Frame synced

Software theme

Game speed and background logic is synced with drawn frames, meaning the actual game slows down or speeds up depending how fast it gets rendered and not just getting choppier or more fluid graphics. Top speed may be limited (via VSync or FPS cap).

27
games
11
platforms

Alternate name: Frame synced logic

NOTE: Tagging non-multiplayer games with this is not very interesting, though can be done because of the slowdown/speedup effect.

For single player games this has little meaning most of the time, but for multiplayer games this means the framerate drops for all players if even one player's machine can't keep up with the graphics or the background AI calculations.

Normally games would graphic-wise run fast for everyone but only the background logic would slow down, with frame synced the framerate drops with the background logic slowdown (not that rendering the slowed logic as fast as before has any real benefits). However, this also creates unnecessary slowdown for other people if the rendering itself is too slow for one person and not the background logic (that one person whose rendering is slow could skip frames instead of forcing rendering them).

It's a very rigid and simplistic way to do things not exactly suitable for multiplayer, usually limited to single threaded games that calculate logic, input, game events and whatever else, and then draws a frame, waits few moments if there's time (to keep a steady framerate), and repeats the process, skipping nothing. The only change is the duration of that wait period.

Limitations:
* NOT for games where the background logic skips "frames" when framerate drops (e.g. games using quake engine). The only thing shared with these two is that the background logic is heavily tied into the graphics logic.
* NOT for games that v-sync. This is syncing with logic, not display refresh rate.

Popular tags

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Parent group

Software handicap

Child group

Unbound speed

Games by year

8284868890929496980002040608101214 41230

The first Frame synced video game was released in 1982.

The Learning Company, Electronic Arts and Bethesda Softworks published most of these games.

Platforms

Windows 11
Apple II E 3
Tandy Coco 3
Linux 2
MS-DOS 2
Mac OS X 1
X360 1
Xbox One 1
PS4 1
C64 1
Mac OS Classic 1