?

i.e. (in MDX for example)

D3DPresentParameters.PresentationInterval = PresentInterval.Default; //this will vsync it to your monitor refresh rate (around 60Hz).

D3DPresentParameters.PresentationInterval = PresentInterval.Immediate; //this will throw frames out as fast as it can (eg much > 60Hz).

[edit]: snap boersch :) i was way to slow on that one

Naku,

When I set PresentationInterval = D3DPRESENT_INTERVAL_IMMEDIATE; as suggested, my framerate jumps up to around 215. I suppose there is no way to know for sure if the screen is really refreshing that fast...but there is a very noticeable improvement. My monitor refreshes at 75 Hz anyway, not 50 Hz!

JollyJeffers,

Interesting...I have the nVIDIA display desktop manager thing in my system tray, but I was unable to find the setting you are talking about.

Naku,

When I set PresentationInterval = D3DPRESENT_INTERVAL_IMMEDIATE; as suggested, my framerate jumps up to around 215. I suppose there is no way to know for sure if the screen is really refreshing that fast...but there is a very noticeable improvement. My monitor refreshes at 75 Hz anyway, not 50 Hz!

JollyJeffers,

Interesting...I have the nVIDIA display desktop manager thing in my system tray, but I was unable to find the setting you are talking about.

Naku,

When I set PresentationInterval = D3DPRESENT_INTERVAL_IMMEDIATE; as suggested, my framerate jumps up to around 215. I suppose there is no way to know for sure if the screen is really refreshing that fast...but there is a very noticeable improvement. My monitor refreshes at 75 Hz anyway, not 50 Hz!

JollyJeffers,

Interesting...I have the nVIDIA display desktop manager thing in my system tray, but I was unable to find the setting you are talking about.

I was calculating my fps similar to that until I thought of a much better way:

(not exact code off the top of my head)
static int fps = 0;
SetTimer(0, 1000);

gameloop()
{
fps++;
if (WM_TIMER == msg.message)
{
DisplayFPS();
fps = 0;
}

}