How many FPS should I have for updating a custom progress bar?

graphics, math, progress-bar, usability, user-interface

Solution

As a rule of thumb, 10 fps is a reasonable minimum for very small, simple animations with motion. 30 fps is a minimum for more complex motion and/or larger scenes.

However, generally progress bars have very little change from frame to frame. If you are using a very simple animation, you may find that less than 10fps works.

I suggest starting at 10fps and checking the result. Tune from there.

Problem

I just wrote a custom progress bar, it's single buffered and will remain so. How many frames per second are desirable for something like this? I don't want to waste too much CPU updating the screen unnecessarily.

Original source