The state of gaming (really has me bummed out)

Zarathustra[H]

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With risk of sounding like an old fart (even though 40 is supposedly the new 30) I have to admit, the state of gaming has me somewhat bummed out.

Earlier today I was subtly probing my stepson (so there wouldn't be any spoilers) about how he felt about the performance of his PC. I wanted to figure out if maybe an upgrade of some sort was in the cards for the holidays.

His machine is not terrible by any means...

(It's an AMD Ryzen 7 3800xt in an aging MSI B350 Tomahawk board with a GeForce 2060 Super)

He has a G-Sync Compatible / Freesync2 1440p screen that seems fairly decent, and I was concerned he may not be getting decent performance out of it at 1440p.

To my surprise he seemed completely uninterested in any upgrades at all, and thought his PC was perfectly fine for what he does.

Remembering my own youth, and the constant clamoring for newer and faster hardware, even immediately after the last upgrade, I found this odd, so I sought clarification.

So he told me all he plays are competitive titles, and in just about every one of those competitive titles you are at a disadvantage if you don't have all settings at minimum. Shadows, extra foliage, etc. etc. It gets in the way, and hurts your ability to do well. So, the first thing he does in every title is turn every single setting to minimum, and when he does, there is barely a single title that doesn't run really fast.

I used to play competitive titles. I was totally addicted to the original Counter-Strike three years in college from 2000-2003. Yes, winning was fun, but I also remember thinking how awesome it was when Source came out, and all the graphics were improved.

Even as recently as the summer of 2017 when PUBG was still Early Access, I remember thoroughly enjoying how it would bring my Titan to it's knees at 4k, and yes, I still won me several chicken dinners. After not playing the game for a few years (while fun, the formula got old quickly, especially after getting good enough to repeatedly either win or make it to the top 3) I reinstalled it just to check out the new maps (last time I played there was only one) and I hated it.

The game had dumbed down mobile game graphics and was thus completely uninteresting to me.

I guess I just find this really depressing. Like, if you are just going to play with shitty graphics, what is even the point of playing on a PC at all? Buy a cheap android phone and just play with the plebs.

I don't play competitive titles much anymore, as I find playing them in the lootbox/streaming era just annoys me more than anything else, but I wish game studios would do something about this. Maybe instead of matchmaking just based on skill, also doing so based on graphics settings? If you have a large enough player base this should work, and it will allow people to stay competitive without removing all the foliage to see better.

Because that shit is just depressing.

Old man out.
 
I'm old enough to remember when setting a large positive LOD bias was a thing until games started considering that cheating. That was back in the late 90s-early 00s. People turning down graphics to the complete detriment of the aesthetics for any conceivable advantage has been a thing for decades. People even run 4:3 or 5:4 resolutions stretched out on their 16:9 display because they believe having wider pixels give them a bigger advantage than a wider horizontal FOV. In my own subjective experience, nothing gives you an advantage like a consistent framerate and low ping. Graphic detail matter very little.
 
I'm old enough to remember when setting a large positive LOD bias was a thing until games started considering that cheating. That was back in the late 90s-early 00s. People turning down graphics to the complete detriment of the aesthetics for any conceivable advantage has been a thing for decades. People even run 4:3 or 5:4 resolutions stretched out on their 16:9 display because they believe having wider pixels give them a bigger advantage than a wider horizontal FOV. In my own subjective experience, nothing gives you an advantage like a consistent framerate and low ping. Graphic detail matter very little.

Yeah, those people always existed, but they were the exception, not the norm, and I even banned some on the servers I ran, when I found out they would go use undocumented console settings to turn off graphical details to gain an advantage.

My philosophy was that it should be all skill. If you are using anything but your own actual in game skill to try to get an advantage, that should probably be considered hacking, and be a bannable offense.

Now it seems like the environment is "either minimize everything or you aren't competitive" so just about everyone does it, and it just ruins the games.
 
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its hard to justify an upgrade when your video card is nearly as fast as a high-end console ( and has the same CPU)

i cant tell the difference between 1440p upscale-ed and 4k native on my lg b7 65, so I'm hurting on my htpc running a 1060 6gb, but its not absolutely killing me not having rt
 
Yeah, those people always existed, but they were the exception, not the norm, and I even banned some on the servers I ran, when I found out they would go use undocumented console settings to turn off graphical details to gain an advantage.

Now it seems like the environment is "either minimize everything or you aren't competitive" so just about everyone does it, and it just ruins the games.
I think the age of Web 2.0 (centralized social networks) has skewed your outlook, and it's reinforced by your own personal example. To be fair, I looked up for ways to gain advantage in online games at that age, too, without understanding what I was reading about. Now at 39 I think all this stuff is absolutely ridiculous in practice.
 
its hard to justify an upgrade when your video card is nearly as fast as a high-end console ( and has the same CPU)

i cant tell the difference between 1440p upscale-ed and 4k native on my lg b7 65, so I'm hurting on my htpc running a 1060 6gb, but its not absolutely killing me not having rt

The whole point of gaming on a PC used to be that even a mid-range PC absolutely demolished a console, and you got both better graphics and higher framerate.

(Well, that, and the fact that mouse+keyboard is a clearly superior form of control compared to a controller with stupid thumbsticks)

Now the kids are minimizing their graphics settings, and connecting controllers to their PC's. It makes me want to roll my eyes back into my skull...
 
The whole point of gaming on a PC used to be that even a mid-range PC absolutely demolished a console, and you got both better graphics and higher framerate.

(Well, that, and the fact that mouse+keyboard is a clearly superior form of control compared to a controller with stupid thumbsticks)

Now the kids are minimizing their graphics settings, and connecting controllers to their PC's. It makes me want to roll my eyes back into my skull...


when the vast majority of those games already run at 1440p 90-120 native,what's the point of aiming higher?

you have the benefit of having a flexible PC, bit in the end of the day. you're still playing UN-optimized console ports!
 
when the vast majority of those games already run at 1440p 90-120 native,what's the point of aiming higher?

you have the benefit of having a flexible PC, bit in the end of the day. you're still playing UN-optimized console ports!

Well, it's a chicken and egg problem.

I remember a time when even the most badass PC could barely hit 60fps at typical resolutions at medium settings. It gave us something to look forward to by cranking settings to high or very high when new hardware came out.

Game devs aren't trying hard enough today.

If they were a mid range GPU like a 3070 would target ~60fps at 1440p at high settings with AA, and a halo end GPU would target the same at 4k.

This would give users some flexibility. Want above 60fps? You can turn down quality a little.

It would also give users something to look forward to when newer hardware came out.

With the state of things right now, we are all living in a world of lowest common denominators, and it really sucks and takes the fun out of everything.
 
I think it's a different strokes kind of thing. I have friends (+ their kids) that do the same thing and are only interested in the maximum latency to get ahead in competitive games. Others, and myself, do the exact opposite and want the highest resolution, fidelity, and framerate. There's room for both. That said, I do find some of the completive game stuff to be needless. Unless you're competing at a very high level most of those things don't matter that much. For random joes playing 99% of titles casually online, that stuff doesn't matter that much if at all.
 
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With risk of sounding like an old fart (even though 40 is supposedly the new 30) I have to admit, the state of gaming has me somewhat bummed out.

Earlier today I was subtly probing my stepson (so there wouldn't be any spoilers) about how he felt about the performance of his PC. I wanted to figure out if maybe an upgrade of some sort was in the cards for the holidays.

His machine is not terrible by any means...

(It's an AMD Ryzen 7 3800xt in an aging MSI B350 Tomahawk board with a GeForce 2060 Super)

He has a G-Sync Compatible / Freesync2 1440p screen that seems fairly decent, and I was concerned he may not be getting decent performance out of it at 1440p.

To my surprise he seemed completely uninterested in any upgrades at all, and thought his PC was perfectly fine for what he does.

Remembering my own youth, and the constant clamoring for newer and faster hardware, even immediately after the last upgrade, I found this odd, so I sought clarification.

So he told me all he plays are competitive titles, and in just about every one of those competitive titles you are at a disadvantage if you don't have all settings at minimum. Shadows, extra foliage, etc. etc. It gets in the way, and hurts your ability to do well. So, the first thing he does in every title is turn every single setting to minimum, and when he does, there is barely a single title that doesn't run really fast.

I used to play competitive titles. I was totally addicted to the original Counter-Strike three years in college from 2000-2003. Yes, winning was fun, but I also remember thinking how awesome it was when Source came out, and all the graphics were improved.

Even as recently as the summer of 2017 when PUBG was still Early Access, I remember thoroughly enjoying how it would bring my Titan to it's knees at 4k, and yes, I still won me several chicken dinners. After not playing the game for a few years (while fun, the formula got old quickly, especially after getting good enough to repeatedly either win or make it to the top 3) I reinstalled it just to check out the new maps (last time I played there was only one) and I hated it.

The game had dumbed down mobile game graphics and was thus completely uninteresting to me.

I guess I just find this really depressing. Like, if you are just going to play with shitty graphics, what is even the point of playing on a PC at all? Buy a cheap android phone and just play with the plebs.

I don't play competitive titles much anymore, as I find playing them in the lootbox/streaming era just annoys me more than anything else, but I wish game studios would do something about this. Maybe instead of matchmaking just based on skill, also doing so based on graphics settings? If you have a large enough player base this should work, and it will allow people to stay competitive without removing all the foliage to see better.

Because that shit is just depressing.

Old man out.

Well I disagree with the trend of turning off all the graphics makes you better (it doesn't help or hinder me, in fact I personally like some of the settings in Warzone/CoD like Raytracing, as long as I can hit my FPS needs, I actually find it easier to spot people with many of the settings.

I don't play competitively, not that I don't play ranked, but that I don't care about my ranking and its just about having fun. That being said, I do play with some friends in Overwatch 1/2 that do take their rank seriously, turn all their settings to minimum, and run 240Hz displays. I often out score them at 144Hz with bells and whistles on.

I think its largely a myth, perpetuated by this idea of keeping up with the Jones', of course outside of some games where it is a design problem (PUBG was one, if you have grass and foilage on your screwed as they use way to much, so turning it off removes all visual obstructions).

There is also everyone's personal myth that they are the main character, they will win that tournament, and just need to knuckle down at the expense of fun. Screw that, I work for my win, I play for my fun.
 
Competitive gamers were always like that. Turning down smoke effects might make it easier to spot someone. Or disabling the bloom/HDR (think HL2 HDR) would make it easier to spot someone. That and high frame rates. Unless you're into actual competitive gaming, you can play just fine with all the settings turned up. Modern games don't have the range of graphics that old ones did anyways. A game at low and high used to be night and day. Almost like entirely different games. You seldom see that big of a contrast anymore.
 
Well I disagree with the trend of turning off all the graphics makes you better (it doesn't help or hinder me, in fact I personally like some of the settings in Warzone/CoD like Raytracing, as long as I can hit my FPS needs, I actually find it easier to spot people with many of the settings.

Maybe not in all titles, but definitely in some.

If you think you are behind the concealment of foliage in a game, but another user has disabled foliage, then you stand out like a fool, and are certainly giving the advantage to the person disabling things.

Or if you think you are taking advantage of the shadows in order to not be seen, and other players have disabled shadows....

You see where I am going. It's only a hop skip and a jump away from the good old hacks where they replaced the opposing player models with something large and colorful so it could always be seen, even when behind cover or concealment.
 
this why i bought my 1080ti to play pong at 1 quintillion fps! just stick to older games. the latest ray tracing? damn i might be dead before i afford GPUs that can play that, but i bought my 1080ti to play stuff like quake3area at fuktillion fps. i dont play modern stuff generally speaking.
 
Maybe not in all titles, but definitely in some.

If you think you are behind the concealment of foliage in a game, but another user has disabled foliage, then you stand out like a fool, and are certainly giving the advantage to the person disabling things.

Or if you think you are taking advantage of the shadows in order to not be seen, and other players have disabled shadows....

You see where I am going. It's only a hop skip and a jump away from the good old hacks where they replaced the opposing player models with something large and colorful so it could always be seen, even when behind cover or concealment.
Competitive games don't do that. Developers go out of their way to make sure that all graphical settings preserve strategic cover.
 
Competitive games don't do that. Developers go out of their way to make sure that all graphical settings preserve strategic cover.

I don't have much recent personal experience, but this definitely was not the case in 2017 with PUBG.

At the same time, if the solution is "remove fliage for everyone so that at least it is even", that's kind of a bummer too as that means we are eternally going to be limited by the lowest common denominator hardware, some due playing on a Dell laptop with Intel IGP graphics from 2007.

I would like to see "all in" graphical competitive titles.

Like, if you - in 2022 - don't have at least a GeForce 2070, don't even bother.

I don't understand why we constantly have to cater to people with potato-machines. They are holding the rest of us back.

In single layer titles it doesn't matter much. You can always crank up the quality on your own, but due tot he disparities noted above,m this falls apart in competitive titles.

I got into PC gaming in the 90's because of the ever increasing realistic graphics, and immersion. I remember sitting in awe through the 3DMark 2001 (which I always treated as more of a tech demo, and less of a benchmark) with its nature and Matrix style lobby shootout scenes and thinking "the games of the future are going to be so awesome".

Some titles are, but overall gaming has dropped the ball.

I guess I get it. The financial incentive is to sell to as many people as possible in order for the studio/publisher to make money, but damnit, if we just drop the stupid celebrity voice actors, cameos etc. that add zero value and just cost money, and instead focus on realism and immersion, I'm sure you can make a competitive game profitably without relying on people that have computers which perform at the same level of a mobile phone.
 
There has been plenty of advancement in graphics in single players games the past couple years to justify getting a 4090 or whatever the latest and greatest graphics card is. However, AI has not really advanced at all, probably by design. It gets very repetitive when you know what the AI will do and how to defeat it everytime so me and many other would rather play vs other people. Even playing on low settings, there is reason to upgrade so you can get 360 fps or better minimum fps. Going from a generic 144hz ips panel to a 360hz one and getting a lightweight mouse is a major upgrade. The advancement in monitors and computer mice I think in part due to the competitive gaming market has been significant over the past decade.
I love with pc games that we can change the settings to play what we desire, trying to force high end graphic settings in competitive games doesn't really make sense to me. You can just play at max settings and enjoy the eye candy.
 
"I don't understand why we constantly have to cater to people with potato-machines. They are holding the rest of us back."

It's just a mainstream portion of the gaming community that you're complaining about, it seems. That is what's new. Don't lump it all together maybe? It's not like the hardcore/passionate folks are gone now, it likely seems that way simply because it's relatively small in comparison.

Don't worry, you are not alone AT ALL. Progress is still being made. Graphically, it will feel slower and slower as we approach photo-realism, but you can't expect it any other way from a technical stand-point.
 
I'm old enough to remember when setting a large positive LOD bias was a thing until games started considering that cheating. That was back in the late 90s-early 00s. People turning down graphics to the complete detriment of the aesthetics for any conceivable advantage has been a thing for decades. People even run 4:3 or 5:4 resolutions stretched out on their 16:9 display because they believe having wider pixels give them a bigger advantage than a wider horizontal FOV. In my own subjective experience, nothing gives you an advantage like a consistent framerate and low ping. Graphic detail matter very little
Why would stretching out pixel give you an advantage? I ran FOV 140 in quake, it looked very trippy but basically meant you had eyes to the sides. But only for competitive gaming, which I have not participated in almost 20 years.
Don't worry, you are not alone AT ALL. Progress is still being made. Graphically, it will feel slower and slower as we approach photo-realism, but you can't expect it any other way from a technical stand-point.
There was a point when games become good enough looking for immersion. Any improvements after that seems incremental.

You think there was not much progress in graphics in the last 5 years, until you actually load up a 5 year old game and compare it to a new AAA title. At least for me my memory of 5-10 year old games is always much better looking than the actual game. If enough time passes since last playing a game eventually the memory will seem indistinguishable from reality. I've had huge shockers when loading old games. after not playing them for 5+ years.
 
Why would stretching out pixel give you an advantage? I ran FOV 140 in quake, it looked very trippy but basically meant you had eyes to the sides. But only for competitive gaming, which I have not participated in almost 20 years.
They believe that enemies occupying more space on the screen makes it easier to aim.
 
Why would stretching out pixel give you an advantage? I ran FOV 140 in quake, it looked very trippy but basically meant you had eyes to the sides. But only for competitive gaming, which I have not participated in almost 20 years.

There was a point when games become good enough looking for immersion. Any improvements after that seems incremental.

You think there was not much progress in graphics in the last 5 years, until you actually load up a 5 year old game and compare it to a new AAA title. At least for me my memory of 5-10 year old games is always much better looking than the actual game. If enough time passes since last playing a game eventually the memory will seem indistinguishable from reality. I've had huge shockers when loading old games. after not playing them for 5+ years.

In Counter-Strike they don't do it because it stretches it out, they do it because it has a lower FOV. In CS FOV is locked to aspect ratio. A 4:3 aspect ratio has a lower FOV than 16:9 in CS:GO.

The way high level CS plays is the vast majority of the time you're looking at a very specific small area. So being zoomed in makes it easier to aim. The disadvantage of seeing less of your surroundings is almost never an issue in CS.

It plays a lot different than quake.
 
I mean sure, there are competitive games out there that are like that, though I don't always believe it makes the difference people thinks it does, but that's hardly all of gaming. If you want an example of a game that loves GPU power and makes great use of it, Resident Evil Village is great. It uses ray tracing to great effect to enhance the already gorgeous visuals and in HDR it is simply stunning. It really is awesome, and the high dynamic range really enhances the creepy atmosphere (they did a good job of atmosphere) if you can throw a beast enough of a GPU at it. My 3090 does the trick well, can do 4k at over 60fps most of the time, only occasional dips. I wouldn't want to crank it on a mid range system though.

Competitive gaming is hardly the be-all, end-all of modern gaming and tends to have a bit of a toxic "I have to be the best even though I will never be the best," kind of atmosphere. There's lots outside of it though. If you want games that are a visual spectacle, we don't lack for them and they keep coming out.
 
You think there was not much progress in graphics in the last 5 years, until you actually load up a 5 year old game and compare it to a new AAA title. At least for me my memory of 5-10 year old games is always much better looking than the actual game. If enough time passes since last playing a game eventually the memory will seem indistinguishable from reality. I've had huge shockers when loading old games. after not playing them for 5+ years.
Yep and the other factor is our eyes (gamers and those paying attention) are getting better and better at distinguishing the differences, even though they may be more subtle than the difference between say PS1 and PS2 which I think is obvious to nearly anyone.
 
Everything feels pretty tired and worn out to me. Between the Twitch culture, Battle Royale clones, and cheating - I've lost a lot of interest in multiplayer gaming. Seems like communities for games I couldn't care less about are absolutely massive (many are free to play). Communities for games that interest me on the other hand are typically a lot smaller. It really just isn't the way it used to be.

I remember back in "the day", I could download a random Half Life 1 (or 2) mod and find a lively multiplayer community. Some examples: Natural Selection, Action Half Life, Vampire Slayer, Sven Coop, Frontline Force, Firearms, Science & Industry, Brainbread, "Pirates, Viking & Knights", Earth's Special Forces, Wanted!, Hidden:Source, etc.

These weren't some crappy mods that you played once or twice and uninstalled. You would get dozens or even hundreds of hours out of these.
Another example is Starcraft 1 and 2 offered similar value with their custom maps. Anyways we just don't have these juggernaut games with sprawling communities anymore. Gamers have been diverted to games that have non-existent modding possibilities but endless microtransactions. We don't have a Starcraft 3. We don't have Half Life 3. We don't have a successor to WoW. At best we have shallow imitations.We also have a bunch of shitty Battle Royale and Moba games flooded the market with an occasional diamond in the rough in-between.

Other than the occasional Binding of Isaac or DayZ, I've retreated back to retro gaming. Romhacks are pretty sweet.
 
This is how i feel, I remember wow came out, people were excited and everyone wanted play together, i dont know how it is now adays, I have done same as you and quit playing online games, i stuck to my lovely powerful Compaq armada 7700dmt play c&c, red alert and other classic games.

Its sad there is no half-life 3 and starcraft 3 and new warcraft RTS. I have been seeing mixed views and feelings from others about wow and how bad online games have gotten.

I guess i am old school gamer, where game should have good gfx and good gameplay, gaming companies are getting more greedy without making semi good game for online play.

To me FortNight whatever its called other games like this are reason gaming is not same. it seems me most gamers have lowered bar of gaming allowing gaming and companies get away with whatever.

simple logic, dont buy product for crazy price or game that charges arm and leg. i make company work for my money, same as i work for my customers make myself money.

I can tell you IRS and companies have so much open space and freedom, its unreal. I can write off $1000's dollars as parts and labor. there is not much you "cant write off.

so everyone saying business is losing money, People who run business wont let business loss money. business is printing money machines. I know i run business.
 
Like, if you - in 2022 - don't have at least a GeForce 2070, don't even bother.

I don't understand why we constantly have to cater to people with potato-machines. They are holding the rest of us back.
Even though I don't have the budget for top-end hardware I agree that it is good for the industry in general that games push the demand for faster hardware. That is clearly not happening when most Steam gamers are still buying GTX 1060's 6 years after the gpu was released. Stagnation is not good for the industry (gaming or hardware alike) and there is pretty significant evidence that this is happening.

In contrast, I remember the days on this forum back in 2004: Doom 3 was the game that killed most graphics cards. If you didn't have an enthusiast-class card or better you would basically be playing the game at 800x600. It was the same with PC Halo when it came out back in 2003: mainstream cards would not get you max visuals at a playable framerate at the most common medium resolution of the day (aka. 1024x768). Sure there was the odd AAA title like Half Life 2 that came out that was not graphically demanding but that was usually because of delays or something. There was this perception back then that AAA games needed to push hardware graphically and if they didn't that it was something undesirable about the game, itself. A game that was really graphically demanding with amazing visuals created this sort of anticipation post-release where people wanted hardware that would let them unlock the full potential of the game at its absolute max settings.
 
You think there was not much progress in graphics in the last 5 years, until you actually load up a 5 year old game and compare it to a new AAA title. At least for me my memory of 5-10 year old games is always much better looking than the actual game. If enough time passes since last playing a game eventually the memory will seem indistinguishable from reality. I've had huge shockers when loading old games. after not playing them for 5+ years.

Exactly. I've had this happen multiple times.
 
Competitive gamers were always like that. Turning down smoke effects might make it easier to spot someone. Or disabling the bloom/HDR (think HL2 HDR) would make it easier to spot someone. That and high frame rates. Unless you're into actual competitive gaming, you can play just fine with all the settings turned up. Modern games don't have the range of graphics that old ones did anyways. A game at low and high used to be night and day. Almost like entirely different games. You seldom see that big of a contrast anymore.
I still play BF Bad Company 2 on low settings on my new 34" ultrawide to get 100+ fps. I don't understand why people who play multiplayer FPS games need their settings set on max.
 
State of gaming now...hmmm.

PC Gamers these days seem much more entitled, confrontational and toxic compared to gamers of old. Back then, we made do with the PCs that we had while being amazed by the latest advancements in PC hardware and gaming graphics that we read about in the magazines/websites or tried out at a friend's house, net cafe, or lan party but we always had our expectations in check with what was attainable (and affordable) with the technology of the time. I had fond memories of when the 3DFX Voodoo 3D accelerator came out which I just admired from afar as an object of desire. lol

I never felt any pressure to upgrade to the latest and the greatest when I couldn't afford it nor felt any urgency to play the newest, graphically intensive games if my PC didn't meet the minimum requirements. Instead of complaining on the internet about it, as long as I played the games that I liked which ran well on my hardware, I was fine. If it didn't, I would at least put some effort in tweaking the settings or play new games on my friend's computer if I could. These days, with short attention spans and instant gratification and FOMO, there seems to be no room for that way of thinking anymore.

In those times when I did get to upgrade and got to play all those games I couldn't before gave me the one of the most gratifying feelings ever even if those games weren't exactly new anymore.
 
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I still play BF Bad Company 2 on low settings on my new 34" ultrawide to get 100+ fps. I don't understand why people who play multiplayer FPS games need their settings set on max.

I can play BF4 with 120+ frame rates with the settings turned up. BFBC2 is even less demanding. No reason to turn the settings down unless your PC is over a decade old.
 
State of gaming now...hmmm.

PC Gamers these days seem much more entitled, confrontational and toxic compared to gamers of old.
That's a narrative invented to demonize us. Many gamers in their 30s and 40s are the same people as your "gamers of old". When did we become toxic? In actual reality it is the developers / publishers and so called gaming journalists who are confrontational and toxic towards gamers. The developer / publisher just wants you to shut the fuck up and not complain about their latest egregious attempt at tertiary monetization, DRM and always online demands. The journalists often pre-emptively attack gamers based on fabricated narratives of racism and misogyny, while they constantly demand games to become easier and have "story modes". But they call it accessibility. They want games to be made for non-gamers, that's like demanding beer to change to cater to those who prefer wine. It is the height of narcisicm and entitlement to demand every game to be made accessible to them.

Back then, we made do with the PCs that we had while being amazed by the latest advancements in PC hardware and gaming graphics that we read about in the magazines/websites or tried out at a friend's house, net cafe, or lan party but we always had our expectations in check with what was attainable (and affordable) with the technology of the time.
That does not explain why do you think PC gamers are toxic now, and weren't then.
I had fond memories of when the 3DFX Voodoo 3D accelerator came out which I just admired from afar as an object of desire. lol
vs.
I never felt any pressure to upgrade to the latest and the greatest when I couldn't afford it nor felt any urgency to play the newest, graphically intensive games if my PC didn't meet the minimum requirements
You just said the Voodoo 3D was an object of desire, but you never felt any pressure to upgrade? C'mon, how is that not a blatant self contradiction?
Instead of complaining on the internet about it, as long as I played the games that I liked which ran well on my hardware,
IDK, I rarely if ever see people complaining about how poorly a game runs if it has the chops to back up it's hardware demand. Of course people will complaln if a game manages to simulaenously have higher demand and look worse than other games. In the 90s most games offered huge graphical leaps in exchange for their hardware requirements. Nowadays? Games can look two generations older while demanding next gen hardware, just check out Marvel's Midnight Suns. The game looks like Street Fighter V, but requires beefier hardware than cyberpunk 2077, an expansive awesome looking open world. But it is gamers who are toxic? I'm afraid not.
I was fine. If it didn't, I would at least put some effort in tweaking the settings or play new games on my friend's computer if I could. These days, with short attention spans and instant gratification and FOMO, there seems to be no room for that way of thinking anymore.
You forget that FOMO is exaggerated and prayed upon by greedy publishers, FOMO is the essence of always online games, with social aspects and time limited in-game events, that we didn't ask for, and I personally outright hate. How can you blame gamers for FOMO when games are being shut down left right and center, making even single player games unplayable, or some of their content inaccessible?
In those times when I did get to upgrade and got to play all those games I couldn't before gave me the one of the most gratifying feelings ever even if those games weren't exactly new anymore.
I have no problem with waiting for games, the problem is the publishers themselves who set unrealistic expectations. They set a date and then push it back 5 times, of course people get upset. Release dates are just bullshit made up to appease investors these days. Not actual realistic dates they know they can deliver a game by.
 
That's a narrative invented to demonize us. Many gamers in their 30s and 40s are the same people as your "gamers of old". When did we become toxic? In actual reality it is the developers / publishers and so called gaming journalists who are confrontational and toxic towards gamers. The developer / publisher just wants you to shut the fuck up and not complain about their latest egregious attempt at tertiary monetization, DRM and always online demands. The journalists often pre-emptively attack gamers based on fabricated narratives of racism and misogyny, while they constantly demand games to become easier and have "story modes". But they call it accessibility. They want games to be made for non-gamers, that's like demanding beer to change to cater to those who prefer wine. It is the height of narcisicm and entitlement to demand every game to be made accessible to them.
That does not explain why do you think PC gamers are toxic now, and weren't then.

I didn't look at it from the perspective of the media/developer/publisher or hardware vendor nor did I say it in their defense. I'm not at all against consumer disapproval of these companies' questionable business practices and they deserve the backlash for their failures. This is just about fellow gamer looking at the state of the gaming community at large. Compared to the 90's to the early '00s, look around the internet and you'll see a way more outrage and petty bickering between gamers about this and that. A pattern of unreasonable expectations driven by either entitlement, ignorance or an agenda. In fact, the way my statement seems to have hit a nerve is kind of telling. Everyone can speak their mind and give opinions but it's far more adversarial these days and getting the other side to agree or at least come to a middle ground on gaming issues are so much more far fetched.

You just said the Voodoo 3D was an object of desire, but you never felt any pressure to upgrade? C'mon, how is that not a blatant self contradiction?

It's kind of amusing how in this era of excessive consumerism, an object of desire is automatically interpreted as something one must have rather than something that can just also be admired without owning it. I guess I'll have to indulge you with more context. I felt no pressure because I simply didn't have the money to buy it. The Voodoo 3D got me really excited when it came out. I couldn't afford it at the time but that didn't stop me from getting awed by its technological merits reading about it and trying it out but not being able to afford one never made me feel all grumpy at 3DFX about it's price nor how the proprietary glide API prevented me from running those games on my PC or whatever. Yes, I was impressed with it but I didn't get all pissed because it was beyond my reach because I could still play other games with the PC I already had. Same thing happened when the Geforce 3 came out. I thought the bleeding edge programmable shaders were really cool and I wished I had one but I didn't bitch about missing out on those things just because my Riva tnt2 didn't have them nor did I go online just to complain about all the programmable shader tech demos and games that couldn't run on my card. I simply moved on and eventually got a card later on that could do all those things and more.

IDK, I rarely if ever see people complaining about how poorly a game runs if it has the chops to back up it's hardware demand. Of course people will complaln if a game manages to simulaenously have higher demand and look worse than other games. In the 90s most games offered huge graphical leaps in exchange for their hardware requirements. Nowadays? Games can look two generations older while demanding next gen hardware, just check out Marvel's Midnight Suns. The game looks like Street Fighter V, but requires beefier hardware than cyberpunk 2077, an expansive awesome looking open world. But it is gamers who are toxic? I'm afraid not.
I think we'll have to disagree on this one because there were a lot less computers per household before compared to now and many of those that had PCs likely didn't meet the recommended system requirements of the new games because PCs and PC parts were expensive factoring in inflation. Yet we managed to get by with actually having the patience of taking the time to tweak or to find ways to make it work, somehow. Games were developed by small teams and were often buggy too, and yes, complaints were made but in general, people seemed less inclined to engage in the viral or meme outrage (and in some extreme cases, harassment and outright threats) we see today and yet somehow it all worked out with us perservering. Days which I still look back on quite fondly.

As far as I can remember as a PC gamer, with every generation of hardware or graphics api, the technological advancement with increased complexity or feature sets have always gone hand in hand with increased demands on existing hardware or required new hardware. Since I was a kid, I've always believed that that ever since 3D graphics in PC games became a thing, real-time computer graphics rendering has been on the path to photo realism. With exception of a few extraordinary instances, the advances in graphical fidelity have mostly been incremental over the years with the software side lagging behind in the adoption and mastery of the latest graphics technologies so I'm not surprised why some people aren't impressed without even looking at the bigger picture and for sure, bias has something to do with it too. That said, just looking back at the last 10-15 years or so, we've actually come a long way, not just in graphical fidelity, but also in terms of performance. Man, I remember playing games at 15-30FPS back then and think about and compare that to the expectations people have how, complexities and all. If that isn't considered progress, than I don't know what is. I've seen this cycle of games and display technologies outstripping the capabilities of pc hardware and vice versa so many times that I've just learned to temper my expectations of my existing hardware whenever something new happens to come out.

You forget that FOMO is exaggerated and prayed upon by greedy publishers, FOMO is the essence of always online games, with social aspects and time limited in-game events, that we didn't ask for, and I personally outright hate. How can you blame gamers for FOMO when games are being shut down left right and center, making even single player games unplayable, or some of their content inaccessible?
My point about FOMO was not about about people who get caught in up the hype these companies peddle but those who always want to have the latest and the greatest hardware or be able to play the latest games at max settings but can't for one reason or another or are unwilling to put any effort in tweaking settings appropriate to the hardware and just feel bitter about it. They still get so pissed off even when it's free.

I have no problem with waiting for games, the problem is the publishers themselves who set unrealistic expectations. They set a date and then push it back 5 times, of course people get upset. Release dates are just bullshit made up to appease investors these days. Not actual realistic dates they know they can deliver a game by.
Not saying that we should stop complaining about it when it's warranted but I mean, it's not like we have to buy these games at gunpoint. We can still get a refund on steam fairly easily and we can still vote with our wallets to support devs/publishers who deserve it and not buy from those who wronged or failed us right? I never really cared much about hyped up AAA games that are rushed or delayed and end up still broken at launch, early access games, microtransactions, NFTs or whatever. I have always had low expectations of these and am generally indifferent to all the drama surrounding them because these are just games and I have other priorities in life.

Except for the occasional testing of games with interesting new tech or maybe a current multiplayer game that managed to draw me in, I have a backlog of games that I would rather play which more often than not, I bought on sale, already runs well on my hardware and have had at least most of the game breaking bugs patched out already.
 
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There's some easy fixes for this on competitive gaming, make higher quality show further render distances, lower quality foliage could mask people more than high quality, etc. But they'd never go for it, especially pubeG.
 
That's a narrative invented to demonize us. Many gamers in their 30s and 40s are the same people as your "gamers of old". When did we become toxic? In actual reality it is the developers / publishers and so called gaming journalists who are confrontational and toxic towards gamers. The developer / publisher just wants you to shut the fuck up and not complain about their latest egregious attempt at tertiary monetization, DRM and always online demands. The journalists often pre-emptively attack gamers based on fabricated narratives of racism and misogyny, while they constantly demand games to become easier and have "story modes". But they call it accessibility. They want games to be made for non-gamers, that's like demanding beer to change to cater to those who prefer wine. It is the height of narcisicm and entitlement to demand every game to be made accessible to them.

Yes. I will add that most developers, especially the ones that that comment on gamers, are some of the laziest people on the planet. Almost always the games they work on are trash and unfinished and bug riddled. Reminds me of the Battlefield developer who released the heap of shit called BF5 and got angry that people didn't buy it.

You forget that FOMO is exaggerated and prayed upon by greedy publishers, FOMO is the essence of always online games, with social aspects and time limited in-game events, that we didn't ask for, and I personally outright hate. How can you blame gamers for FOMO when games are being shut down left right and center, making even single player games unplayable, or some of their content inaccessible?

I hate this. It is becoming almost impossible to just play an online game. Want this new gun? Great, you have to play 10 hours worth a game mode you have zero desire to play. Otherwise next month you will have to buy it for $10. Enjoy your limited content while we charge full price and expect you to pay more money in macro transactions for more content.

And now they're pushing it into single player games where online has 0 place.
 
I don't have much recent personal experience, but this definitely was not the case in 2017 with PUBG.

At the same time, if the solution is "remove fliage for everyone so that at least it is even", that's kind of a bummer too as that means we are eternally going to be limited by the lowest common denominator hardware, some due playing on a Dell laptop with Intel IGP graphics from 2007.

I would like to see "all in" graphical competitive titles.

Like, if you - in 2022 - don't have at least a GeForce 2070, don't even bother.

I don't understand why we constantly have to cater to people with potato-machines. They are holding the rest of us back.

In single layer titles it doesn't matter much. You can always crank up the quality on your own, but due tot he disparities noted above,m this falls apart in competitive titles.

I got into PC gaming in the 90's because of the ever increasing realistic graphics, and immersion. I remember sitting in awe through the 3DMark 2001 (which I always treated as more of a tech demo, and less of a benchmark) with its nature and Matrix style lobby shootout scenes and thinking "the games of the future are going to be so awesome".

Some titles are, but overall gaming has dropped the ball.
12 Months ago, an RTX 2070 was $500 - $600. Basically double or a little over double, what that performance level should have been priced at in late 2021/early 2022. We just went through 2 years of insane supply shortage and insane pricing. This is why so many games right now, are "cross-gen" and not really pushing graphics very hard. People either couldn't afford the prices for even a decent GPU or products simply were not easily available.

On top of that, scaplers and retailers both made it even more complicated and difficult to purchase anything.

And now----the economy is bad. Food prices are way up. Gas prices are way up. Rent has risen in many areas. Car payments are way up. Its more difficult to afford a hardware upgrade or a new console. (although console bang-for-buck remains very good. You can get a a whole PS5 for the price of a 3060ti or 6750 xt.)

And new graphics cards are not properly replacing old ones and offering value. Instead, they are just priced higher. We really aren't doing any better right now, even though supply is pretty good. I don't expect many games to really push graphics hard, for a couple more years. Its pretty dire, right now.

I'm fine, though. Graphics are good enough. What really needs to stay better, are the games. Plenty of good games have been releasing. But there have been some high profile games which didn't really deliver, IMO.
And then we have something like Elden Ring, which delivered on gameplay and content: but was practically unplayable for many, at launch. And still has major stuttering issues, on all platforms.
 
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I didn't look at it from the perspective of the media/developer/publisher or hardware vendor nor did I say it in their defense. I'm not at all against consumer disapproval of these companies' questionable business practices and they deserve the backlash for their failures. This is just about fellow gamer looking at the state of the gaming community at large. Compared to the 90's to the early '00s, look around the internet and you'll see a way more outrage and petty bickering between gamers about this and that.
Gaming has become more normalized and accepted, so more people play games, also more people are on the internet. That's why there is more bickering. But I firmly believe that 90% of the bickering is generated from outside the gaming community, those who for some reason or other hate gamers, gaming, and what we represent. Now we are at a point where not only gaming journalists hate gamers, but some developers and many of their employees too. For example the saints row reboot is a bad imitation of a videogame, made by people who clearly only have a superficial understanding of games, and try to mimick features that they saw elsewhere. These are the same people who endlessly complain about gatekeeping, when in reality the lack of gatekeeping is what led us to this place. They say we excluded women from gaming, but I know for a fact that almost every nerd I've gone to school with would've been on the moon if there were just half as many girl nerds as there were guys.
A pattern of unreasonable expectations driven by either entitlement, ignorance or an agenda.
And what agenda would gamers have outside of wanting good games? Is it entitlement when I want quality meat at the butcher's shop or is it just a reasonable expectation? Is it entitlement that when I buy clothes I want them to last years and not become unwearable after the first washing? So then what makes wanting good games that are made by gamers for gamers entitlement? Funny you should mention agenda, because the only ones with the agenda are the people I mentioned above, who want to reform gaming (and are succeeding) to cater to their sensibilities disregarding those who were in the hobby since before they were even born, whose money and enthusiasm has made gaming such a large and successful industry that they laid eyes on it in the first place. If they can't have it, they'd be satisfied with destroying it too.
In fact, the way my statement seems to have hit a nerve is kind of telling. Everyone can speak their mind and give opinions but it's far more adversarial these days and getting the other side to agree or at least come to a middle ground on gaming issues are so much more far fetched.
You said gamers are toxic now. If you lob hand grenades at people don't act surprised if someone starts throwing them back at you.
It's kind of amusing how in this era of excessive consumerism, an object of desire is automatically interpreted as something one must have rather than something that can just also be admired without owning it.
Don't play coy, who in their right mind admires a gaming GPU from afar without wanting to own it? Unless you are not a gamer and would have no use for it, just admiring the engineering.
I guess I'll have to indulge you with more context. I felt no pressure because I simply didn't have the money to buy it.
Most people don't have the money to buy the latest GPU now all the same. So what made you better, than gamers of today? At the time of the voodoo the internet was barely in its infancy, there were no blogs, influencers, and big discussion boards, so the only people you could share your passion with was like minded people IRL.
The Voodoo 3D got me really excited when it came out. I couldn't afford it at the time but that didn't stop me from getting awed by its technological merits reading about it and trying it out but not being able to afford one never made me feel all grumpy at 3DFX about it's price nor how the proprietary glide API prevented me from running those games on my PC or whatever. Yes, I was impressed with it but I didn't get all pissed because it was beyond my reach because I could still play other games with the PC I already had. Same thing happened when the Geforce 3 came out. I thought the bleeding edge programmable shaders were really cool and I wished I had one but I didn't bitch about missing out on those things just because my Riva tnt2 didn't have them nor did I go online just to complain about all the programmable shader tech demos and games that couldn't run on my card. I simply moved on and eventually got a card later on that could do all those things and more.
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to believe you that you didn't have any desire to own the latest hardware. If that was true, you would not buy them even if you had the money for it. Would you say that honest to god, that you wouldn't have wanted a Geforce 3 or voodoo 1 when they were brand new, even if you had the money? And no dodging the question with "oh there would've been better ways to spend it".

Your explanation and context makes your position even more untenable.
I think we'll have to disagree on this one because there were a lot less computers per household before compared to now and many of those that had PCs likely didn't meet the recommended system requirements of the new games because PCs and PC parts were expensive factoring in inflation. Yet we managed to get by with actually having the patience of taking the time to tweak or to find ways to make it work, somehow. Games were developed by small teams and were often buggy too, and yes, complaints were made but in general, people seemed less inclined to engage in the viral or meme outrage (and in some extreme cases, harassment and outright threats) we see today and yet somehow it all worked out with us perservering. Days which I still look back on quite fondly.
It seems to me that you are just jealous that they have it easier now in your perception than we had it. Why does it bother you that gaming is more accessible and widespread now? I waited 2 years before I had a voodoo 1, that doesn't mean I want younger players now to also wait years to be able to play the latest games.
As far as I can remember as a PC gamer, with every generation of hardware or graphics api, the technological advancement with increased complexity or feature sets have always gone hand in hand with increased demands on existing hardware or required new hardware. Since I was a kid, I've always believed that that ever since 3D graphics in PC games became a thing, real-time computer graphics rendering has been on the path to photo realism. With exception of a few extraordinary instances, the advances in graphical fidelity have mostly been incremental over the years with the software side lagging behind in the adoption and mastery of the latest graphics technologies so I'm not surprised why some people aren't impressed without even looking at the bigger picture and for sure, bias has something to do with it too. That said, just looking back at the last 10-15 years or so, we've actually come a long way, not just in graphical fidelity, but also in terms of performance. Man, I remember playing games at 15-30FPS back then and think about and compare that to the expectations people have how, complexities and all. If that isn't considered progress, than I don't know what is. I've seen this cycle of games and display technologies outstripping the capabilities of pc hardware and vice versa so many times that I've just learned to temper my expectations of my existing hardware whenever something new happens to come out.
That's bitter old man talk. I'm happy for the progress that has been made, why would I want people to suffer the same way I did like playing F1GP2, at 15fps with low-medium graphics settings?
My point about FOMO was not about about people who get caught in up the hype these companies peddle but those who always want to have the latest and the greatest hardware or be able to play the latest games at max settings but can't for one reason or another or are unwilling to put any effort in tweaking settings appropriate to the hardware and just feel bitter about it. They still get so pissed off even when it's free.
Either you are looking at the wrong place, or hell bent on only seeing negativity.There are a few people who refuse to settle for lower graphics settings, and that makes all of gamers toxic now? If someone can afford the latest hardware, all the power to them, because I still can't, and gaming for me was always about compromises, but that doesn't make me jealous, and I don't want everyone to have it as bad as I did.
Not saying that we should stop complaining about it when it's warranted but I mean, it's not like we have to buy these games at gunpoint. We can still get a refund on steam fairly easily and we can still vote with our wallets to support devs/publishers who deserve it and not buy from those who wronged or failed us right? I never really cared much about hyped up AAA games that are rushed or delayed and end up still broken at launch, early access games, microtransactions, NFTs or whatever. I have always had low expectations of these and am generally indifferent to all the drama surrounding them because these are just games and I have other priorities in life.
You sound like the exact opposite of indifferent, indignant, bitter maybe, but certainly not indifferent.
 
Meh, they just may not be interested in it like you are?
My nephew i got him to build his first rig, he was hyped buying all the parts, but due to being impatient put it together, had some issues and got annoyed, got it all together in the end (we live opposite sides of the country) but then didn't say a thing about it after it was done. They change their minds and move on to other things.

But ya, I do not get excited about games any more, sure Diablo 4 looks good, but wont care until it comes out and we see what a steaming pile of buggy crap it is...

Being younger I was into tech and when I built my own first computer, PIII 533 system, i loved it and it got me where I am today...but for others a computer is just a tool..nothing more.
 
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