FPS
A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre centered on weapon-based combat, typically involving firearms and other projectiles, experienced from the perspective of the in-game character without seeing the avatar's body.[1][2] The core gameplay revolves around aiming precision, movement through environments, and direct confrontation with enemies, fostering immersion through subjective viewpoint rendering.[1][3] Emerging from experimental titles like Maze War in 1973, recognized as the first FPS for its networked multiplayer shooting in a labyrinth, the genre exploded in popularity with id Software's Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 and Doom in 1993, which introduced fast-paced 3D graphics, level design, and modding communities that expanded player engagement.[4][5] These innovations shifted gaming toward action-oriented experiences, spawning subgenres like tactical shooters and arena modes, while multiplayer variants laid groundwork for esports dominance by titles such as Counter-Strike and Call of Duty series.[5][6] FPS games have driven hardware advancements in rendering and networking, yet provoked debates on simulated violence, with empirical reviews of longitudinal studies finding no substantiated causal ties to increased aggression or criminality in players.[7]Gaming and entertainment
First-person shooter genre
The first-person shooter (FPS) genre consists of video games in which players control a character from a first-person perspective, focusing on combat with projectile weapons like firearms against enemies in three-dimensional environments. Core gameplay mechanics emphasize aiming, shooting, and movement, often including resource management for ammunition, health, and armor pickups, as well as objective-based levels or maps designed to facilitate direct confrontations.[8] Early precursors emerged in the 1970s with Maze War, developed by Steve Colley, Greg Thompson, and Howard Palmer in 1973, which featured networked multiplayer combat in a maze from a first-person view, establishing foundational elements like avatar-based shooting against opponents.[4] The genre's modern form crystallized in the early 1990s through id Software's titles: Wolfenstein 3D (May 5, 1992) introduced pseudo-3D raycasting for corridor-based enemy elimination, while Doom (December 10, 1993) advanced this with faster pacing, textured environments, and modular level design via the Doom engine, selling over 10 million copies in its initial shareware and commercial releases combined.[6][5] Evolution in the late 1990s shifted toward multiplayer dominance with Quake (June 22, 1996), which pioneered true 3D polygonal graphics and online deathmatch modes, influencing competitive esports. The 2000s diversified into tactical variants like Counter-Strike (June 19, 1999, as a Half-Life mod), emphasizing bomb defusal and team coordination, which peaked at over 1.8 million concurrent players in its successor Counter-Strike 2 by 2024. Military-themed entries, such as Call of Duty (October 29, 2003), integrated cinematic campaigns with realistic ballistics and squad mechanics, amassing franchise sales exceeding 425 million units by 2022 and generating over $30 billion in revenue.[5][9][10] Contemporary FPS titles blend subgenres, incorporating battle royale survival in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (December 20, 2017), which drew 3.2 million peak players, and hero-shooter elements in Overwatch (May 24, 2016), featuring ability-based classes. Technical advancements, including high frame rates above 60 FPS for responsive aiming and procedural generation for replayability, underpin competitive viability, as lower rates demonstrably impair player performance in precision shooting tasks.[11][12] Despite proliferation, core causal dynamics remain tied to spatial awareness and reaction times, with skilled players outperforming via predictive targeting over mere reflexes.[13]Cultural impact and controversies
The first-person shooter (FPS) genre, originating with titles like Doom (released November 10, 1993) and Quake (released June 22, 1996), profoundly shaped modern gaming culture by pioneering multiplayer competition, modding communities, and technological innovations in 3D graphics and networking.[14] These games fostered emergent subcultures such as speedrunning—where players optimize completion times, as seen in Quake's annual QuakeCon events drawing thousands since 1996—and user-generated modifications that influenced later open-world designs. FPS titles also drove the rise of esports, with games like Counter-Strike (1999) and its successors establishing professional circuits; by 2023, Counter-Strike 2 majors featured prize pools exceeding $1.25 million per event, attracting global audiences of over 1 million viewers.[15][16] Beyond gaming, FPS mechanics permeated military simulations and virtual training, exemplified by the U.S. Army's America's Army (2002), which recruited over 13 million players by emphasizing tactical realism and team coordination to model real-world combat scenarios.[17] The genre's emphasis on immersive agency and rapid decision-making has been credited with building community solidarity among players, countering isolation narratives by enabling cross-cultural collaboration in online lobbies.[18] However, its power fantasy tropes have drawn academic scrutiny for reinforcing Western gun-centric narratives, potentially mirroring cultural attitudes toward firearms rather than originating them.[19] Controversies surrounding FPS games center on unsubstantiated claims of inciting real-world violence, particularly after events like the 1999 Columbine shooting, where media speculated links to Doom without empirical support.[20] Proponents of a causal connection, including some American Psychological Association (APA) reports, cite laboratory experiments showing short-term increases in aggressive affect—such as heightened hostility scores post-play—but these effects are small, transient, and not predictive of criminal violence.[21][22] In contrast, comprehensive reviews refute causation: a 2019 Oxford University study of over 1,000 U.K. adolescents found no association between violent game exposure and aggressive behavior, while a 2023 Stanford analysis of reputable studies concluded no evidence links gaming to gun violence, attributing such persistence to political scapegoating amid declining youth crime rates uncorrelated with game sales.[23][24] Empirical consensus, drawn from longitudinal and meta-analytic data, indicates FPS play may serve as an aggression outlet without escalating real-life harm; for instance, a 2022 study on online shooters reported zero cross-lagged effects between playtime and aggressive affect over months.[25] Critics' overreliance on correlational data ignores confounders like pre-existing traits, and mainstream media amplification—often from ideologically aligned outlets—has perpetuated moral panics despite FBI and criminological findings showing no game-violence nexus in mass shooter profiles.[26] Legal challenges, such as attorney Jack Thompson's 2000s campaigns against titles like Grand Theft Auto (extending to FPS hybrids), failed in courts, with U.S. Supreme Court rulings in 2011 affirming games' First Amendment protections absent proven harm.[20] These debates highlight source credibility issues, as advocacy-driven research from biased institutions contrasts with rigorous, null-result studies from independent academics.Computing and digital media
Frames per second
Frames per second (FPS), also known as frame rate, measures the frequency at which consecutive still images, or frames, are captured, displayed, or rendered in sequence to create the illusion of motion in video, animation, and real-time graphics.[27] This metric is fundamental in computing and digital media, where it determines the smoothness of visual output; for instance, in video playback, a sequence of 24 frames displayed every second produces standard cinematic motion, while higher rates like 60 FPS enhance fluidity in interactive applications.[28] In real-time rendering, such as computer-generated imagery or gaming, FPS reflects the computational performance of hardware like GPUs, as each frame must be calculated and output within the allotted time interval.[29] Historically, frame rates evolved from early film experiments in the late 19th century, where hand-cranked cameras produced variable speeds of 14 to 26 FPS, often resulting in jerky motion due to inconsistent cranking.[30] The introduction of synchronized sound in the 1920s necessitated standardization, leading to 24 FPS as the film industry norm by the 1930s, balancing perceptual smoothness with film stock efficiency.[31] Television standards diverged based on electrical grid frequencies: 50 FPS interlaced in PAL regions (Europe, much of Asia) and 60 FPS in NTSC (North America, Japan), later adjusted to 29.97 FPS for NTSC to avoid interference with color subcarriers.[32] Digital media inherited these, but computing applications pushed beyond, with video games targeting 60 FPS as a baseline for console hardware like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, released in November 2020, which support up to 120 FPS in select titles.[33] In gaming and interactive digital media, higher FPS—such as 120 or 144—correlates with reduced motion blur, lower input latency, and decreased screen tearing when synchronized with display refresh rates via technologies like NVIDIA G-Sync or AMD FreeSync.[34] This provides competitive advantages in esports, where sub-60 FPS drops can impair reaction times; for example, professional titles like Counter-Strike 2 prioritize frame rates exceeding 240 FPS on high-end PCs to minimize system latency below 10 milliseconds.[34] Rendering high FPS demands proportional increases in processing power; a GPU rendering at 144 FPS must perform 144 full scene calculations per second, versus 60 for standard video, often trading graphical fidelity for performance in resource-constrained environments.[35] Human visual perception of FPS stems from the persistence of vision and flicker fusion threshold, where rates below 10-12 FPS appear as discrete images, but 24-30 FPS suffices for basic motion illusion in passive viewing, as in cinema.[36] Empirical tests show benefits to higher rates in dynamic scenarios: at 60 FPS, subjective motion clarity improves over 30 FPS, with diminishing but measurable gains up to 300 FPS in peripheral vision or rapid tracking tasks, contradicting claims of a strict 60 FPS limit.[36] In vection studies—simulating self-motion—peak immersive effects occur around 60 FPS, with reduced efficacy at extremes, underscoring FPS's role in causal realism for rendered environments rather than mimicking biological vision exactly.[37]Physical sciences and engineering
Feet per second
The foot per second (symbol: ft/s or fps) is a unit of both speed (scalar quantity) and velocity (vector quantity including direction) in the US customary and imperial systems of measurement.[38][39] It quantifies the distance of one foot traveled or displaced per second of time.[40] As part of the foot-pound-second (FPS) system predominant in US physics and engineering applications, it pairs with units like the foot for length and second for time to describe motion under gravitational or applied forces.[41] One foot per second equals exactly 0.3048 meters per second, derived from the international foot definition of precisely 0.3048 meters established in 1959 by international agreement among Anglophone nations.[42] It also converts to approximately 0.681818 miles per hour or 1.09728 kilometers per hour, facilitating comparisons with metric or automotive standards.[40] In practical computations, such as those involving projectile motion, engineers often multiply by 0.3048 for SI compatibility without loss of precision due to the exact foot-metre ratio.[43] In ballistics, fps measures muzzle velocity—the initial speed of a projectile exiting a firearm barrel—with typical handgun rounds achieving 800–1,400 ft/s and high-powered rifles exceeding 3,000 ft/s, up to 4,600 ft/s in specialized calibers.[44][45] Penetration thresholds include 163 ft/s for skin and 213 ft/s for bone, underscoring fps's role in forensic and terminal ballistics analysis.[46] Aviation and mechanical engineering employ it for airspeeds, fluid flows, and machine velocities, such as approximating the speed of sound in dry air at sea level (around 1,116 ft/s at 20°C).[47] These applications persist in US-centric industries despite metric advocacy, as FPS aligns with legacy infrastructure and empirical data from testing.[41]Foot-pound-second system
The foot-pound-second (FPS) system constitutes a traditional framework of measurement units primarily utilized in mechanical engineering and physics within the United States and, to a lesser extent, other countries employing imperial or customary systems. It designates the foot as the base unit of length, the avoirdupois pound as the base unit of mass, and the second as the base unit of time.[48] This system emerged from the historical English units of measurement, which trace origins to medieval standards but underwent formalization during the 19th century amid industrialization in Britain and its colonies, including the United States post-independence.[49][50] Two principal variants exist within the FPS framework, reflecting differing treatments of mass and force. The absolute FPS system treats the pound strictly as a unit of mass (approximately 0.45359237 kilograms), deriving force coherently as the poundal, defined as the force imparting an acceleration of one foot per second squared to one pound of mass (equivalent to 0.138255 newtons). In contrast, the gravitational or engineering FPS system—prevalent in American practice—defines the pound-force as the gravitational force on one pound of mass at standard Earth gravity (32.17405 feet per second squared), necessitating a proportionality constant g_c = 32.17405 pound-mass feet per pound-force second squared in Newton's second law to maintain dimensional consistency: F = \frac{m a}{g_c}.[51][52] The pound-force equates to approximately 4.44822 newtons.[53] Derived units in the FPS system include the foot-pound for energy or work (1 foot-pound-force = 1.355818 joules), the foot-pound per second for power (equivalent to the mechanical horsepower of approximately 550 foot-pounds per second or 745.7 watts), and the slug for mass in gravitational contexts (1 slug = 32.17405 pounds-mass).[53] Unlike the coherent International System of Units (SI), where the newton derives directly from base units without additional constants, the FPS system's non-coherence in its engineering form complicates calculations, particularly in dynamics and thermodynamics, though it aligns intuitively with everyday weights and human-scale dimensions in imperial contexts.[54] The foot measures exactly 0.3048 meters, ensuring precise traceability to SI for conversions.[52]| Quantity | FPS Unit | Symbol | SI Equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Length | Foot | ft | 0.3048 m |
| Mass | Pound-mass | lb_m | 0.45359237 kg |
| Time | Second | s | 1 s |
| Force (absolute) | Poundal | pdl | 0.138255 N |
| Force (gravitational) | Pound-force | lbf | 4.44822 N |
| Energy/Work | Foot-pound-force | ft·lbf | 1.355818 J |