Game logic

How the fuck do they code games so that everything moves smoothly and at a consistent rate regardless of the speed of the machine you run it on, and still have tons of shit interacting with each other somehow?
Maybe I need to find a good open-source candidate to have a look at.

Also, I wish I knew the correct terms to describe what I'm talking about.

Shitdang, looks like the framerate will need to be capped somewhere to avoid using 100% CPU.  That's ok though, just need to find a good method of doing that which hopefully keeps the framerate steadier than it is right now.