Can someone explain the the target FPS to me, and why?

[Braidster]

Hey y'all I'll make this short and sweet...I'm jumping back into PC gaming after being gone for at least 6-7 years. Back in the day playing Q3 and Enemy Territory the goal was to max your fps at 125 for optimum strafe jumping etc. Now i'm seeing more of the reference towards 60 as the goal. With the higher end cards does the 125 not meaningful anymore?

I've been having a rough time deciding on a video card for this system for months. I started off planning on a gtx770 which led to a 780. Now with the new AMD releases it's between 2 280x's, 780, 290, 290x. I also have 2 120hz monitors if that means anything.

Thanks for your help....I think this will help me make my decision a little easier.

 

[BrightCandle]

The Quake engine had bugs in and around its frame rate that changed the way the game behaved depending on the frame rate making certain jumps only possible at particular frame rates. I haven't heard this be the case in any modern engines and games, it was by and large a particular aspect of those games.

Most people are still happy with 60 hz screens and hence 60 fps, but seeing as how you have 120Hz screens you'll presumably want to be running as high a frame rate as possible, which you might find is tricky on a single card depending on the graphics settings you intend to use.

 

[Braidster]

I will be playing at 1080p as that's also the max res with as high quality as possible. This is why I'm kinda leaning towards a single higher end card to leave me a little more open to future expand-ability.