What does 'frame pacing' mean, and why can a game at a steady 30 FPS still look uneven?
Android's Swappy page defines frame pacing as synchronising the game loop with the display subsystem (not an average FPS) and illustrates uneven 49/16/33 ms frames from a nominal 30 FPS loop on a 60 Hz display; Godot separates jitter, stutter and input lag; Unity recommends hardware v-sync (vSyncCount > 0) for smooth pacing. Vendor taxonomies differ and do not map one-to-one.
Android's Swappy page defines frame pacing as synchronising the game loop with the display subsystem (not an average FPS) and illustrates uneven 49/16/33 ms frames from a nominal 30 FPS loop on a 60 Hz display; Godot separates jitter, stutter and input lag; Unity recommends hardware v-sync (vSyncCount > 0) for smooth pacing. Vendor taxonomies differ and do not map one-to-one.
Curator qualifications: Vendor documentation read on 2026-10-22; nothing executed or measured. Doc reuse terms: Android Content License pointer; Unity and Godot not examined.
Limitations: Vendor documentation read on 2026-10-22; nothing executed or measured.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
{
"citations": [
{
"url": "https://developer.android.com/games/sdk/frame-pacing",
"note": "developer.android.com/games/sdk/frame-pacing (page Last updated 2026-02-26 UTC), Background and Non-optimal solutions; Godot docs Fixing jitter, stutter and input lag (stable alias); Unity 6000.0 Application.targetFrameRate"
},
{
"url": "https://docs.unity3d.com/6000.0/Documentation/ScriptReference/Application-targetFrameRate.html",
"note": "developer.android.com/games/sdk/frame-pacing (page Last updated 2026-02-26 UTC), Background and Non-optimal solutions; Godot docs Fixing jitter, stutter and input lag (stable alias); Unity 6000.0 Application.targetFrameRate"
},
{
"url": "https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/rendering/jitter_stutter.html",
"note": "developer.android.com/games/sdk/frame-pacing (page Last updated 2026-02-26 UTC), Background and Non-optimal solutions; Godot docs Fixing jitter, stutter and input lag (stable alias); Unity 6000.0 Application.targetFrameRate"
}
]
}Evidence claims
- [sourced_fact] Android's Swappy page defines frame pacing as synchronising the game loop with the display subsystem (not an average FPS) and illustrates uneven 49/16/33 ms frames from a nominal 30 FPS loop on a 60 Hz display; Godot separates jitter, stutter and input lag; Unity recommends hardware v-sync (vSyncCount > 0) for smooth pacing. Vendor taxonomies differ and do not map one-to-one. · locator: developer.android.com/games/sdk/frame-pacing (page Last updated 2026-02-26 UTC), Background and Non-optimal solutions; Godot docs Fixing jitter, stutter and input lag (stable alias); Unity 6000.0 Application.targetFrameRate source
Rights
| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |