Documentation / Benchmarking

Benchmarking

Measure your system's performance across CPU, GPU, memory, and disk with comprehensive benchmarking tools. Establish baselines and track improvements over time.

Benchmark Overview

Frameshift includes a comprehensive 4-test benchmark suite that measures the performance of your system's core components. Run benchmarks before and after optimizations to quantify performance improvements.

Benchmark interface showing all 4 tests with run buttons and progress indicators
The benchmark suite with CPU, GPU, memory, and disk tests

The 4 Benchmark Tests

Each benchmark test is designed to stress a specific system component and produce a quantifiable performance score.

CPU Benchmark

Multi-threaded computation test with heavy floating-point operations. Measures processor throughput and responsiveness.

Duration: ~30 seconds
Result: Operations per second

GPU Benchmark

Graphics rendering stress test with vertex and pixel shader intensive operations. Measures fill rate and graphics throughput.

Duration: ~30 seconds
Result: Pixels per second

Memory Benchmark

RAM allocation, deallocation, and access pattern stress test. Measures memory bandwidth and latency.

Duration: ~20 seconds
Result: Operations per second

Disk I/O Benchmark

Sequential and random read/write tests with 4KB chunks. Tests 50MB file across 3 iterations.

Duration: ~45 seconds
Result: MB/s for each operation type

Running Benchmarks

Follow these steps to run a complete benchmark suite on your system.

  1. Close Background Applications

    For accurate results, close all unnecessary applications. Leave only Frameshift running. Check the process monitor to ensure no heavy background tasks are active.

  2. Navigate to Benchmark Tab

    Open Frameshift and click the "Benchmark" tab in the main interface.

  3. Run All Tests

    Click "Run All Benchmarks" to execute all 4 tests sequentially. Tests run in order: CPU → GPU → Memory → Disk. Total duration is approximately 2-3 minutes.

  4. Review Results

    After completion, review your scores and overall system rating. Results are automatically saved for future comparison.

Individual Test Mode
You can also run individual tests by clicking the "Run" button next to each benchmark. This is useful for testing specific components after targeted optimizations.

Understanding Benchmark Scores

Benchmark scores are numerical representations of your system's performance in each category.

CPU Benchmark Scoring

Score Range Performance Level Typical Hardware
< 500,000 ops/s Entry-Level Dual-core, older i3/Ryzen 3
500,000 - 1,500,000 Mid-Range Quad-core, i5/Ryzen 5
1,500,000 - 3,000,000 High-End 6-8 core, i7/Ryzen 7
> 3,000,000 ops/s Enthusiast 8+ core, i9/Ryzen 9, Threadripper

GPU Benchmark Scoring

Score Range Performance Level Typical Hardware
< 1,000,000 px/s Entry-Level Integrated graphics, GT 1030
1,000,000 - 5,000,000 Mid-Range GTX 1660, RTX 3060, RX 6600
5,000,000 - 10,000,000 High-End RTX 3080, RX 6800 XT
> 10,000,000 px/s Enthusiast RTX 4090, RX 7900 XTX

Memory Benchmark Scoring

Score Range Performance Level Typical Hardware
< 100,000 ops/s Entry-Level DDR3, 8GB single-channel
100,000 - 300,000 Mid-Range DDR4 2666MHz, 16GB dual-channel
300,000 - 600,000 High-End DDR4 3200MHz+, 32GB dual-channel
> 600,000 ops/s Enthusiast DDR5 5600MHz+, high-capacity

Disk I/O Benchmark Results

Disk benchmarks provide four separate metrics rather than a single score:

Operation Type HDD Performance SATA SSD Performance NVMe SSD Performance
Sequential Read 80-160 MB/s 400-550 MB/s 2,000-7,000 MB/s
Sequential Write 80-160 MB/s 300-520 MB/s 1,500-5,000 MB/s
Random Read 0.5-2 MB/s 200-400 MB/s 500-2,000 MB/s
Random Write 0.5-2 MB/s 150-350 MB/s 400-1,500 MB/s
Learn More: Why Disk Random Performance Matters

Sequential vs random I/O performance tells you different things about your storage:

  • Sequential performance: Important for loading large files like game assets, videos, and transferring big files. HDDs perform reasonably well here.
  • Random performance: Critical for general OS responsiveness, application launches, and game loading times. HDDs perform terribly here due to mechanical seeking. This is why SSDs feel so much faster in real-world use.

If your random read/write speeds are under 50 MB/s, upgrading to an SSD will dramatically improve system responsiveness.

Overall System Score

Frameshift calculates an overall system score based on all benchmark results, providing a single number to compare system performance over time or after optimizations.

Score Calculation

The overall score is a weighted average of all component scores:

  • CPU: 30% weight
  • GPU: 35% weight
  • Memory: 20% weight
  • Disk: 15% weight (average of all 4 operations)

Overall Score Ranges

Score Range System Rating Description
0 - 2,500 Entry-Level Suitable for light gaming and productivity
2,500 - 5,000 Mid-Range Good for 1080p gaming and multitasking
5,000 - 8,000 High-End Excellent for 1440p/4K gaming and content creation
8,000+ Enthusiast Top-tier performance for any workload

Benchmark History & Comparison

All benchmark results are automatically saved to a database, allowing you to track performance changes over time.

Viewing Past Results

Access benchmark history from the benchmark tab:

  • View all past benchmark runs with timestamps
  • Compare scores before and after optimizations
  • Track performance degradation over time
  • Identify which components improved most from optimizations

Comparison Features

Side-by-Side Comparison

Select two benchmark runs to compare scores directly. See percentage improvements for each component.

Performance Graphs

Visualize score trends over time with line charts. Identify when hardware changes or optimizations occurred.

System Snapshots

Each benchmark includes a system snapshot with CPU model, GPU, RAM amount, and which optimizations were active.

Best Practices for Benchmarking

Follow these guidelines to ensure consistent and meaningful benchmark results.

Before Running Benchmarks

  • Close all applications: Exit browsers, Discord, streaming software, and other background apps
  • Disable overlays: Turn off overlays from other software (MSI Afterburner, Discord, etc.)
  • Let system idle: Wait 2-3 minutes after closing apps to let CPU/GPU temperatures stabilize
  • Plug in laptop: If on a laptop, ensure it's plugged in and set to high-performance mode
  • Consistent conditions: Run benchmarks in similar conditions (room temperature, system load) for fair comparison

When to Run Benchmarks

  • Initial baseline: Run once after installing Frameshift to establish baseline performance
  • After optimizations: Run immediately after applying optimizations to measure impact
  • After hardware changes: Run after upgrading CPU, GPU, RAM, or storage
  • Monthly check: Run monthly to detect performance degradation from dust, driver issues, or malware
  • After driver updates: Graphics driver updates can significantly impact GPU scores
Thermal Throttling Warning
If benchmark scores decrease significantly over time without hardware changes, thermal throttling may be the cause. Check CPU/GPU temperatures in the dashboard and consider cleaning dust from your system or reapplying thermal paste.

Measuring Optimization Impact

Use benchmarks to quantify how much Frameshift's optimizations improve your system performance.

Recommended Testing Procedure

  1. Run full benchmark suite before applying any optimizations (baseline)
  2. Apply all 6 optimization categories
  3. Restart your system
  4. Wait 5 minutes for system to settle after boot
  5. Run full benchmark suite after optimizations
  6. Compare results to see improvement percentages

Expected Improvements

After applying optimizations, you can typically expect:

  • CPU scores: 2-5% improvement from reduced background overhead and priority optimizations
  • GPU scores: 3-8% improvement from driver and preemption optimizations
  • Memory scores: 5-10% improvement from memory management and compression tuning
  • Disk scores: 3-7% improvement from filesystem and cache optimizations
Pro Tip
Benchmark improvements don't always correlate directly to gaming FPS increases. Real-world gaming performance improvements are often higher than benchmark scores suggest, especially for 1% and 0.1% low FPS.
Advanced: Benchmark Storage Location

Benchmark results are stored in a SQLite database:

  • Location: %APPDATA%\Frameshift\benchmark.db
  • Structure: Each benchmark run stores scores, timestamp, system info, and optimization status
  • Backup: Copy this file to backup your benchmark history
  • Export: Results can be exported as CSV for analysis in Excel or other tools
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