Why Game Physics Catastrophically Fails at Ultra-High Framerates
Running a game at 360fps doesn't just look smooth — it fundamentally changes how physics engines behave, sometimes causing objects to literally vanish.
Modern gaming PCs can hit 360+ fps at 1440p, but physics engines weren't designed for this. Most game engines assume framerate stays relatively constant — typically 60, 144, or 240 fps. What happens when you push to 360, 480, or even unlimited? Physics completely breaks in subtle and hilarious ways. Objects pass through walls. Ragdoll bodies explode. Gravity becomes unpredictable.
The issue is fundamental to how physics simulation works. Most engines use fixed timestep integration: each frame, they advance the physics state by a fixed delta-time (say, 1/60th of a second). At 360 fps, the per-frame delta becomes 1/360th of a second. This seems fine, but it interacts badly with collision detection. Faster-moving objects can tunnel through obstacles in a single frame without triggering collision events. Spring forces become overcompensated. Forces that should be damped oscillate instead. Professional physics engines (PhysX, Havok) have parameters tuned for specific framerates — go too high and you're in undefined behavior territory.
Smarter physics engines now use continuous collision detection and adaptive timesteps, but most games still use legacy approaches. Developers respond by frame-capping their games, artificially limiting fps to stay within the tuned range. It's a hack, but it works. As monitors push beyond 240hz, this becomes increasingly important. The future probably involves physics engines that scale more intelligently with framerate, or automatic parameter adjustment. For now, running your favorite game at the monitor's maximum refresh rate might actually break the game's physics in subtle, hard-to-diagnose ways.