I want to be able to introduce new 'tag lines' into a database that are shown 'randomly' to users. (These tag lines are shown as an introduction as animated text.)
Based upon the number of sales that result from those taglines I'd like the good ones to trickle to the top, but still show the others less frequently.
I could come up with a basic algorithm quite easily but I want something thats a little more 'statistically accurate'.
I dont really know where to start. Its been a while since I've done anything more than basic statistics. My model would need to be sensitive to tolerances, but obviously it doesnt need to be worthy of a PHD.
Edit: I am currently tracking a 'conversion rate' - i.e. hits per order. This value would probably be best calculated as a cumulative 'all time' convertsion rate to be fed into the algorithm.
Looking at your problem, I would modify the requirements a bit -
1) The most popular one should be shown most often.
2) Taglines should "age", so one that got a lot of votes (purchase) in the past, but none recently should be shown less often
3) Brand new taglines should be shown more often during their first days.
If you agree on those, then a algorithm could be something like:
START:
x = random(1, 3);
if x = 3 goto NEW else goto NORMAL
NEW:
TagVec = Taglines.filterYounger(5 days); // I'm taking a LOT of liberties with the pseudo code,,,
x = random(1, TagVec.Length);
return tagVec[x-1]; // 0 indexed vectors even in made up language,
NORMAL:
// Similar to EBGREEN above
sum = 0;
ForEach(TagLine in TagLines) {
sum += TagLine.noOfPurhcases;
}
x = random(1, sum);
ForEach(TagLine in TagLines) {
x -= TagLine.noOfPurchase;
if ( x > 0) return TagLine; // Find the TagLine that represent our random number
}
Now, as a setup I would give every new tagline 10 purchases, to avoid getting really big slanting for one single purchase.
The aging process I would count a purchase older than a week as 0.8 purhcase per week of age. So 1 week old gives 0.8 points, 2 weeks give 0.8*0.8 = 0,64 and so forth...
You would have to play around with the Initial purhcases parameter (10 in my example) and the aging speed (1 week here) and the aging factor (0.8 here) to find something that suits you.
I would suggest randomly choosing with a weighting factor based on previous sales. So let's say you had this:
tag1 = 1 sale
tag2 = 0 sales
tag3 = 1 sale
tag4 = 2 sales
tag5 = 3 sales
A simple weighting formula would be 1 + number of sales, so this would be the probability of selecting each tag:
tag1 = 2/12 = 16.7%
tag2 = 1/12 = 8.3%
tag3 = 2/12 = 16.6%
tag4 = 3/12 = 25%
tag5 = 4/12 = 33.3%
You could easily change the weighting formula to get just the distribution that you want.
You have to come up with a weighting formula based on sales.
I don't think there's any such thing as a "statistically accurate" formula here - it's all based on your preference.
No one can say "this is the correct weighting and the other weighting is wrong" because there isn't a final outcome you are attempting to model - this isn't like trying to weigh responses to a poll about an upcoming election (where you are trying to model results to represent something that will happen in the future).
Heres an example in javascript. Not that I'm not suggesting running this client side...
Also there is alot of optimization that can be done.
Note: createMemberInNormalDistribution() is implemented here Converting a Uniform Distribution to a Normal Distribution
/*
* an example set of taglines
* hits are sales
* views are times its been shown
*/
var taglines = [
{"tag":"tagline 1","hits":1,"views":234},
{"tag":"tagline 2","hits":5,"views":566},
{"tag":"tagline 3","hits":3,"views":421},
{"tag":"tagline 4","hits":1,"views":120},
{"tag":"tagline 5","hits":7,"views":200}
];
/*set up our stat model for the tags*/
var TagModel = function(set){
var hits, views, sumOfDiff, sumOfSqDiff;
hits = views = sumOfDiff = sumOfSqDiff = 0;
/*find average*/
for (n in set){
hits += set[n].hits;
views += set[n].views;
}
this.avg = hits/views;
/*find standard deviation and variance*/
for (n in set){
var diff =((set[n].hits/set[n].views)-this.avg);
sumOfDiff += diff;
sumOfSqDiff += diff*diff;
}
this.variance = sumOfDiff;
this.std_dev = Math.sqrt(sumOfSqDiff/set.length);
/*return tag to use fChooser determines likelyhood of tag*/
this.getTag = function(fChooser){
var m = this;
set.sort(function(a,b){
return fChooser((a.hits/a.views),(b.hits/b.views), m);
});
return set[0];
};
};
var config = {
"uniformDistribution":function(a,b,model){
return Math.random()*b-Math.random()*a;
},
"normalDistribution":function(a,b,model){
var a1 = createMemberInNormalDistribution(model.avg,model.std_dev)* a;
var b1 = createMemberInNormalDistribution(model.avg,model.std_dev)* b;
return b1-a1;
},
//say weight = 10^n... higher n is the more even the distribution will be.
"weight": .5,
"weightedDistribution":function(a,b,model){
var a1 = createMemberInNormalDistribution(model.avg,model.std_dev*config.weight)* a;
var b1 = createMemberInNormalDistribution(model.avg,model.std_dev*config.weight)* b;
return b1-a1;
}
}
var model = new TagModel(taglines);
//to use
model.getTag(config.uniformDistribution).tag;
//running 10000 times: ({'tagline 4':836, 'tagline 5':7608, 'tagline 1':100, 'tagline 2':924, 'tagline 3':532})
model.getTag(config.normalDistribution).tag;
//running 10000 times: ({'tagline 4':1775, 'tagline 5':3471, 'tagline 1':1273, 'tagline 2':1857, 'tagline 3':1624})
model.getTag(config.weightedDistribution).tag;
//running 10000 times: ({'tagline 4':1514, 'tagline 5':5045, 'tagline 1':577, 'tagline 2':1627, 'tagline 3':1237})
config.weight = 2;
model.getTag(config.weightedDistribution).tag;
//running 10000 times: {'tagline 4':1941, 'tagline 5':2715, 'tagline 1':1559, 'tagline 2':1957, 'tagline 3':1828})
Related
I working on a project where I have to do some K-means clustering with MLlib from Spark. The problem is that my data have 744 features. I did some research and I found out that PCA is what I need. The best part is that Spark PCA implemented, so I decided to do that.
double[][] array=new double[381][744];
int contor=0;
for (Vector vectorData : parsedTrainingData.collect()) {
contor++;
array[contor]=vectorData.toArray();
}
LinkedList<Vector> rowsList = new LinkedList<>();
for (int i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
Vector currentRow = Vectors.dense(array[i]);
rowsList.add(currentRow);
}
JavaRDD<Vector> rows = jsc.parallelize(rowsList);
// Create a RowMatrix from JavaRDD<Vector>.
RowMatrix mat = new RowMatrix(rows.rdd());
// Compute the top 3 principal components.
Tuple2<Matrix, Vector> pc = mat.computePrincipalComponentsAndExplainedVariance(*param*);
RowMatrix projected = mat.multiply(pc._1);
// $example off$
Vector[] collectPartitions = (Vector[]) projected.rows().collect();
System.out.println("Projected vector of principal component:");
for (Vector vector : collectPartitions) {
System.out.println("\t" + vector);
}
System.out.println("\n Explanend Variance:");
System.out.println(pc._2);
double sum = 0;
for (Double val : pc._2.toArray()) {
sum += val;
}
System.out.println("\n the sum is: " + (double) sum);
About the data that I want to apply PCA I have 744 features who represents values(total seconds of active time) collected by sensors in a home on every hour, so it is something like (31 sensors * 24 h), in format(s(sensorNumber)(hour): s10, s11.....s123, s20, s21....223,.....s3123.
From what I understand one of the criteria for a reduction to not lose to much of the information is the sum of Explained Variance to be greater 0.9 (90%). After some tests I got this results:
*pram* sum
100 0.91
150 0.97
200 0.98
250 0.99
350 1
So from what I understand it will be safe to reduce my 744 features vector to a 100 features vector. My problem is that this results looks to good to be true. I search for some examples to have guidance, but I am still unsure if what I did is correct. So is this results plausible?
I have a very large set (billions or more, it's expected to grow exponentially to some level), and I want to generate seemingly random elements from it without repeating. I know I can pick a random number and repeat and record the elements I have generated, but that takes more and more memory as numbers are generated, and wouldn't be practical after couple millions elements out.
I mean, I could say 1, 2, 3 up to billions and each would be constant time without remembering all the previous, or I can say 1,3,5,7,9 and on then 2,4,6,8,10, but is there a more sophisticated way to do that and eventually get a seemingly random permutation of that set?
Update
1, The set does not change size in the generation process. I meant when the user's input increases linearly, the size of the set increases exponentially.
2, In short, the set is like the set of every integer from 1 to 10 billions or more.
3, In long, it goes up to 10 billion because each element carries the information of many independent choices, for example. Imagine an RPG character that have 10 attributes, each can go from 1 to 100 (for my problem different choices can have different ranges), thus there's 10^20 possible characters, number "10873456879326587345" would correspond to a character that have "11, 88, 35...", and I would like an algorithm to generate them one by one without repeating, but makes it looks random.
Thanks for the interesting question. You can create a "pseudorandom"* (cyclic) permutation with a few bytes using modular exponentiation. Say we have n elements. Search for a prime p that's bigger than n+1. Then find a primitive root g modulo p. Basically by definition of primitive root, the action x --> (g * x) % p is a cyclic permutation of {1, ..., p-1}. And so x --> ((g * (x+1))%p) - 1 is a cyclic permutation of {0, ..., p-2}. We can get a cyclic permutation of {0, ..., n-1} by repeating the previous permutation if it gives a value bigger (or equal) n.
I implemented this idea as a Go package. https://github.com/bwesterb/powercycle
package main
import (
"fmt"
"github.com/bwesterb/powercycle"
)
func main() {
var x uint64
cycle := powercycle.New(10)
for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {
fmt.Println(x)
x = cycle.Apply(x)
}
}
This outputs something like
0
6
4
1
2
9
3
5
8
7
but that might vary off course depending on the generator chosen.
It's fast, but not super-fast: on my five year old i7 it takes less than 210ns to compute one application of a cycle on 1000000000000000 elements. More details:
BenchmarkNew10-8 1000000 1328 ns/op
BenchmarkNew1000-8 500000 2566 ns/op
BenchmarkNew1000000-8 50000 25893 ns/op
BenchmarkNew1000000000-8 200000 7589 ns/op
BenchmarkNew1000000000000-8 2000 648785 ns/op
BenchmarkApply10-8 10000000 170 ns/op
BenchmarkApply1000-8 10000000 173 ns/op
BenchmarkApply1000000-8 10000000 172 ns/op
BenchmarkApply1000000000-8 10000000 169 ns/op
BenchmarkApply1000000000000-8 10000000 201 ns/op
BenchmarkApply1000000000000000-8 10000000 204 ns/op
Why did I say "pseudorandom"? Well, we are always creating a very specific kind of cycle: namely one that uses modular exponentiation. It looks pretty pseudorandom though.
I would use a random number and swap it with an element at the beginning of the set.
Here's some pseudo code
set = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
picked = 0
Function PickNext(set, picked)
If picked > Len(set) - 1 Then
Return Nothing
End If
// random number between picked (inclusive) and length (exclusive)
r = RandomInt(picked, Len(set))
// swap the picked element to the beginning of the set
result = set[r]
set[r] = set[picked]
set[picked] = result
// update picked
picked++
// return your next random element
Return temp
End Function
Every time you pick an element there is one swap and the only extra memory being used is the picked variable. The swap can happen if the elements are in a database or in memory.
EDIT Here's a jsfiddle of a working implementation http://jsfiddle.net/sun8rw4d/
JavaScript
var set = [];
set.picked = 0;
function pickNext(set) {
if(set.picked > set.length - 1) { return null; }
var r = set.picked + Math.floor(Math.random() * (set.length - set.picked));
var result = set[r];
set[r] = set[set.picked];
set[set.picked] = result;
set.picked++;
return result;
}
// testing
for(var i=0; i<100; i++) {
set.push(i);
}
while(pickNext(set) !== null) { }
document.body.innerHTML += set.toString();
EDIT 2 Finally, a random binary walk of the set. This can be accomplished with O(Log2(N)) stack space (memory) which for 10billion is only 33. There's no shuffling or swapping involved. Using trinary instead of binary might yield even better pseudo random results.
// on the fly set generator
var count = 0;
var maxValue = 64;
function nextElement() {
// restart the generation
if(count == maxValue) {
count = 0;
}
return count++;
}
// code to pseudo randomly select elements
var current = 0;
var stack = [0, maxValue - 1];
function randomBinaryWalk() {
if(stack.length == 0) { return null; }
var high = stack.pop();
var low = stack.pop();
var mid = ((high + low) / 2) | 0;
// pseudo randomly choose the next path
if(Math.random() > 0.5) {
if(low <= mid - 1) {
stack.push(low);
stack.push(mid - 1);
}
if(mid + 1 <= high) {
stack.push(mid + 1);
stack.push(high);
}
} else {
if(mid + 1 <= high) {
stack.push(mid + 1);
stack.push(high);
}
if(low <= mid - 1) {
stack.push(low);
stack.push(mid - 1);
}
}
// how many elements to skip
var toMid = (current < mid ? mid - current : (maxValue - current) + mid);
// skip elements
for(var i = 0; i < toMid - 1; i++) {
nextElement();
}
current = mid;
// get result
return nextElement();
}
// test
var result;
var list = [];
do {
result = randomBinaryWalk();
list.push(result);
} while(result !== null);
document.body.innerHTML += '<br/>' + list.toString();
Here's the results from a couple of runs with a small set of 64 elements. JSFiddle http://jsfiddle.net/yooLjtgu/
30,46,38,34,36,35,37,32,33,31,42,40,41,39,44,45,43,54,50,52,53,51,48,47,49,58,60,59,61,62,56,57,55,14,22,18,20,19,21,16,15,17,26,28,29,27,24,25,23,6,2,4,5,3,0,1,63,10,8,7,9,12,11,13
30,14,22,18,16,15,17,20,19,21,26,28,29,27,24,23,25,6,10,8,7,9,12,13,11,2,0,63,1,4,5,3,46,38,42,44,45,43,40,41,39,34,36,35,37,32,31,33,54,58,56,55,57,60,59,61,62,50,48,49,47,52,51,53
As I mentioned in my comment, unless you have an efficient way to skip to a specific point in your "on the fly" generation of the set this will not be very efficient.
if it is enumerable then use a pseudo-random integer generator adjusted to the period 0 .. 2^n - 1 where the upper bound is just greater than the size of your set and generate pseudo-random integers discarding those more than the size of your set. Use those integers to index items from your set.
Pre- compute yourself a series of indices (e.g. in a file), which has the properties you need and then randomly choose a start index for your enumeration and use the series in a round-robin manner.
The length of your pre-computed series should be > the maximum size of the set.
If you combine this (depending on your programming language etc.) with file mappings, your final nextIndex(INOUT state) function is (nearly) as simple as return mappedIndices[state++ % PERIOD];, if you have a fixed size of each entry (e.g. 8 bytes -> uint64_t).
Of course, the returned value could be > your current set size. Simply draw indices until you get one which is <= your sets current size.
Update (In response to question-update):
There is another option to achieve your goal if it is about creating 10Billion unique characters in your RPG: Generate a GUID and write yourself a function which computes your number from the GUID. man uuid if you are are on a unix system. Else google it. Some parts of the uuid are not random but contain meta-info, some parts are either systematic (such as your network cards MAC address) or random, depending on generator algorithm. But they are very very most likely unique. So, whenever you need a new unique number, generate a uuid and transform it to your number by means of some algorithm which basically maps the uuid bytes to your number in a non-trivial way (e.g. use hash functions).
I am trying to generate a small algorithm that will give a user a decimal score out of 1 based on how close their answer is to a true answer. These answers will always be numeric and be things like 'How many x did this?'
I will be setting a sensible maximum and minimum value for each answer where if a users answer exceeds this, they will score nothing though am a bit stuck on getting an equation created ...
As an example, a correct answer could be 100 and a sensible minimum could be set as 50. A user specifying 75 would thus be given a score of 0.5
Perhaps getting a bit complicated now but it would also be nice to allocate the score on a curve so the result is not linear and thus weighting is higher the nearer you are to the correct answer
Any help or better ideas for this scoring would be much appreciated
A formula code could be like this :
score = abs(input - answer) / (answer - min)
for your example we have input = 75 , answer = 100 and min = 50 so:
score = abs(75 - 100) / (100 - 50) = 25 / 50 = 0.5
If you wanted the scoring to be non-linear (to reward closeness to the answer) you could try a 'squared difference' formula. E.g.
score = 1 - (abs((answer - input)/(answer - minimum)))^2
e.g. with correct = 100, minimum = 60, answer = 70 you would get:
score = 1 - (abs((100 - 70)/(100 - 60)))^2 = 0.4375
If you want to give a greater reward for closeness, you could use a higher power. Note that division by zero will occur if answer = minimum.
I implemented the algorithm in Java and made a small test case.
public class Quiz{
public static double calculateScore(int input,
int correctAnswer,
int minimumAnswer){
if(input == correctAnswer){
return 1;
}
double correctInterval = Math.abs(correctAnswer - minimumAnswer);
double relativeAnswer = Math.abs(correctAnswer - input);
if(relativeAnswer > correctInterval){
return 0;
}else{
double score = relativeAnswer/correctInterval;
score *= score;// make ^2 to avoid a linear progression
return 1.0 - score;
}
}
}
public class QuizTest{
#Test
public void testCalculateScore() {
assertTrue(0 == Quiz.calculateScore(5, 20, 15));
assertTrue(0 == Quiz.calculateScore(30, 20, 15));
assertTrue(1 == Quiz.calculateScore(20, 20, 15));
assertTrue(0 < Quiz.calculateScore(17, 20, 15));
assertTrue(0 < Quiz.calculateScore(22, 20, 15));
assertTrue(Quiz.calculateScore(18, 20, 15) == Quiz.calculateScore(22, 20, 15));
assertTrue(Quiz.calculateScore(17, 20, 15) < Quiz.calculateScore(22, 20, 15));
}
}
The test run is successful
I'm trying to apply the Bayesian rating formula, but if I rate 1 out of 5 thousand of hundreds, the final rating is greater than 5.
For example, a given item has no votes and after voting 170,000 times with 1 star, its final rating is 5.23. If I rate 100, it has a normal value.
Here is what I have in PHP.
<?php
// these values came from DB
$total_votes = 2936; // total of votes for all items
$total_rating = 582.955; // sum of all ratings
$total_items = 202;
// now the specific item, it has no votes yet
$this_num_votes = 0;
$this_score = 0;
$this_rating = 0;
// simulating a lot of votes with 1 star
for ($i=0; $i < 170000; $i++) {
$rating_sent = 1; // the new rating, always 1
$total_votes++; // adding 1 to total
$total_rating = $total_rating+$rating_sent; // adding 1 to total
$avg_num_votes = ($total_votes/$total_items); // Average number of votes in all items
$avg_rating = ($total_rating/$total_items); // Average rating for all items
$this_num_votes = $this_num_votes+1; // Number of votes for this item
$this_score = $this_score+$rating_sent; // Sum of all votes for this item
$this_rating = $this_score/$this_num_votes; // Rating for this item
$bayesian_rating = ( ($avg_num_votes * $avg_rating) + ($this_num_votes * $this_rating) ) / ($avg_num_votes + $this_num_votes);
}
echo $bayesian_rating;
?>
Even if I flood with 1 or 2:
$rating_sent = rand(1,2)
The final rating after 100,000 votes is over 5.
I just did a new test using
$rating_sent = rand(1,5)
And after 100,000 I got a value completely out of range range (10.53). I know that in a normal situation no item will get 170,000 votes while all the other items get no vote. But I wonder if there is something wrong with my code or if this is an expected behavior of Bayesian formula considering the massive votes.
Edit
Just to make it clear, here is a better explanation for some variables.
$avg_num_votes // SUM(votes given to all items)/COUNT(all items)
$avg_rating // SUM(rating of all items)/COUNT(all items)
$this_num_votes // COUNT(votes given for this item)
$this_score // SUM(rating for this item)
$bayesian_rating // is the formula itself
The formula is: ( (avg_num_votes * avg_rating) + (this_num_votes * this_rating) ) / (avg_num_votes + this_num_votes). Taken from here
You need to divide by total_votes rather than total_items when calculating avg_rating.
I made the changes and got something that behaves much better here.
http://codepad.org/gSdrUhZ2
What's a good algorithm for calculating frames per second in a game? I want to show it as a number in the corner of the screen. If I just look at how long it took to render the last frame the number changes too fast.
Bonus points if your answer updates each frame and doesn't converge differently when the frame rate is increasing vs decreasing.
You need a smoothed average, the easiest way is to take the current answer (the time to draw the last frame) and combine it with the previous answer.
// eg.
float smoothing = 0.9; // larger=more smoothing
measurement = (measurement * smoothing) + (current * (1.0-smoothing))
By adjusting the 0.9 / 0.1 ratio you can change the 'time constant' - that is how quickly the number responds to changes. A larger fraction in favour of the old answer gives a slower smoother change, a large fraction in favour of the new answer gives a quicker changing value. Obviously the two factors must add to one!
This is what I have used in many games.
#define MAXSAMPLES 100
int tickindex=0;
int ticksum=0;
int ticklist[MAXSAMPLES];
/* need to zero out the ticklist array before starting */
/* average will ramp up until the buffer is full */
/* returns average ticks per frame over the MAXSAMPLES last frames */
double CalcAverageTick(int newtick)
{
ticksum-=ticklist[tickindex]; /* subtract value falling off */
ticksum+=newtick; /* add new value */
ticklist[tickindex]=newtick; /* save new value so it can be subtracted later */
if(++tickindex==MAXSAMPLES) /* inc buffer index */
tickindex=0;
/* return average */
return((double)ticksum/MAXSAMPLES);
}
Well, certainly
frames / sec = 1 / (sec / frame)
But, as you point out, there's a lot of variation in the time it takes to render a single frame, and from a UI perspective updating the fps value at the frame rate is not usable at all (unless the number is very stable).
What you want is probably a moving average or some sort of binning / resetting counter.
For example, you could maintain a queue data structure which held the rendering times for each of the last 30, 60, 100, or what-have-you frames (you could even design it so the limit was adjustable at run-time). To determine a decent fps approximation you can determine the average fps from all the rendering times in the queue:
fps = # of rendering times in queue / total rendering time
When you finish rendering a new frame you enqueue a new rendering time and dequeue an old rendering time. Alternately, you could dequeue only when the total of the rendering times exceeded some preset value (e.g. 1 sec). You can maintain the "last fps value" and a last updated timestamp so you can trigger when to update the fps figure, if you so desire. Though with a moving average if you have consistent formatting, printing the "instantaneous average" fps on each frame would probably be ok.
Another method would be to have a resetting counter. Maintain a precise (millisecond) timestamp, a frame counter, and an fps value. When you finish rendering a frame, increment the counter. When the counter hits a pre-set limit (e.g. 100 frames) or when the time since the timestamp has passed some pre-set value (e.g. 1 sec), calculate the fps:
fps = # frames / (current time - start time)
Then reset the counter to 0 and set the timestamp to the current time.
Increment a counter every time you render a screen and clear that counter for some time interval over which you want to measure the frame-rate.
Ie. Every 3 seconds, get counter/3 and then clear the counter.
There are at least two ways to do it:
The first is the one others have mentioned here before me.
I think it's the simplest and preferred way. You just to keep track of
cn: counter of how many frames you've rendered
time_start: the time since you've started counting
time_now: the current time
Calculating the fps in this case is as simple as evaluating this formula:
FPS = cn / (time_now - time_start).
Then there is the uber cool way you might like to use some day:
Let's say you have 'i' frames to consider. I'll use this notation: f[0], f[1],..., f[i-1] to describe how long it took to render frame 0, frame 1, ..., frame (i-1) respectively.
Example where i = 3
|f[0] |f[1] |f[2] |
+----------+-------------+-------+------> time
Then, mathematical definition of fps after i frames would be
(1) fps[i] = i / (f[0] + ... + f[i-1])
And the same formula but only considering i-1 frames.
(2) fps[i-1] = (i-1) / (f[0] + ... + f[i-2])
Now the trick here is to modify the right side of formula (1) in such a way that it will contain the right side of formula (2) and substitute it for it's left side.
Like so (you should see it more clearly if you write it on a paper):
fps[i] = i / (f[0] + ... + f[i-1])
= i / ((f[0] + ... + f[i-2]) + f[i-1])
= (i/(i-1)) / ((f[0] + ... + f[i-2])/(i-1) + f[i-1]/(i-1))
= (i/(i-1)) / (1/fps[i-1] + f[i-1]/(i-1))
= ...
= (i*fps[i-1]) / (f[i-1] * fps[i-1] + i - 1)
So according to this formula (my math deriving skill are a bit rusty though), to calculate the new fps you need to know the fps from the previous frame, the duration it took to render the last frame and the number of frames you've rendered.
This might be overkill for most people, that's why I hadn't posted it when I implemented it. But it's very robust and flexible.
It stores a Queue with the last frame times, so it can accurately calculate an average FPS value much better than just taking the last frame into consideration.
It also allows you to ignore one frame, if you are doing something that you know is going to artificially screw up that frame's time.
It also allows you to change the number of frames to store in the Queue as it runs, so you can test it out on the fly what is the best value for you.
// Number of past frames to use for FPS smooth calculation - because
// Unity's smoothedDeltaTime, well - it kinda sucks
private int frameTimesSize = 60;
// A Queue is the perfect data structure for the smoothed FPS task;
// new values in, old values out
private Queue<float> frameTimes;
// Not really needed, but used for faster updating then processing
// the entire queue every frame
private float __frameTimesSum = 0;
// Flag to ignore the next frame when performing a heavy one-time operation
// (like changing resolution)
private bool _fpsIgnoreNextFrame = false;
//=============================================================================
// Call this after doing a heavy operation that will screw up with FPS calculation
void FPSIgnoreNextFrame() {
this._fpsIgnoreNextFrame = true;
}
//=============================================================================
// Smoothed FPS counter updating
void Update()
{
if (this._fpsIgnoreNextFrame) {
this._fpsIgnoreNextFrame = false;
return;
}
// While looping here allows the frameTimesSize member to be changed dinamically
while (this.frameTimes.Count >= this.frameTimesSize) {
this.__frameTimesSum -= this.frameTimes.Dequeue();
}
while (this.frameTimes.Count < this.frameTimesSize) {
this.__frameTimesSum += Time.deltaTime;
this.frameTimes.Enqueue(Time.deltaTime);
}
}
//=============================================================================
// Public function to get smoothed FPS values
public int GetSmoothedFPS() {
return (int)(this.frameTimesSize / this.__frameTimesSum * Time.timeScale);
}
Good answers here. Just how you implement it is dependent on what you need it for. I prefer the running average one myself "time = time * 0.9 + last_frame * 0.1" by the guy above.
however I personally like to weight my average more heavily towards newer data because in a game it is SPIKES that are the hardest to squash and thus of most interest to me. So I would use something more like a .7 \ .3 split will make a spike show up much faster (though it's effect will drop off-screen faster as well.. see below)
If your focus is on RENDERING time, then the .9.1 split works pretty nicely b/c it tend to be more smooth. THough for gameplay/AI/physics spikes are much more of a concern as THAT will usually what makes your game look choppy (which is often worse than a low frame rate assuming we're not dipping below 20 fps)
So, what I would do is also add something like this:
#define ONE_OVER_FPS (1.0f/60.0f)
static float g_SpikeGuardBreakpoint = 3.0f * ONE_OVER_FPS;
if(time > g_SpikeGuardBreakpoint)
DoInternalBreakpoint()
(fill in 3.0f with whatever magnitude you find to be an unacceptable spike)
This will let you find and thus solve FPS issues the end of the frame they happen.
A much better system than using a large array of old framerates is to just do something like this:
new_fps = old_fps * 0.99 + new_fps * 0.01
This method uses far less memory, requires far less code, and places more importance upon recent framerates than old framerates while still smoothing the effects of sudden framerate changes.
You could keep a counter, increment it after each frame is rendered, then reset the counter when you are on a new second (storing the previous value as the last second's # of frames rendered)
JavaScript:
// Set the end and start times
var start = (new Date).getTime(), end, FPS;
/* ...
* the loop/block your want to watch
* ...
*/
end = (new Date).getTime();
// since the times are by millisecond, use 1000 (1000ms = 1s)
// then multiply the result by (MaxFPS / 1000)
// FPS = (1000 - (end - start)) * (MaxFPS / 1000)
FPS = Math.round((1000 - (end - start)) * (60 / 1000));
Here's a complete example, using Python (but easily adapted to any language). It uses the smoothing equation in Martin's answer, so almost no memory overhead, and I chose values that worked for me (feel free to play around with the constants to adapt to your use case).
import time
SMOOTHING_FACTOR = 0.99
MAX_FPS = 10000
avg_fps = -1
last_tick = time.time()
while True:
# <Do your rendering work here...>
current_tick = time.time()
# Ensure we don't get crazy large frame rates, by capping to MAX_FPS
current_fps = 1.0 / max(current_tick - last_tick, 1.0/MAX_FPS)
last_tick = current_tick
if avg_fps < 0:
avg_fps = current_fps
else:
avg_fps = (avg_fps * SMOOTHING_FACTOR) + (current_fps * (1-SMOOTHING_FACTOR))
print(avg_fps)
Set counter to zero. Each time you draw a frame increment the counter. After each second print the counter. lather, rinse, repeat. If yo want extra credit, keep a running counter and divide by the total number of seconds for a running average.
In (c++ like) pseudocode these two are what I used in industrial image processing applications that had to process images from a set of externally triggered camera's. Variations in "frame rate" had a different source (slower or faster production on the belt) but the problem is the same. (I assume that you have a simple timer.peek() call that gives you something like the nr of msec (nsec?) since application start or the last call)
Solution 1: fast but not updated every frame
do while (1)
{
ProcessImage(frame)
if (frame.framenumber%poll_interval==0)
{
new_time=timer.peek()
framerate=poll_interval/(new_time - last_time)
last_time=new_time
}
}
Solution 2: updated every frame, requires more memory and CPU
do while (1)
{
ProcessImage(frame)
new_time=timer.peek()
delta=new_time - last_time
last_time = new_time
total_time += delta
delta_history.push(delta)
framerate= delta_history.length() / total_time
while (delta_history.length() > avg_interval)
{
oldest_delta = delta_history.pop()
total_time -= oldest_delta
}
}
qx.Class.define('FpsCounter', {
extend: qx.core.Object
,properties: {
}
,events: {
}
,construct: function(){
this.base(arguments);
this.restart();
}
,statics: {
}
,members: {
restart: function(){
this.__frames = [];
}
,addFrame: function(){
this.__frames.push(new Date());
}
,getFps: function(averageFrames){
debugger;
if(!averageFrames){
averageFrames = 2;
}
var time = 0;
var l = this.__frames.length;
var i = averageFrames;
while(i > 0){
if(l - i - 1 >= 0){
time += this.__frames[l - i] - this.__frames[l - i - 1];
}
i--;
}
var fps = averageFrames / time * 1000;
return fps;
}
}
});
How i do it!
boolean run = false;
int ticks = 0;
long tickstart;
int fps;
public void loop()
{
if(this.ticks==0)
{
this.tickstart = System.currentTimeMillis();
}
this.ticks++;
this.fps = (int)this.ticks / (System.currentTimeMillis()-this.tickstart);
}
In words, a tick clock tracks ticks. If it is the first time, it takes the current time and puts it in 'tickstart'. After the first tick, it makes the variable 'fps' equal how many ticks of the tick clock divided by the time minus the time of the first tick.
Fps is an integer, hence "(int)".
Here's how I do it (in Java):
private static long ONE_SECOND = 1000000L * 1000L; //1 second is 1000ms which is 1000000ns
LinkedList<Long> frames = new LinkedList<>(); //List of frames within 1 second
public int calcFPS(){
long time = System.nanoTime(); //Current time in nano seconds
frames.add(time); //Add this frame to the list
while(true){
long f = frames.getFirst(); //Look at the first element in frames
if(time - f > ONE_SECOND){ //If it was more than 1 second ago
frames.remove(); //Remove it from the list of frames
} else break;
/*If it was within 1 second we know that all other frames in the list
* are also within 1 second
*/
}
return frames.size(); //Return the size of the list
}
In Typescript, I use this algorithm to calculate framerate and frametime averages:
let getTime = () => {
return new Date().getTime();
}
let frames: any[] = [];
let previousTime = getTime();
let framerate:number = 0;
let frametime:number = 0;
let updateStats = (samples:number=60) => {
samples = Math.max(samples, 1) >> 0;
if (frames.length === samples) {
let currentTime: number = getTime() - previousTime;
frametime = currentTime / samples;
framerate = 1000 * samples / currentTime;
previousTime = getTime();
frames = [];
}
frames.push(1);
}
usage:
statsUpdate();
// Print
stats.innerHTML = Math.round(framerate) + ' FPS ' + frametime.toFixed(2) + ' ms';
Tip: If samples is 1, the result is real-time framerate and frametime.
This is based on KPexEA's answer and gives the Simple Moving Average. Tidied and converted to TypeScript for easy copy and paste:
Variable declaration:
fpsObject = {
maxSamples: 100,
tickIndex: 0,
tickSum: 0,
tickList: []
}
Function:
calculateFps(currentFps: number): number {
this.fpsObject.tickSum -= this.fpsObject.tickList[this.fpsObject.tickIndex] || 0
this.fpsObject.tickSum += currentFps
this.fpsObject.tickList[this.fpsObject.tickIndex] = currentFps
if (++this.fpsObject.tickIndex === this.fpsObject.maxSamples) this.fpsObject.tickIndex = 0
const smoothedFps = this.fpsObject.tickSum / this.fpsObject.maxSamples
return Math.floor(smoothedFps)
}
Usage (may vary in your app):
this.fps = this.calculateFps(this.ticker.FPS)
I adapted #KPexEA's answer to Go, moved the globals into struct fields, allowed the number of samples to be configurable, and used time.Duration instead of plain integers and floats.
type FrameTimeTracker struct {
samples []time.Duration
sum time.Duration
index int
}
func NewFrameTimeTracker(n int) *FrameTimeTracker {
return &FrameTimeTracker{
samples: make([]time.Duration, n),
}
}
func (t *FrameTimeTracker) AddFrameTime(frameTime time.Duration) (average time.Duration) {
// algorithm adapted from https://stackoverflow.com/a/87732/814422
t.sum -= t.samples[t.index]
t.sum += frameTime
t.samples[t.index] = frameTime
t.index++
if t.index == len(t.samples) {
t.index = 0
}
return t.sum / time.Duration(len(t.samples))
}
The use of time.Duration, which has nanosecond precision, eliminates the need for floating-point arithmetic to compute the average frame time, but comes at the expense of needing twice as much memory for the same number of samples.
You'd use it like this:
// track the last 60 frame times
frameTimeTracker := NewFrameTimeTracker(60)
// main game loop
for frame := 0;; frame++ {
// ...
if frame > 0 {
// prevFrameTime is the duration of the last frame
avgFrameTime := frameTimeTracker.AddFrameTime(prevFrameTime)
fps := 1.0 / avgFrameTime.Seconds()
}
// ...
}
Since the context of this question is game programming, I'll add some more notes about performance and optimization. The above approach is idiomatic Go but always involves two heap allocations: one for the struct itself and one for the array backing the slice of samples. If used as indicated above, these are long-lived allocations so they won't really tax the garbage collector. Profile before optimizing, as always.
However, if performance is a major concern, some changes can be made to eliminate the allocations and indirections:
Change samples from a slice of []time.Duration to an array of [N]time.Duration where N is fixed at compile time. This removes the flexibility of changing the number of samples at runtime, but in most cases that flexibility is unnecessary.
Then, eliminate the NewFrameTimeTracker constructor function entirely and use a var frameTimeTracker FrameTimeTracker declaration (at the package level or local to main) instead. Unlike C, Go will pre-zero all relevant memory.
Unfortunately, most of the answers here don't provide either accurate enough or sufficiently "slow responsive" FPS measurements. Here's how I do it in Rust using a measurement queue:
use std::collections::VecDeque;
use std::time::{Duration, Instant};
pub struct FpsCounter {
sample_period: Duration,
max_samples: usize,
creation_time: Instant,
frame_count: usize,
measurements: VecDeque<FrameCountMeasurement>,
}
#[derive(Copy, Clone)]
struct FrameCountMeasurement {
time: Instant,
frame_count: usize,
}
impl FpsCounter {
pub fn new(sample_period: Duration, samples: usize) -> Self {
assert!(samples > 1);
Self {
sample_period,
max_samples: samples,
creation_time: Instant::now(),
frame_count: 0,
measurements: VecDeque::new(),
}
}
pub fn fps(&self) -> f32 {
match (self.measurements.front(), self.measurements.back()) {
(Some(start), Some(end)) => {
let period = (end.time - start.time).as_secs_f32();
if period > 0.0 {
(end.frame_count - start.frame_count) as f32 / period
} else {
0.0
}
}
_ => 0.0,
}
}
pub fn update(&mut self) {
self.frame_count += 1;
let current_measurement = self.measure();
let last_measurement = self
.measurements
.back()
.copied()
.unwrap_or(FrameCountMeasurement {
time: self.creation_time,
frame_count: 0,
});
if (current_measurement.time - last_measurement.time) >= self.sample_period {
self.measurements.push_back(current_measurement);
while self.measurements.len() > self.max_samples {
self.measurements.pop_front();
}
}
}
fn measure(&self) -> FrameCountMeasurement {
FrameCountMeasurement {
time: Instant::now(),
frame_count: self.frame_count,
}
}
}
How to use:
Create the counter:
let mut fps_counter = FpsCounter::new(Duration::from_millis(100), 5);
Call fps_counter.update() on every frame drawn.
Call fps_counter.fps() whenever you like to display current FPS.
Now, the key is in parameters to FpsCounter::new() method: sample_period is how responsive fps() is to changes in framerate, and samples controls how quickly fps() ramps up or down to the actual framerate. So if you choose 10 ms and 100 samples, fps() would react almost instantly to any change in framerate - basically, FPS value on the screen would jitter like crazy, but since it's 100 samples, it would take 1 second to match the actual framerate.
So my choice of 100 ms and 5 samples means that displayed FPS counter doesn't make your eyes bleed by changing crazy fast, and it would match your actual framerate half a second after it changes, which is sensible enough for a game.
Since sample_period * samples is averaging time span, you don't want it to be too short if you want a reasonably accurate FPS counter.
store a start time and increment your framecounter once per loop? every few seconds you could just print framecount/(Now - starttime) and then reinitialize them.
edit: oops. double-ninja'ed