I'll give you another example. That was one game I have in mind that involved simply pixels. 100x100 grid is 10K objects; 400x300 grid is 120K objects. 40fps

I'll give you another example. That was one game I have in mind that involved simply pixels. 100x100 grid is 10K objects; 400x300 grid is 120K objects. 40fps x 120K is about 5M objects/second. Each object involves however so much processing. Doubling to 800x600 gives 20M objects/second. It adds up fast.