If a computer is powerful enough, how does it know not to play videos or perform logic for games at a faster speed?

Question

I don’t know if I’m explaining this right…
A computer can run logic at some speed based on how powerful the components of it are, so if it can perform the logic of something, for example, movement in a game, how does it know how much should be done based on its power, instead of essentially running in “fast-forward” or conversely in slow motion?

In: 1307

Answer 1

It can go in slow motion, that is why we see frame drops, because something takes longer than anticipated maybe a memory access, maybe a draw call, maybe a floating point calculation.

It doesn’t speed up because software caps it. The software forces only e.g 200 updates per second, CPU cannot do 300. Some CPUs cannot handle 200 updates per second so they will do just 40 or 60 update per second.

My 5900x e.g can do more than 500 updates per second on CS2 which then are pushed to a Graphics card i.e a 6700XT which can do these 500 updates per second. If I would have used a gold RX670 I have, it would not be able to do 500 updates per second and in turn I will see frame drops.

If I replace my 5900x with my 20 year old CPU, my will not get more than 40 fps as CPU cannot push frames fast enough and effectively runs everything in slow motion.