"Built to stay out of your frames" is a claim you can check. This page says how we measure the Windows app, what each number means, and how to see the same thing on your own PC.
How we measure
- The build you download. We measure the released Prefire, checked against its published SHA-256, on one PC whose specs we name with the numbers.
- In the tray. Prefire sits in the tray with a demo loaded for 10 minutes, sampled once a second.
- Opening a demo. A public pro demo, opened several times over; the figure is the median.
- Counter-Strike 2. The same Workshop benchmark map, run with Prefire closed and with it in the tray, three times each, in the order closed, tray, tray, closed, closed, tray, so a PC that warms up or a task in the background can't favour one side. Each run records 90 seconds of CS2's frames.
What the numbers mean
Every figure is one you can see on your own PC in Task Manager.
- CPU is a share of the whole machine, as Task Manager's Processes tab shows it. On a CPU with 16 threads, 1% is about a sixth of one thread.
- Memory is the private working set: the memory only Prefire is using, Task Manager's Memory column.
- GPU is the busiest of the graphics card's engines, Task Manager's GPU column.
- Frames drawn counts the frames Prefire's window drew while it was in the tray, from the graphics card's own record of the time it spent on Prefire.
- Average FPS and 1% low are Counter-Strike 2's, from the time between the frames it presented: the average, and the average of its slowest 1% of frames.
Check it yourself
- Open Prefire, open a demo, then minimise it to the tray.
- Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager, and find Prefire under Background processes.
- Watch its CPU, Memory and GPU columns while you play. If there's no GPU column, right-click the column headers and add it.
The numbers
The numbers go here once the Counter-Strike 2 benchmark has been run: Prefire in the tray, opening a demo, and CS2's frame rate with Prefire closed and in the tray, on one named PC. We publish them all together, the frame rate included, rather than the flattering half first.