Oh boy, here I go again…A soapbox rant.

I saw some YouTube videos and articles complaining about how The Outer Worlds 2 has poor performance with Ray Tracing on, followed by how it has poor performance at 4K, it’s set me off but also, come on PC Gamers, you’re smarter than this! 

*Pulls out my soapbox*; stop trying to play games at 4K, your buying into the bullshit that you need it, you don’t, no ones does! It’s a resolution increase designed to sell products, products that cannot actually deliver our desired fidelity at said resolution.

Let’s put some numbers it in car terms, in this analogy 150 is 1080p and 200 is 4K, it’s not perfect but let’s roll with it, I am sure it is something we can all understand if not relate to, sort of.

The Analogy

Getting a car to 150MPH (240+ KPH) is not too hard, however getting from 150 to 200MPH (321+ KPH) is very hard, very hard on resources and very expensive. Not to get too technical, because I can’t, the drag coefficient of air increases exponentially the faster you go, it requires roughly 8 times the power that you needed to get from 0 to 100MPH (160 KPH), so at a rough estimate it needs about 6 times the power to get to 200 that you just spent to get to 150. Rough and ready I know but I am trying to make a point not teach engineering. 

It is a similar story for the 1080p to 4K jump and it just doesn’t warrant the loss of FPS and cost in power needed, I have personally said for years the highest you need to go is 1440p as its power requirements vs fidelity is a happy medium and in most games you don’t need Antialiasing; however and honestly, 1080p should be your goal, it looks great and plays great, does not need all the resources in the world and you can add in loads of effects.

Worse case you get some jaggies, the lines at the edges that look jank, but just add some MSAA, not FXAA, TAA, SSAA or any other acronym as they soften the image and add blur, MSAA does a great job and was only shifted aside because it was heavy on resources back in the day, not so with modern cards. Anyway, now it’s more beautiful, you can have high fidelity, high FPS, low lag, smooth gaming and many fun times, not hitching, stuttering and most importantly cheaper hardware that last longer.

Who’s at fault then?

If Gamers had said no thanks Nvidia, AMD, Intel, we are happy with 1080p (or even 1440p), what were they going to be able to sell us their next graphics cards for? I mean what would you need exponential leaps in power for exactly? Why would you need the next big card if the previous generation could do it all at upto a max of 1440p? You wouldn’t and card manufacturers would actually have to add useful features that impacted fidelity instead of higher resolutions, Ray Tracing, Upscaling and so on. They could have focused on adding say…AI in for actually improving AI in NPC’s, we could well have seen Nvidia’s ACE (Avatar Cloud Engine) implemented sooner and on cards, or who knows what else.  

Further more what we’re monitor manufacturers going to sell you their next monitor to do if there previous models could do it all at 1440p? It starts to get a little tinfoil hat time here but think about what a business is about, milking us, the consumer, for all we are worth and so how best to do that? Convince us we need more POWA, we all fall for it too. 

So here we are, duped into believing “You need 4K”, but the cards sold to deliver it could not deliver on the promises and so the graphics cards manufacturers had to invent AI Upscaling to run games at these higher resolutions and thus the AI revolution began which now means they can sell us more new cards with minimal power increase (I’m looking at you 5090) to standard rasterisation but have better AI Upscaling. 

and so what we are left with is what feels very much like a massive step back in technology and games with the shitty fuzzy looking images that smear, blur and look funny all because some twat decided that to sell their cards they needed us to believe we needed to play at 4K but then to play at high FPS we needed AI Upscpaling, I mean if it wasn’t so despicable it would be brilliant.

The AI revolution

Or conning us into buying upgrades we don’t need… 

These AI Upscaling techniques have led to has led to lazy implementations and sub optimal, uh, oops, optimisation because Devs don’t have the time to develop their games for the length of time they need to. I can hear you asking why, so here goes; gamers demand games quicker and share holders want a return on investment in less time which leads to games that are sped through the development pipeline. This leads to cuttings corners, doinmg the minimum in certain areas such as, oh I dunno, optimisation say, it is then left to upscaling to pick up the slack. This does not mean Devs want to deliver the products they are doing, I mean maybe some don’t care but I doubt it, it means the people holding the purse strings want to milk us and make as much profit as possible as quickly as possible. 

Add Ray Tracing into the mix and the situation gets exponentially worse, I mean come on, of course Ray Tracing is going to kill performance it requires idiotic resources! If you look at where true Ray Tracing comes from, look at what it needs to power it’s delivery, were we ever going to see it work well. Now I get true Rayu Tracing is not the same implementation we have in gaming but it’s still immensely resource heavy in both instances!

Anyway, I digress, where were was I? Ah, combing 4K and Ray Tracing…well you’re in for a bad time that’s for sure, yet we are sold the idea that the top of the line cards from NVIDIA can do it all, high resolution, ultra settings and high FPS, absolute tosh, garbage, bollocks, lamentable terminological inexactitude! But is it really 100% their fault and only their fault? Is it that simple?

Great Expectations, too great.

Going back to The Outer Worlds 2; the blame that is being levelled at Unreal Engine 5 and Devs (not being able to optimise it) is not 100% fair for either party; new engines take time to learn but see the aforementioned demands of Games and shareholders. Sure there is blame to be laid at the feet of the engine and developers/publishers but only as much as is to be laid at the feet of Graphics Card, Monitor and even CPU manufacturers, but I guess answering the question from the previous section the issue/blame falls back to unreasonable expectations of gamers and the pressure from shareholders. 

Though I would argue it is the expectations of the shareholders and their demands to make a quick buck without understanding the industry that causes most harm. Even the industry has come out and said this recently, though admitting this has not changed anything, yet.

Wrap it up Raz. 

We can see how the expectations of gamers have been manipulated by graphics card manufacturers needing to sell more cards more often with “features” that games don’t need to make them look good. We see how we have been led astray, right?  

I mean why did we not stick to mere mortal resolutions, screen space lighting and reflections that look amazing, it would have given Devs the opportunity to better implement those features, to develop new rasterisation techniques that improve fidelity while maintaining 1080p or 1440p at high FPS. It would have let card manufacturers and Devs work together to deliver needed features on hardware, out of software to give more freedom to continue to improve fidelity without adding blury and fuzzy looking graphics, bring back the sharpness to gaming we had before 4K and AI upscaling!! 

If I am wrong and Ray Tracing and 4K are not marketing tools to sell cards why did upscaling need to be invented to bring back good frame rates, no I’m not talking stupid frame rates, I mean we don’t need the silly high numbers people say we do, 60FPS is just fine, sure 120 is a nice to have but it’s not really needed outside of eSports.

Divisive

I get this is just my opinion, I imagine some of you will agree with me, a lot of you though will probably scream I am wrong or I am saying this because I have low end hardware but I just want to point out I am a graphics whore, go check out my specs! I love things to look good, not in some photo realistic way mind you, I want them to stand out, have a great feel but I also want them to run at a solid FPS with great FX. I want that from my games, I want that for other people, for PC gamers and console gamers alike but not at stupid resolutions with Ray Traced lighting, Shadows and Reflections, sure nice to have when we can do them without FPS drops but not needed.

The solutions we had prior to these were just absolutley fine, looked incredible, did not impact FPS and considering how most of us game are indistinguishable from the more impactful solutions. I dare say they would look even better had they had time to mature too, I mean look at Echoes of the End, just look at it, it’s beautiful and no Ray Traced anything in sight.

I guess what I am trying to say is wind your necks in, dial back your expectations stop listening to marketing hype, bring your gaming resolution to 1080p (or max 1440p) and let game Devs have the time to bring their optimised product to market. I mean if you really want to game at stupid resolutions, at least expect sub 60 FPS because it is just not right to scream about games engines being shit, Devs being crap or whatever else you all scream about just because you brought into the hype from Graphics Card Manufacturers that you have to game at 4K, 8K or whatever other bollocks they try to sell you.

While were are at it, stop listening to YouTubers and Streamers who sensationalise stories to add clicks, a lot of them are just trying to make money off you by making things sound 10 times worse than they are without telling you all the facts! I know there are plenty YouTubers and Streamers (I am one of them) out there who will be honest and upfront, who will tell you everything you need to know but there are those that just want your clicks for the money then make off them.

Be decerning, be clever, roll back your expectations, stop being so entitled and help the industry, I mean they succeed, you get great games, games that dont’t get cancelled and studios stay open. Help us get rid of the real problem lurking in the shadows, the shareholders, these people just want to invest, make money and get out, consiquences be damned. The only people who can effect change is us, the gamers, not by screaming at the wrong people but by voting with your wallet and vocally providing constructive feedback. 

Cheers, Raz.

GPU Workload: A 4K screen has 3840 x 2160 pixels, while a 1080p screen has 1920 x 1080 pixels. This means the GPU must render over eight million pixels per frame at 4K, compared to just over two million at 1080p, resulting in substantially higher power draw when uncapped.

Hardware Requirements: To achieve a similar performance (frame rate) at 4K as at 1080p, you need a much more powerful, high-end GPU (e.g., an RTX 4070 or better, with a recommended power supply of at least 750W). In contrast, 1080p gaming can be handled by a mid-range or even older GPU with a lower power supply requirement.

Actual Power Consumption: When a GPU is pushed harder to render at 4K, it runs at higher frequencies and voltages, which increases its power consumption compared to running a less demanding 1080p workload.
System Components: The entire system needs to be more robust for 4K. While the CPU workload is largely dependent on the frame rate rather than resolution, high-end GPUs for 4K gaming require a capable CPU to avoid bottlenecking at high frame rates. The system also typically benefits from more RAM (e.g., 32GB recommended for 4K).

Display Power: The 4K monitor itself generally consumes more power than a 1080p monitor of the same size due to the need for a stronger backlight and more intensive processing for its increased pixel count and features like HDR. 

In short, a PC configured for 4K gaming will draw significantly more power under load than one configured for 1080p gaming, due to the substantial increase in graphical processing demand.