How can I monitor the FPS in OSX?

I'm looking for a solution to monitor the refresh rate of the OSX.

In several reviews like this one about the retina Macbook Pro by Anandtech they report actual fps to discuss the performance of scrolling in Safari in Lion vs Mountain Lion.

What tool are they using to monitor the fps? What similar tool like this can you recommend?

Solution 1:

The tool being used in the screen shot is "Quartz Debug"

It is part of Apple's free Graphics Tools for Xcode.

To get this app:

• download Xcode from the Mac App Store.
• Open Xcode and select Xcode > Open Developer Tool > More Developer Tools...
• This takes you to Apple's developer download site. You will need to register a free developer account to proceed.
• Select "Graphics Tools for Xcode" to download a disk image with the tools.
• Open the dmg and you can copy out "Quartz Debug" to your computer.

Running Quartz Debug should show the FPS meter. It has various options which allow tweaking of Quartz settings.

Solution 2:

I use atMonitor for various things which has a live display of fps on there, scrolling up and down in Safari for example gives me 50fps.

Might do what you want.