The constant chasing of performance

[pandora's box]

At what point do we say "Wait a minute...this is insane". I'm referring to the constant chasing of frame rate to match refresh rate. Also referring to ever increasing resolutions and the ideology of running games at "Max Settings". I think it's time we take a step back and say enough is enough and that 1080P or 1440P gaming is just fine, at least I am going to, and that running games at "High" settings is also just fine, instead of "Very High/Max"
I think we need to take a step back for a moment and ask ourselves if we really need 4K pc gaming monitors, multi-monitor setups, or upgrading video cards every 6-8 months. The cost to drive those kinds of setups is insane.

I recently sold off my 3440x1440 resolution monitor along with my 2nd GTX Titan X and have gone back to 2560x1440. I sold them due to a medical bill that was unexpected, but besides that it has really made me question this resolution race and the endless power struggle to have a PC capable of driving these crazy high resolutions and maxing out graphic settings in games. I look at my friends that are PC gamers and when I look at how often they upgrade to how often I was upgrading, the difference is staggering. I built my best friend a computer two years ago running a i7 3770K 8GB of RAM, and a GTX 780 3GB card. He games at 1080P. When I setup the rig I showed him GeForce Experience and how to optimize games using it. He's had no issue playing the latest games (Witcher 3, Crysis 3, Dragon Age, BF4...). Hell the 3770K is still running at stock clock speeds. I look at this and then look at what upgrades I have done in the past year two years. The amount of money I have dumped into getting to that magic 60fps number in games and chasing higher and higher resolutions is insane. It's amazing how well last generation hardware (7970 level) can run games at High settings. The difference in detail from "High" to "Max" is so miniscule in most cases (Texture Quality being one of the few exceptions). You pretty much can't tell the difference unless looking at screenshots side-by-side. I think one has to start questioning whether it's really necessary to dump $500 bucks on a top of the line graphics card every year to keep running games at "Max" settings. Especially when lowering settings down by one notch will usually allow you to run the game just fine.

I think one of the huge culprits to the upgrade bug is on screen overlays of frame rate. I turned it off last week and have found I am actually enjoying playing my games more. I'm not looking at that FPS number to make sure it's not dipping down to 50fps (the horror!).

I think Francis hits the nail on the head with this video about Fallout 4 and graphic quality vs gameplay. (Starts at 1:05)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjaoxw9VupE


I think the Witcher 3 is a prime example of what's wrong with gamers. The amount of rage about the graphics not being realistic and downgraded was just insane. We really need to start looking back at gameplay and stop with this more textures, more resolution, more realistic hair, more grass that grows in the wind. What's next? Watching the grass to see if it grows with time? Fallout 4 just takes it to the next level, the complaints in the comments for the trailer of people bitching about the graphics. We haven't even played the damned game yet!

 

[Nenu]

It depends how hard you are pushing the boundaries and whether that costs more than you are comfortable with.
Game technology and quality are improving all the time and result in lower framerate on older hardware.
Its just the way it is.

I'm happy staying with high framerate and image quality 1080p until 4K is more common, cheaper and better.
Not that I wouldnt like a nice 4K setup, but that its not worth the money/running costs for me.

 

[Hornet]

Well the thing is, we are no longer in 2D gaming era. In 3D gaming, it's about putting our self in that virtual, computer simulated world. Therefore, the quality of graphics adds to the immersion of a game. The more realistic the graphics are, the more we feel like we are really there in this virtual world.

There is a reason why the gaming community spends so much effort on modding games like Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 3, etc. There are mods out there that gives high quality HDR lighting effects to these games. Why do you think people go through all the trouble of modding their game to look better? Because it adds to the overall experience.

Gameplay and graphics are not mutually exclusive. Just because people want more immersive graphics, it doesn't mean you have to sacrifice gameplay. You can have both great graphics and gameplay to make a great game. While you need a good underlying mechanics for the game, you also need a good interface that can truly capture your audience's imagination to make the best of your mechanics.

When it comes to games like Witcher 3 and Fallout, graphics are actually even more important as they are the means of realizing the fantastic virtual open world the dev are trying to create. In these game, a huge part of it is about the world.

 

[cybrnook]

I am with you.... Although I seem to always cave when the new cards release, and this endorphin rush pushes me to "make the move". Even though I have no reason really to do so, In the past year, I have gone from 1 x 290x to 2 x 290x crossfire, to 2 x 295x2's (yes two), to 2 x 970's, to 2 980's, and now I have coming in the mail this week 2 x 980Ti's...... Ridiculous as even the first setup would be more than enough.

I do think the move to 4K is a bit premature, and hardware is not there yet. I still game at 1080p and I like it. Maybe because I am 33 and I sit about 3 ft. or so from my monitor, so 1080 is just nice and easy on my eyes, plus I still get 144hz. I am going to skip the 4K craze now and my next monitor will be the BenQ XR3501, which is a 2560 x 1080 monitor. The reason I am choosing the monitor is because it's 144hz, its vendor agnostic (no freesync, no gsync), has a nice wide screen and angled, as well is still 1080 so its realistic I can run it at 144FPS.

At that point, I think I am going to throw the flag in for a couple years (as I will be on SLI 980Ti's). I think the hardware we have out now (and have been saying it for a while) is more than enough to dominate the 1080p work-space. So the only reason to buy new hardware would be to push higher res's (1440 or 4K) which coincidentally work hand in hand with each other. (surely it's not a coincidence)

On the games side as well, yes I would have to think that with the partnerships Red and Green have with dev studios, and the whole "The way it's meant to be played" and "Gaming Evolved" that some of these features that are being rolled in, new tessellation technologies,new filtering methods, new hair effects etc..... are coded in a way that you will NEED something cutting edge to be able to turn on that "Ultra" check box.

 

[pandora's box]

Gameplay and graphics are not mutually exclusive. Just because people want more immersive graphics, it doesn't mean you have to sacrifice gameplay. You can have both great graphics and gameplay to make a great game. While you need a good underlying mechanics for the game, you also need a good interface that can truly capture your audience's imagination to make the best of your mechanics.

One could argue that game developers have to decide whether they focus more of the money allotted to a games development on improving a games story and gameplay mechanics or if they focus on improving the graphics. (Do you hire that extra graphic designer/3d modeler or do you hire a game level designer)

 

[Ducman69]

I think it's time we take a step back and say enough is enough and that 1080P or 1440P gaming is just fine

That's not going far enough! Think of the carbon footprint of these video games, not to mention the lack of vitamin D from playing indoors.

We all need to STOP this cycle and go back to pushing tires down the road with sticks. If it was good enough for my grandpappy, then its good enough for me!

Death to the demoness, Allegra Geller!

We really need to start looking back at gameplay and stop with this more textures, more resolution, more realistic hair, more grass that grows in the wind.

Yeah, except, no. Gameplay and graphics are NOT mutually exclusive entities, and a game can suck if either are lacking. If a game looks great but has mediocre gameplay, I'm going to bitch, especially if it was advertised with better gameplay. The same holds true for graphics, and in twenty years we will laugh at people that were even able to tolerate today's highest end quad-crossfire/SLI games. We only advance through pushing the envelope:

Of course remain within your budget, and don't get into a pissing match worrying more if your neighbor has something better than you, rather than actually even caring about how the game looks like. But that's completely different from bending over and accepting console level lowest-common-denominator graphics. And regarding Francis, he's a fake parody account not meant to be taken seriously, and the actor that portrays him is going to lose a foot to diabetus soon and has more important things to focus on.

 

[Yakk]

I was looking at 4K screens also, but ultimately decided against it right now. Any video card upgrade right now are stopgap measure anyways until enough performance is available to drive them properly.

I also see the FPS overlay plays a huge role in how people perceive their games. For years I've had a G19 and put all system info on the keyboard LCD so it's there if I want to see it, but at least I'm not distracted onscreen by that distracting FPS+ other info counter.

Last, but not least, is the huge amount of marketing drilling into people that they must upgrade for little, or no reason except.... Because.

Now waiting to see if real new tech like HBM will be a "Tic" upgrade, compared to all the "TOC & TOC & TOCs" we've had these last few years for video cards.

 

[txsizzler]

For me, I have halted at 1080p gaming. Using the "ultra" modes, with my aging x58 architecture (and my lovely gtx 980 reference), I find that there is little difference between 1080p, 1440p, or 2160p. This rig should last me several more years, and when it finally dies, will I upgrade again.

The only other thing I want now, is a decent SSD for this machine. Other than that, I am completely set.

Oh, and Fallout 4 looks DELISH. I am with the OP, and in this case I want the game to be mesmerizing in the gameplay department. Hell, when Fallout 3 was released (2008?), it had an outdated gaming engine already (using an updated Oblivion engine, no less). Yet, it was one of the best games of the decade.

Good post, OP. Hopefully, this will get some people thinking.

 

[SpeedyVV]

What? You guys buy hardware so you can play games?

I just play games as an excuse to justify my insane thirst for hardware!

 

[Quix]

I've always been about price/performance ratio. I'm not spending a 100% more on hardware that's only 20% faster. Hardware like the Titan series has always been a total rip-off because by the time the software comes around that requires that level of hardware the $200 cards can all manage it. I don't upgrade my hardware until I run into something that doesn't run well. Right now I've still got an overclocked 2500k and 2x Radeon 280x that I originally bought for bitcoin mining and they'll run anything I want to play at 1080p and max settings. I know I'll need more hardware for 4k, which I will eventually buy, but not until I can get a monitor with 4K support, adaptive v-sync and an IPS or PLS panel for a half-decent (< $500) price. I'm perfectly fine with 24" and 60hz.

There is no point at all upgrading hardware until you run into a wall with a piece of software. I'm pretty sure Fallout 4 will run just fine on my current hardware, but if it doesn't... then it's upgrade time. I honestly still can't believe I'm still using this 2500k, I bought it as a stop-gap solution 4 years ago.

P.S. Titans are stupid. As are processors costing > $500.

 

[Ducman69]

There is no point at all upgrading hardware until you run into a wall with a piece of software.

Well, except like you said, unless you decide to upgrade monitors.

If you want say 3x 1080p displays or worse 3x 1440p screens for eyefinity, that's actually considerably more pixels than 4K now, and it takes beast mode hardware to do that.

I upgraded my GPUs when I went with a 3K monitor (21:9 ultrawide 1440p screen).

Compared to most of my friend's hobbies with airplanes, boats, racing, and heck even RC racing, gaming is cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeap as hell! If you spend $1000 a year on GPUs alone, which most I think will agree is way overkill, that's nothing compared to $250 just in hangar fees a month, lol! Heck, even just biking, my buddy bought a carbon fiber ultra-light roadbike for $6.5K, when to me my $900 used bike functions just fine for what I want to do. Whats affordable for each person, and how enthused they are about their chosen hobby which kinda decides how much of their disposable income they push towards it, is obviously an individual decision everyone has to make for themselves. If the better toy brings you more enjoyment, then by all means! If you feel like you're wasting your money with the toys, then yup, you definitely are, because its entirely subjective and based on your personal wants. Some peeps that already HAVE the nice toys want to see their favorite titles of yester-year actually be able to utilize them to their fullest, so that's why you see the bitching when some games are intentionally downgraded in order to make the consoles not seem so bad.

 

[SilverSliver]

Well, except like you said, unless you decide to upgrade monitors.

If you want say 3x 1080p displays or worse 3x 1440p screens for eyefinity, that's actually considerably more pixels than 4K now, and it takes beast mode hardware to do that.

I upgraded my GPUs when I went with a 3K monitor (21:9 ultrawide 1440p screen).

Compared to most of my friend's hobbies with airplanes, boats, racing, and heck even RC racing, gaming is cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeap as hell! If you spend $1000 a year on GPUs alone, which most I think will agree is way overkill, that's nothing compared to $250 just in hangar fees a month, lol! Heck, even just biking, my buddy bought a carbon fiber ultra-light roadbike for $6.5K, when to me my $900 used bike functions just fine for what I want to do. Whats affordable for each person, and how enthused they are about their chosen hobby which kinda decides how much of their disposable income they push towards it, is obviously an individual decision everyone has to make for themselves. If the better toy brings you more enjoyment, then by all means! If you feel like you're wasting your money with the toys, then yup, you definitely are, because its entirely subjective and based on your personal wants. Some peeps that already HAVE the nice toys want to see their favorite titles of yester-year actually be able to utilize them to their fullest, so that's why you see the bitching when some games are intentionally downgraded in order to make the consoles not seem so bad.

PC gaming as a hobby is cheap, even on the high end. 4k display and two Ti for me is a good value for the enjoyment I get. I shoot sporting clays, for example. My over/under was ~$1600, and the stuff that went with it another $300 to $500 or so. Then, it costs me $100 a week or so if I shoot twice a week. I have plenty of friends I shoot with that spent $5000 to $10000 on a gun, shoot 4 times a week and even bought a $15000 4 wheel to drive between stations.

There are levels of investment to any hobby.

 

[Elmy]

I think upgrading hardware also equates to how much income one person makes. Depends on your dependents and bills you may have. There are so many factors on what is worth what in each persons eyes. A Single 30 year old living in a 600.00 1 bed apt making 60K a year probably can afford a lot more than A Married 30 year old living in a house with a mortgage of 1,500.00 a month and 2 kids that also makes 60K a year.

What you can afford is so dependent on so many factors that its different for every person.

Some people that can't afford Titan X's come on this forums and try knocking people that buy 2 or 3 of them telling them that its a waste. That same person if they won the lottery would probably be doing the same thing themselves.

 

[w00t69]

Well, except like you said, unless you decide to upgrade monitors.

If you want say 3x 1080p displays or worse 3x 1440p screens for eyefinity, that's actually considerably more pixels than 4K now, and it takes beast mode hardware to do that.

I upgraded my GPUs when I went with a 3K monitor (21:9 ultrawide 1440p screen).

Compared to most of my friend's hobbies with airplanes, boats, racing, and heck even RC racing, gaming is cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeap as hell! If you spend $1000 a year on GPUs alone, which most I think will agree is way overkill, that's nothing compared to $250 just in hangar fees a month, lol! Heck, even just biking, my buddy bought a carbon fiber ultra-light roadbike for $6.5K, when to me my $900 used bike functions just fine for what I want to do. Whats affordable for each person, and how enthused they are about their chosen hobby which kinda decides how much of their disposable income they push towards it, is obviously an individual decision everyone has to make for themselves. If the better toy brings you more enjoyment, then by all means! If you feel like you're wasting your money with the toys, then yup, you definitely are, because its entirely subjective and based on your personal wants. Some peeps that already HAVE the nice toys want to see their favorite titles of yester-year actually be able to utilize them to their fullest, so that's why you see the bitching when some games are intentionally downgraded in order to make the consoles not seem so bad.

3x 1080p screens is less pixels than 4k, just a little fyi

4k is called 4k for a reason. It's 4 times the size of 1080p. Now 3x 1440p screens on the other hand. Considerably more pixels than 4k.

 

[Syn247]

Every person needs to find a point where they feel comfortable with their setup for the amount of money they are willing to spend.

Using myself as an example, in the last two years I have experienced significant personal income growth and a side effect has been that I am now constantly looking for the next big upgrade (which I've always done, albeit less frequently).

The difference now is that I can essentially buy whatever PC part(s) I want, but I still keep myself in check because for a while there I was finding myself upgrading a major component once every 4-6 weeks, then spending an inordinate amount of the little free time I've got in tweaking the setup rather than actually playing games.

I have settled on a 2560x1440 setup with an Acer XB270HU. G-sync works wonders for the 40-80fps range and this resolution is high enough for a decent amount of multitasking for productivity purposes. I am unwilling to move to 4k due to the multitude of compromises at this time. To me, 4k will become viable when someone can 1) buy a 4k IPS 144hz G-Sync/Freesync monitor for under $650, and 2) power said monitor with a single GPU solution at >100fps on maxed settings in the most demanding/current game(s) on the market. This is a tall order in today's world, impossible for even quad-SLI Titan X setups on current games. So I will be content with my 1440p gaming for now.

 

[rive22]

Personally I think we are just getting started. Video cards are just now getting good. My idea of true gaming is a lot more than 3 monitors. In the future I fully expect to setup a 15 screen gaming rig. 9 in the front and 3 angled on each side. And that's just the near future.

 

[cageymaru]

Personally I think we are just getting started. Video cards are just now getting good. My idea of true gaming is a lot more than 3 monitors. In the future I fully expect to setup a 15 screen gaming rig. 9 in the front and 3 angled on each side. And that's just the near future.

Completely open VR headset with 1 GPU per eye and the little GPU on the CPU doing some background calculations. Think of a pair of Oakley glasses that make 3D objects within your home.

 

[Nauseous]

when you cant justify paying for the top end stuff to run cutting edge graphics. When "good enough" comes over that need to stay bleeding edge. <-- when you get to this point you answered your own question.

 

[Bigc208]

I run a dedicated rig for flightsims. Three 30 inch monitors at 8080x1600. I had it running on two gtx680s and switched to three 970's last fall. The 970's are such a good bang for the buck and run a solid 60fps. I was one click away from ordering three 980ti but walked away when I realised that my current setup can last me another year. By then hopefully there will be another bang for the buck solution. $1000 for three 970's, $2000 for three 980ti's or $3000 for three Titan X. Whole lot more dough for relatively not that more performance in a flightsim setting.

 

[BroHamBone]

Personally I think we are just getting started. Video cards are just now getting good. My idea of true gaming is a lot more than 3 monitors. In the future I fully expect to setup a 15 screen gaming rig. 9 in the front and 3 angled on each side. And that's just the near future.

Someone probably said the same thing when LCDs came out

Now, we arw on a different level. If VR without the dizziness takes off, thats another "just getting started". Next will be holograms.

 

[TekRok]

Personally I think we are just getting started. Video cards are just now getting good. My idea of true gaming is a lot more than 3 monitors. In the future I fully expect to setup a 15 screen gaming rig. 9 in the front and 3 angled on each side. And that's just the near future.

The fact that software is beyond unoptimized these days, is whats going to hold things back. If game companies actually took their time to optimize their codes, physics, and graphics in general you wouldnt need insane hardware to get decent numbers. Seeing how majority of software is still x86, and doesnt even take advantage of multiple cores, well you do the math.

 

[Rizen]

Gaming is my hobby. I have no kids, make a lot of money, and my girlfriend is a big gamer too. I don't really see a problem with spending my money on video cards, monitors, and other gaming related products, considering how much we use them. In fact, gaming is in reality a fairly cheap "adult" hobby.

The people who are going way overboard about graphics downgrades, and other game-related complaints - yes, they are mostly internet reactionaries and it annoys me too. But I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the pursuit of performance. In fact, I think the barrier to entry being so low now - you can build a complete gaming PC that will push 1080p on high settings in most games for ~$500 - has been a huge boon to PC gaming. Look how many more games we are getting recently, from genres and publishers that were never on PC, like JRPGs. So people who don't want to invest too heavily still get an experience that is largely better than a console, while people who are willing to invest more get an even better experience. It's a much cheaper market now than when I was in high school playing Quake 3 at 20fps because that's the best I could afford.

 

[Syn247]

Gaming is my hobby. I have no kids, make a lot of money, and my girlfriend is a big gamer too. I don't really see a problem with spending my money on video cards, monitors, and other gaming related products, considering how much we use them. In fact, gaming is in reality a fairly cheap "adult" hobby.

The people who are going way overboard about graphics downgrades, and other game-related complaints - yes, they are mostly internet reactionaries and it annoys me too. But I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the pursuit of performance. In fact, I think the barrier to entry being so low now - you can build a complete gaming PC that will push 1080p on high settings in most games for ~$500 - has been a huge boon to PC gaming. Look how many more games we are getting recently, from genres and publishers that were never on PC, like JRPGs. So people who don't want to invest too heavily still get an experience that is largely better than a console, while people who are willing to invest more get an even better experience. It's a much cheaper market now than when I was in high school playing Quake 3 at 20fps because that's the best I could afford.

Agreed on the reduced barrier to entry. It's easy to forget how much more it cost "back in the day" to have a solid gaming setup. The floor for a PC build with just 'average' gaming performance in the mid-late 2000s was around $800-1000, whilst now as you said you can get a 1080p setup for around $500 and even run some games at high/max settings.

 

[Rizen]

The fact that software is beyond unoptimized these days, is whats going to hold things back. If game companies actually took their time to optimize their codes, physics, and graphics in general you wouldnt need insane hardware to get decent numbers. Seeing how majority of software is still x86, and doesnt even take advantage of multiple cores, well you do the math.

This is less and less true as of late. Most games designed for PS4/XB1/PC are all built around multicore processors and designed to be heavily multithreaded. This is primarily because the consoles have 8-core x86 AMD CPUs, which need to be multithreaded well in order to perform since the Jaguar cores are clocked low (1.6GHz and 1.8GHz) and are individually quite weak. This should actually benefit PC gaming quite a bit.