A word about "FPS"

What are we looking for in gaming performance wise? First off, obviously we tend to think that all games should be played at the best image quality (IQ) possible. There's a dilemma though, IQ often interferes with the performance of a graphics card. We measure this in FPS, the number of frames a graphics card can render per second, the higher it is the more fluently your game will display itself.

A game's frames per second (FPS) is a measured average of a series of tests. That test often is a time demo, a recorded part of the game which is a 1:1 representation of the actual game and its gameplay experience. After forcing the same image quality settings; this time-demo is then used for all graphics cards so that the actual measuring is as objective as can be.

Frames per second
Gameplay

<30 FPS
very limited gameplay

30-40 FPS
average yet very playable

40-60 FPS
good gameplay

>60 FPS
best possible gameplay


So if a graphics card barely manages less than 30 FPS, then the game is not very playable, we want to avoid that at all cost.
With 30 FPS up-to roughly 40 FPS you'll be very able to play the game with perhaps a tiny stutter at certain graphically intensive parts. Overall a very enjoyable experience. Match the best possible resolution to this result and you'll have the best possible rendering quality versus resolution, hey you want both of them to be as high as possible.
When a graphics card is doing 60 FPS on average or higher then you can rest assured that the game will likely play extremely smoothly at every point in the game, turn on every possible in-game IQ setting.
Over 100 FPS? You have either a MONSTER of graphics card or a very old game.

The higher the resolution of your screen the more powerfull your GPU needs to be . From 1280X1024 , 1600X1200 , 1920X1200 , 2560X1600 the higher you go the lower your frame rates will be . So if you feel you kinda slugish play the game at a lower resolution and voila !!! Better frame rates ! Or upgrade your GPU !