Recommended game specs are a joke — PC devs need to temper expectations

[Windows Central]

My latest personal PC upgrades still don't stand a chance of running my most anticipated titles with smooth framerates, so what's the big deal with poor optimization recently?

Recommended game specs are a joke — PC devs need to temper expectations : Read more

 

[GraniteStateColin]

Ben, could this all be related to ray tracing? If so, I can forgive this. On one hand, players who care about it (I know many don't, but many also do) demand ray tracing as if it's the most important thing in graphical appearance, so devs feel compelled to include it. On the other, only the RTX 4070+ cards are able to handle ray tracing, and even then barely with all the nVidia optimizations in full force. Further, except for a few games like Cyberpunk, it seems the devs are still struggling to learn how to handle ray tracing.

If you turn off ray tracing but keep on other enhancements, I bet that RTX 3060 will do OK for most modern games. And when they don't, it's because modern games are starting to be desigend with an assumption of including ray tracing.

We're in an odd spot in gaming graphics history. nVidia marketed ray tracing when they first announced the RTX 2000 series and convinced a lot of gamers it's needed (I agree that it's the most transformative effect in gaming graphics in over a decade), but it's so GPU intensive that only the very top cards from nVidia are really able to do it today (barely). There's also no real competition yet. Neither Arc nor Radeon cards can handle ray tracing in any serious way yet. Yeah, they can do a little bit, enough that if the games devs did a good job optimizing for them, it looks a little better than the baked in effects devs have used for years, but those cards are still so weak at it that it's a development challenge to get it to work. And that puts us right back to your point that games are not optimized -- because devs are still learning how to use ray tracing in its current watered-down form supported by most modern hardware.

When the graphics cards can do a fair volume of path tracing natively without a lot of developer gimmicks, we'll achieve a new glorious level in gaming visuals. At that point, it will actually be EASIER for devs to do good lighting and they won't have to spend time baking in effects, but I think we're still about 2-4 years from that. Basically, we need something a bit more powerful than RTX 4080/4090 to be mainstream and included in the consoles AND ALSO improved drivers and developer expertise in working with ray and path tracing. Right now, this is all too new to everyone and they're still fumbling their way through it.

 

[Ben Wilson]

See, I'm not even THAT invested in ray tracing (though it is beautiful), but DLSS frame generation is a killer feature. I feel a little slighted that I'll miss out on DLSS 3.5 since I'm opting for NVIDIA 30-Series over the 40, but it's just crazy how expensive GPUs are. I can't think of a time when I've ever bought components at full MSRP, not since.. maybe Voodoo cards? And that was my parents' money.. hah.

I agree that ray tracing is practically mandatory if you're aiming for realism, but I know many people turn it off. The exciting part will be when all consoles can handle a more efficient version of ray tracing, but then PC gamers will likely be tempted by whatever else is new. It's tough.

It's just hard when I see friends link to a Tweet about game specs, and almost all of them decide they won't buy it because hardly anyone has RTX 4090/13900K combo PCs. I just wish the 'medium-high' settings better represented the majority of PC gamers, and not the 1% on the high end.

The craziest part is always thinking 'graphics will never get better than this' when we KNOW that isn't true, lol. There'll always be some crazy new tech, and another game like Crysis to test it with.