Something that just doesn't make much sense to me in the PC gaming enthusiast industry

[Veninblazer]

Why does it seem that since the last year of games has released, and the 10 series of graphics cards have released, that many PC gamers have just gotten plain fucking stupid in regards to how games are optimized? Like the standards for lower-end video cards has arbitrarily went up for some reason? I.e if a game drops a mid-level ($250-400) card below 60 with everything maxed, it's automatically indicative of "poor optimization," no matter what's on screen, and then Steam reviews are flooded with negative reviews as a result and any YouTube benchmark is flooded with comments about the supposed poor optimization. I'll tell you this much: if these games you scapegoated (and they all seem to be from the same company with a few exceptions, that's just ridiculous) were really that badly optimized, there's no way in hell I'd be able to run them as well as I do on my system, which is NOT a beast by any means - in fact, it's rather budget-end and would only be high-end by the standards of five years ago or mid-range by 2014's standards. Why the hell is "Ultra" the baseline, when that's almost always the afterthought setting? It isn't 2007 anymore, most games look just as good at high as they do at ultra yet the performance difference amounts to anywhere from 25-50% higher at High, yet Ultra is always used to scapegoat games.

 

In fact, the only game people seem to justify with its max settings being as ridiculous as they are is Grand Theft Auto V, which was tested on a 1080 Ti by Joker Productions at 1080p and with every single thing turned up, and not even THAT could sustain a solid 60 at 1080p in his test. But, nobody calls GTA V "unoptimized" because of that. So why exactly are other games (such as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Tom Clancy's The Division, Watch Dogs 2, and 2016 Hitman) scapegoated if even a GTX 1060 (mid-range card) is dropping at max settings? It's one thing if you're having random fps drops in certain areas for no reason (Fallout 4 for example), it has serious issues even at lowest settings (Nier: Automata) facing massive frame pacing issues (Dishonored 2), or there's no real difference between different settings in regards to framerate (Mafia 3 and Dark Souls 3), but it's another when your only issue is dropping below 60 at max settings (provided the rest of your system isn't bottlenecking, since some of these are CPU/RAM intensive titles too) and then you refund as a result of that alone.

[Surpuppa]

I don't really know why people are reacting the way they are, but in their defense it does seem like a trend that it gets harder and harder to run games at ultra. If I recall correctly, I was able to run many triple A games at ultra settings and 60 fps back in the day with my 560Ti. I was younger then and didn't know as much so perhaps I didn't have ultra or it wasn't steady 60 fps, but that is what I recall. Now I have a 960, which is not a good card at all by today's standard but I have to play almost every triple A game at lowest serttings. Seems like an awfully big drop in just a few years even though the GPU was upgraded.

 

Also, I can play BF4 at medium settings I believe and get 60 easily but with BF1 I get 20-40 with the lowest settings. Although this might be because of a CPU bottleneck (stock 2500K, I don't want to overclock it since I want it to survive until Black Friday lol) and not a GPU bottleneck.

[Veninblazer]

4 minutes ago, Surpuppa said:

I don't really know why people are reacting the way they are, but in their defense it does seem like a trend that it gets harder and harder to run games at ultra. If I recall correctly, I was able to run many triple A games at ultra settings and 60 fps back in the day with my 560Ti. I was younger then and didn't know as much so perhaps I didn't have ultra or it wasn't steady 60 fps, but that is what I recall. Now I have a 960, which is not a good card at all by today's standard but I have to play almost every triple A game at lowest serttings. Seems like an awfully big drop in just a few years even though the GPU was upgraded.

 

Also, I can play BF4 at medium settings I believe and get 60 easily but with BF1 I get 20-40 with the lowest settings. Although this might be because of a CPU bottleneck (stock 2500K, I don't want to overclock it since I want it to survive until Black Friday lol) and not a GPU bottleneck.

A 960 is a decent card, I have a 1050 Ti and it's not much faster. BF1 for me at medium runs at about 100 fps no problem, but even on the i5 I was using a while back which is not really any slower than a stock 2500K I wasn't getting that terrible of framerate (mid 50s mostly). BF4 runs at Ultra and 70-80 for me too, so i think there's an odd issue in your use case. And it legitimately seems like entitlement, ala "I paid X for my system therefore all games must do X!"

[Surpuppa]

11 minutes ago, MasontheDeathbat said:

A 960 is a decent card, I have a 1050 Ti and it's not much faster. BF1 for me at medium runs at about 100 fps no problem, but even on the i5 I was using a while back which is not really any slower than a stock 2500K I wasn't getting that terrible of framerate (mid 50s mostly). BF4 runs at Ultra and 70-80 for me too, so i think there's an odd issue in your use case. And it legitimately seems like entitlement, ala "I paid X for my system therefore all games must do X!"

Yeah it might be an issue in my case. I recently did a clean windows reinstall so perhaps it is better now. Maybe I should have mentioned that a few years back, when I didnt know very much about computers, I tried to clean my computer with a vacuum cleaner, and ever since then I feel like the computer have become very much slower so perhaps there was ESD damage although I always thought that it was only the 560Ti that was damaged, perhaps I was wrong

[Mira Yurizaki]

The irony of your observation is that if the specs are too low, they start complaining that the game is "dumbed down console trash". PC game developers can't win no matter which direction they go, save for a few exceptions.

 

I also don't really see a point in running games on Ultra. There's barely any quality difference between it and the next level below and you have to really scrutinize between screenshots. And if you're going to do that in game, are you really playing games to play games, or to measure your e-peen?

[thedons1983]

All I can say is that I hope your ranting made you feel better, because it certainly served no other purpose.

[PlayStation 2]

8 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

The irony of your observation is that if the specs are too low, they start complaining that the game is "dumbed down console trash". PC game developers can't win no matter which direction they go, save for a few exceptions.

 

I also don't really see a point in running games on Ultra. There's barely any quality difference between it and the next level below and you have to really scrutinize between screenshots. And if you're going to do that in game, are you really playing games to play games, or to measure your e-peen?

More often than not, I'd agree on this. Ultra is generally pointless when you can get an almost visually identical experience with slightly lower settings.

When it comes to people who go for a balance of visual quality and framerate, they couldn't care less for ultra, me included, unless I can push it reasonably. People will complain no matter what, and this goes for consoles, too.

[Veninblazer]

3 hours ago, thedons1983 said:

All I can say is that I hope your ranting made you feel better, because it certainly served no other purpose.

It's just I'm tired of people with bottomless wallets dumbing down the idea of what optimization means.

[Veninblazer]

12 hours ago, Surpuppa said:

Yeah it might be an issue in my case. I recently did a clean windows reinstall so perhaps it is better now. Maybe I should have mentioned that a few years back, when I didnt know very much about computers, I tried to clean my computer with a vacuum cleaner, and ever since then I feel like the computer have become very much slower so perhaps there was ESD damage although I always thought that it was only the 560Ti that was damaged, perhaps I was wrong

Yeah, that certainly sounds like it'd be an issue.

[Veninblazer]

2 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

More often than not, I'd agree on this. Ultra is generally pointless when you can get an almost visually identical experience with slightly lower settings.

When it comes to people who go for a balance of visual quality and framerate, they couldn't care less for ultra, me included, unless I can push it reasonably. People will complain no matter what, and this goes for consoles, too.

And some games just straight up run like hot garbage on console but alright on PC. Just Cause 3 runs fairly decently for me but it took a ram upgrade to become fully stable.

[PlayStation 2]

16 minutes ago, MasontheDeathbat said:

And some games just straight up run like hot garbage on console but alright on PC. Just Cause 3 runs fairly decently for me but it took a ram upgrade to become fully stable.

Just Cause 3 is a strange case of the physics engine being too CPU bound. JC3 is not really built to use eight cores well, so a good quad core would run the game at far higher bounds than something like the Xbox One.

[Taja]

Ultra is stupid, no exceptions. I have seen multiple SIDE TO SIDE comparisons, in different games, both in vídeo and on screenshots, and high vs ultra is barely noticeable - if noticeable at all. Ofc one or another setting can be noticeable, but running EVERYTHING ultra and calling that baseline is bullshit.

 

It make it seens like a 1060 cant run a game decently in 1080p, when in reality it can run it pretty good even on 1440p (like 1440p medium runs better than 1080p ultra, or 1080p ultra gets 40 fps but on high it gets 75 fps.)

 

[Veninblazer]

9 minutes ago, Taja said:

Ultra is stupid, no exceptions. I have seen multiple SIDE TO SIDE comparisons, in different games, both in vídeo and on screenshots, and high vs ultra is barely noticeable - if noticeable at all. Ofc one or another setting can be noticeable, but running EVERYTHING ultra and calling that baseline is bullshit.

 

It make it seens like a 1060 cant run a game decently in 1080p, when in reality it can run it pretty good even on 1440p (like 1440p medium runs better than 1080p ultra, or 1080p ultra gets 40 fps but on high it gets 75 fps.)

 

Exactly. "but I need my 8X antialiasing in Deus Ex or it's a poor port" says the enthusiast with a bottomless wallet

[Praesi]

There are Frames below 60? 0_o