"Taking a couple dozen milliseconds is not the end of the world." In games, where you draw the whole screen for each frame, the magic number nowadays is 16ms.

"Taking a couple dozen milliseconds is not the end of the world." In games, where you draw the whole screen for each frame, the magic number nowadays is 16ms. This gives you 60fps. For a TV-attached console, this is a good as it gets. For a PC it is just fine. Taking longer than 16ms is not the end of the world, but noticeable lag for the gamer.