Riot, Please Implement Worst Frame Time (Frame Latency)
As the game is becoming more and more competitive, and I am still tired of seeing 150+ FPS, but things are still not fluid (the game constantly stutters for less than half/quarter-seconds). I have decided to re-post my original request from the previous forums ( http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4367777 ) as I feel the topic did not receive as much feedback or attention that I felt was appropriate.
A couple of extra ideas to chew on for if you are concerned about ping being confused with frame time (or confusion in general), you could simply drop the "ms" from the frame time, or perhaps show us it in microseconds (16667μs)? Maybe have an option to toggle between FPS/FPS+Worst Frame Time/Worst Frame Time Only?
If you're unfamiliar with what I'm requesting; take a read of the original topic as some people have mistaken what I was asking for, and I replied to them in kind. Perhaps a little Googling ( https://www.google.com?q=frame+latency )?
I've always found "frames per second" quite the little liar (it's actually not, it just doesn't tell the whole truth, which is a lie in my opinion). Due to this simple fact, I am calling upon Riot to implement "worst frame time (over the last second)" to be shown next to the "frames per second" so I can always have a better indication of how my game is running.
For all of you who do not know what frame times are, it's the amount of time that it takes for one frame to be rendered. By displaying the worst frame time you had in the last second, you can be sure when you see 60 FPS with an appropriate worst frame time (in the last second) of less than 16.67ms you are most definitely getting a smooth 60 FPS with each frame being generated like clockwork at the exact moment it needs to be ready to be displayed on the screen. In essence, frame times show you the bigger picture when you would otherwise be sitting there scratching your head wondering, "is this real life," when you see 60 FPS but it clearly looks like one-over-some-huge-denomination of that.
The main benefit of implementing a worst frame time meter is when the game says it's getting 60 FPS, but you have a worst frame time of 18.18ms, you could accurately assume that at some point during the last second, the game was not actually able to render a frame to fill the requested slot in time, and thus skipped a few frames (if your monitor is 60 Hz, those extra frames rendered to get to 60 FPS would have been discarded entirely, thus showing you about 55 frames for that second). We could even take this all the way to insanity and say your game is showing you 60 FPS, but you have a worst frame time of 500ms! This means that the game is taking a half of a second to render an entire frame! But for the next 500ms it is able to produce a frame every 8.33ms, which means that the game would be frozen for half of the second and almost everyone would most definitely notice it (some would even say it's running at 2 FPS)! But even though the counter says 60 FPS, the worst frame time meter would show you the bigger picture and you know your mind wouldn't be playing tricks on you. As a convenience the game could do some quick math and highlight the number in red when it's too high for the frames per second you're getting, white when it's on-par, and green for when it's better than required.
The other benefits are you know how fast you're able to run the game even when your framerate is locked down to 60 FPS. As the worst frame time could easily be much lower than 16.67ms, the game simply sleeps (does nothing) for the difference, e.g. if you have a locked framerate of 60 FPS, but your frametime is 6ms, then the game is actually doing nothing at all while it waits for 10.67ms: thus, even if someone is getting 80 FPS while you have opted for 60 FPS, you know for a fact your game is running faster when they indicate their frame time is 12.5ms. Besides the measuring contest benefits I have brought up here, it could also warn you of impending doom while allowing you to run with a locked framerate, e.g. the frame times are higher this patch, my game is most definitely running slower.
Thus, Riot please, please implement something that shows me my "worst frame time" on the in-game interface. In my opinion, as one of the most popular games, you would be doing a service for all of the lesser educated gaming population, as at some point they may ask the question of, "what does the (16.67ms) stand for?" My personal solution would be to show it right next to the FPS e.g. "60 FPS (16.67ms)".