Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Sponsor: Hyte Y70 and Touch Infinite on their site geni.us/Ir9vKEK
Benchmarking has long had a problem of ensuring numbers relate back to the reality of what players feel when gaming. The issue mostly comes to explaining precisely why stutters and hitching are happening in games, not just that they exist. For the most part, "frametime" testing (or more accurately, frame-to-frame interval testing) has helped to tackle this. Tom Petersen, Scott Wasson, and Ryan Shrout furthered that discussion over a decade ago, and from that, the industry moved toward the eventual bar chart adaptation with 1% and 0.1% lows (with occasional frame interval plots to explore major problems). But under the surface, these game stutters have sometimes been misattributed to frametime pacing issues rather than the actual problem, which was animation error, aka simulation time error. Think of this video like a research / whitepaper piece that presents some experiments and possible representations for animation error in benchmarks. This explains 1% lows, 0.1% lows, average FPS, "frametimes," and animation error in-depth. We will begin adopting these new charts in our benchmarks.
WE NEED YOUR HELP TO PAY FOR METHODOLOGICAL RESEARCH. Visit our store and grab a Blind Eye T-Shirt, a PC-themed 3D coaster pack, a tabletop gaming dice kit, and more: store.gamersnexus.net
Or support us on Patreon: patreon.com/gamersnexus
Article version: gamersnexus.net/gpus-gn-extras-cpus/problem-gpu-benchmarks-reality-vs-numbers-animation-error-methodology-white
Watch the video that kicked it all off when animation error was just a concept: youtube.com/watch?v=C_RO8bJop8o
Watch our JayzTwoCents test overhaul video to learn more about 1% lows, 0.1% lows, and percentiles: youtube.com/watch?v=WcTxrzFqdyw
Watch our video about NVIDIA PhysX 32-bit support ending: youtube.com/watch?v=h4w_aObRzCc
Find PresentMon, the tool wrapped by basically every FPS measurement software, on Github: github.com/GameTechDev/PresentMon
Or on the Intel site: game.intel.com/us/intel-presentmon
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - The Problem with GPU Benchmarks
03:06 - Disclaimers and Goals
04:42 - Crediting Frametime Testing Pioneers
05:08 - Defining Animation Error
08:29 - Benchmark Examples ft. GTX 1080 Ti
11:54 - NEW CHARTS: Animation Error vs Time in Far Cry
13:24 - NEW CHARTS: Animation Error in Strange Brigade
14:42 - SMALLER BAR BETTER, Pt 1
17:03 - SMALLER BAR BETTER, Pt 2
17:24 - The Confusing Part, Fast
18:11 - SMALLER BAR BETTER, Pt 3
18:44 - Real-World Use Cases
19:46 - Frame Generation Problems and NVIDIA
20:44 - NEW CHARTS: Major Animation Error in Dragon's Dogma 2
21:29 - NEW CHARTS: Borderlands 2 Error-to-Frametime Ratio
22:36 - Where Animation Error is Better
25:18 - VISUAL EXAMPLES of Animation Error
31:43 - EXAMPLES in Real-World Uses
34:17 - ADVANCED: Performance Monitoring Flags and Metrics
42:30 - Conclusion
48:39 - BONUS PEPE SILVIA
CORRECTIONS:
30:42 - The clip shown at this timestamp was misplaced. This has been corrected in the article to match this section. The article is linked in the video description.
** Please like, comment, and subscribe for more! **
Links to Amazon and Newegg are typically monetized on our channel (affiliate links) and may return a commission of sales to us from the retailer. This is unrelated to the product manufacturer. Any advertisements or sponsorships are disclosed within the video ("this video is brought to you by") and above the fold in the description. We do not ever produce paid content or "sponsored content" (meaning that the content is our idea and is not funded externally aside from whatever ad placement is in the beginning) and we do not ever charge manufacturers for coverage.
Follow us in these locations for more gaming and hardware updates:
t: twitter.com/gamersnexus
f: facebook.com/gamersnexus
w: gamersnexus.net
Our policies, processes, and ethics statements relating to review samples, advertising, travel, errors, and more are transparently and publicly available on this page: https://gamers.nexus/ethics-statements
Steve Burke: Host, Editing, Test Lead, Writing
Patrick Lathan: Writing, Research, Testing
Vitalii Makhnovets: Editing, Camera
Tim Phetdara: Editing
Andrew Coleman: 3D Animation, Editing
Sponsor: Hyte Y70 and Touch Infinite on their site geni.us/Ir9vKEK
Benchmarking has long had a problem of ensuring numbers relate back to the reality of what players feel when gaming. The issue mostly comes to explaining precisely why stutters and hitching are happening in games, not just that they exist. For the most part, "frametime" testing (or more accurately, frame-to-frame interval testing) has helped to tackle this. Tom Petersen, Scott Wasson, and Ryan Shrout furthered that discussion over a decade ago, and from that, the industry moved toward the eventual bar chart adaptation with 1% and 0.1% lows (with occasional frame interval plots to explore major problems). But under the surface, these game stutters have sometimes been misattributed to frametime pacing issues rather than the actual problem, which was animation error, aka simulation time error. Think of this video like a research / whitepaper piece that presents some experiments and possible representations for animation error in benchmarks. This explains 1% lows, 0.1% lows, average FPS, "frametimes," and animation error in-depth. We will begin adopting these new charts in our benchmarks.
WE NEED YOUR HELP TO PAY FOR METHODOLOGICAL RESEARCH. Visit our store and grab a Blind Eye T-Shirt, a PC-themed 3D coaster pack, a tabletop gaming dice kit, and more: store.gamersnexus.net
Or support us on Patreon: patreon.com/gamersnexus
Article version: gamersnexus.net/gpus-gn-extras-cpus/problem-gpu-benchmarks-reality-vs-numbers-animation-error-methodology-white
Watch the video that kicked it all off when animation error was just a concept: youtube.com/watch?v=C_RO8bJop8o
Watch our JayzTwoCents test overhaul video to learn more about 1% lows, 0.1% lows, and percentiles: youtube.com/watch?v=WcTxrzFqdyw
Watch our video about NVIDIA PhysX 32-bit support ending: youtube.com/watch?v=h4w_aObRzCc
Find PresentMon, the tool wrapped by basically every FPS measurement software, on Github: github.com/GameTechDev/PresentMon
Or on the Intel site: game.intel.com/us/intel-presentmon
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - The Problem with GPU Benchmarks
03:06 - Disclaimers and Goals
04:42 - Crediting Frametime Testing Pioneers
05:08 - Defining Animation Error
08:29 - Benchmark Examples ft. GTX 1080 Ti
11:54 - NEW CHARTS: Animation Error vs Time in Far Cry
13:24 - NEW CHARTS: Animation Error in Strange Brigade
14:42 - SMALLER BAR BETTER, Pt 1
17:03 - SMALLER BAR BETTER, Pt 2
17:24 - The Confusing Part, Fast
18:11 - SMALLER BAR BETTER, Pt 3
18:44 - Real-World Use Cases
19:46 - Frame Generation Problems and NVIDIA
20:44 - NEW CHARTS: Major Animation Error in Dragon's Dogma 2
21:29 - NEW CHARTS: Borderlands 2 Error-to-Frametime Ratio
22:36 - Where Animation Error is Better
25:18 - VISUAL EXAMPLES of Animation Error
31:43 - EXAMPLES in Real-World Uses
34:17 - ADVANCED: Performance Monitoring Flags and Metrics
42:30 - Conclusion
48:39 - BONUS PEPE SILVIA
CORRECTIONS:
30:42 - The clip shown at this timestamp was misplaced. This has been corrected in the article to match this section. The article is linked in the video description.
** Please like, comment, and subscribe for more! **
Links to Amazon and Newegg are typically monetized on our channel (affiliate links) and may return a commission of sales to us from the retailer. This is unrelated to the product manufacturer. Any advertisements or sponsorships are disclosed within the video ("this video is brought to you by") and above the fold in the description. We do not ever produce paid content or "sponsored content" (meaning that the content is our idea and is not funded externally aside from whatever ad placement is in the beginning) and we do not ever charge manufacturers for coverage.
Follow us in these locations for more gaming and hardware updates:
t: twitter.com/gamersnexus
f: facebook.com/gamersnexus
w: gamersnexus.net
Our policies, processes, and ethics statements relating to review samples, advertising, travel, errors, and more are transparently and publicly available on this page: https://gamers.nexus/ethics-statements
Steve Burke: Host, Editing, Test Lead, Writing
Patrick Lathan: Writing, Research, Testing
Vitalii Makhnovets: Editing, Camera
Tim Phetdara: Editing
Andrew Coleman: 3D Animation, Editing
