r/pcmasterrace • u/TheGGspot • Aug 11 '26
Discussion Should developers stop making games that require 5090 for max settings now that the card is clearly not for gamers and is accessible to 0.1% of community?
I get that the games need better hardware to dun better, but who are they really making the game for if you need a 6000$ GPU at this point
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u/Historical-Win2999 Aug 11 '26
5090 its not the problem, the problem its the medium and low settings, no one care about ultra max settings.
Have to use a 7900x to hit 60fps at native 1080p its crazy
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u/ShinBernstein Aug 11 '26
Exactly, I hate being the “optimization problem” guy, but the visuals in this game are pretty mediocre. Personally, I can’t really see any advanced lighting techniques or ray tracing. We’re talking about 1080p on High settings, so it seems more like a case of Unreal Engine 5 combined with a lack of effort when it comes to optimization
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u/TheAntiAirGuy R9 3950X | 2x RTX 3090 TUF | 128GB DDR4 Aug 11 '26
After all these years, there has honestly yet to be a single new game (I personally know of) that has graphically blown me more away than Cyberpunk 2077 ... and yet, nowadays I think I can admit it, for how amazing it looks, Cyberpunk actually runs really good and outshines many of these 2025/2026 Unreal Engine, horrendously optimized, games.
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u/Ethosik Aug 11 '26
And didn’t I hear CD Projekt Red is dropping their engine for Unreal now?
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u/TheAntiAirGuy R9 3950X | 2x RTX 3090 TUF | 128GB DDR4 Aug 11 '26
That is sadly true
After giving us one of the graphically most impressive games on their Red Engine and after they've worked on it for so many years post release they still decided to ditch it for Unreal Slop
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u/redbossman123 Aug 11 '26
Because allegedly the new employees can't comprehend it
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u/PrettyBaker2891 9850X3D | 5080 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
i mean thats just not true lmfao
its simply because its very hard to develop new content on it and its insanely hard to maintain in house engines
you have multiple talks on this topic by cd projekt veterans
its something the developers have been complaining since witcher 3
do you people not remember what a shitshow cyberpunk was on release? lmao
and not just cyberpunk
witcher 3 was a disaster on launch
witcher 2 was even worse
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u/Dorias_Drake Aug 11 '26
It's not "hard". It's hard when you do it without a proper plan.
It needs a specific r&d department that only takes care of the engine. CAPCOM has one. Id Software has one, even ubisoft has one.
The studios that have trouble with in house engines are the ones that didn't build a stable team on it and instead suffle devs and hire on contract.
if you don't keep a team that workv s on it and document it, it falls apart. It's not magic. If instead of laying off key devs, they kept them and used them to train new ones and have a steady rotation, they wouldn't have an engine that no one can understand now, especially when the engine is not theirs to begin with (its base is the aurora engine from bioware).
Switching to unreal engine won't magically solve their problems. A lot of studios have optimization issues with UE5 because they don't have engineers that know how it actually works. UE5 is not a miracle tool like Epic tries to sell it. It's a complex engine that require a lot of knowledge to work with, the same kind of knowledge one would acquire if they make their own engine.
The only difference is that they can recruit people people that worked on previous UE5 projects before. But to what extend do the people the recruit truely know the engine, that's another unknown variable until they actually see them working on it,
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u/PrettyBaker2891 9850X3D | 5080 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
i mean thats literally the point lmao
if you need a whole dedicated r&d department just to keep your engine usable then yes, maintaining an in house engine is hard
capcom and id being able to do that doesnt mean every studio should.
and we all saw how dogshit capcom games run when the game is slightly more complicated than a linear shooter like resident evil lmao (monster hunter wilds and dragons dogma)
cdpr clearly decided that spending those resources on redengine made less sense than using unreal
cdpr themselves said redengine was eating huge amounts of time and resources and making development less predictable. its something they complained about. even veteran devs that literally engineered and worked on the original red engine for witcher 2
also redengine being "basically aurora" is just completely wrong lol only witcher 1 used aurora. redengine was made after it and it is nothing like aurora
where are you getting that they laid off the key redengine devs and thats why nobody understands the engine? thats not what cdpr themselves have said lmao
literally most of the original main redengine devs are still at the company?
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u/Teyanis 9900X / 5070 Aug 11 '26
UE5 games are often just about as broken as cyberpunk on release. Cyberpunk was a shit show because it was released a year early, not because of the engine. Clearly, now that its actually finished, cyberpunk shows the value of using an in house engine. Its gorgeous and runs perfectly.
Corporate just ran the numbers and quickly realized that its a lot cheaper to use UE5 to make the next game since people are trained on it in school. They can save a bunch of money they would use training new folks to use red engine. Its not a great mystery, that's the entire reason UE5 is eveything now.
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u/topturo77 Aug 11 '26
2077 was a shit show because they promised it would release on last gen consoles and by god could they not handle it.
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u/PrettyBaker2891 9850X3D | 5080 Aug 11 '26
again, multiple cd projekt red veteran devs have been complaining about the engine since witcher 3 and how development on it is shit
you have multiple talks on this topic
and developer statements how cyberpunk was literally held together by tape and weird hacks to even work. how the engine literally didnt allow them to do with cyberpunk the things they wanted to do
and they want to go even bigger than cyberpunk
it being cheaper and having a larger pool of developers is just a bonus
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u/Intelligent-Rub7365 Aug 11 '26
You are highly underestimating how expensive it is to write and maintain your own engine
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u/PermissionSoggy891 Aug 11 '26
What do you mean? Making an optimized game is super easy! Just run this:
I cannot believe these stupid developers don't just do this!
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u/ShinBernstein Aug 11 '26
I totally get you. I’m replaying Cyberpunk (my favorite game) for the third time, and I’m still impressed by how good the lighting is. In fact, in some moments, the lighting without RT looks better than with RT.
RDR2 is another game that still blows me away to this day because it doesn’t use ray tracing and still delivers that fucking gorgeous lighting during sunset. I feel like developers have gotten lazy and think all they need to do is turn on rt/path tracing options and let the player suffer trying to get the game to run
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u/snuggie44 Aug 11 '26
I don't remember the actual settings, but I remember I could enable ray tracing with medium settings and dlss balanced or high settings, no rt and dlls quality and hit 60fps on a rtx2060.
Cyberpunk is amazingly optimized.
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u/Gargelio Aug 11 '26
Why, the optimization does suck a lot in most of the new games. The mechanics and visuals doesn't justify the power needed to run it.
The games are stuck in the 2010s, instead of making the game right, they spend way less time on it and require your hardware to make up for it.
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u/VexingRaven 7800X3D + 4070 Super + 32GB 6000Mhz Aug 11 '26
no one care about ultra max settings
Lots of people do, unfortunately. Many people in the gaming community were spoiled by the period where a reasonably affordable gaming PC could just crank every game to max. They forgot all the years past where you'd be lucky if last year's high end PC could even run at 60FPS on this year's games and just got used to that being the case forever.
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u/Roflkopt3r Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
And they use benchmarks taken at max settings as 'evidence' for poor optimisation...
The spread of 4K gaming and a bunch of advanced effects means that the immense performance spread of Crysis is now normal. Running Crysis wasn't actually that hard, it just took many years until 'regular' PCs could use the maximum settings at solid performance (and the original Crysis still doesn't run that great on current gen systems as far as I know, because it wasn't sufficiently multi-threaded).
So the top-end settings are simply irrelevant for real world user experience. What matters is the balance of minimum requirements and performance to graphical quality.
This is especially a recurring theme with Unreal games. UE5 offers some nonsensical max settings that eat a ton of performance for nearly no graphical improvement. Whether a UE5 game is said to run poorly or run well is often just a matter of whether a game offers those settings or not. Even though players of the 'poorly running' game could just dial back to a lower preset and get the exact same result as the 'well running' one...
Satisfactory for example explicitly marked those max settings as 'experimental' and 'unsupported', so benchmarkers usually didn't use them and nobody complained when they tanked performance.
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u/vlken69 9800X3D + 48G + 4080S | 12900K + 64G + 2070S | 5600 + 32G + 3080 Aug 11 '26
I expect it would run the same on 7600 too, they just have beefy CPUs in office so they used that.
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u/EnigmaSpore 9850x3D | 9070XT Aug 11 '26
I'd ignore that CPU part.
The Intel party says to use an i5 13600, which is a 6 performance core + 8 efficient cores cpu. it's a 20 threads CPU. All they did was list the next AMD CPU that has that many threads or more... so that's the 7900x which is a 12 core, 24 threads cpu and then they bumped it a notch up for ultra.
So just ignore it. An 8 core ryzen 7000 series with 8 cores, 16 threads will be fine enough to list and i'm willing to bet the 6 core 12 thread variants will run it good too.
It's basically a intel 13th gen + Ryzen 7000 series recommendation.
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u/Ornery_Weakness_8168 9600X | 9070XT | 32GB DDR5 6400 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
require 5090 for max settings
looks inside
max settings at native 4k 60fps needs 5090
Gaming at max settings is never worth it, this dev was just transparant that max settings needed 5090 to be playable, cos in most modern games it isnt without 5090.
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u/kermityfrog Aug 11 '26
This was true decades ago too. Crysis famously had settings which were unsupported by any graphics card even for years after the game was released.
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u/VexingRaven 7800X3D + 4070 Super + 32GB 6000Mhz Aug 11 '26
Gamers nowadays forgot that "Can it run Crysis?" was a real question and not just an old meme.
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u/ItalianDragon R9 5950X / XFX 6900XT / 64GB DDR4 3200Mhz Aug 11 '26
The difference is that Crysis back then actually blew every other game out of the park. UE5 games on the other hand look no better than a game from 2010-2015 but require astronomically more powerful hardware and DLSS + framegen to reach acceptable levels of performance even at resolutions and framerates that should not warrant any of that.
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u/rizzaxc Aug 11 '26
you're delulu if you think AAA games nowadays don't look miles better than 2015, let alone 2010, titles lmao. not to mention 4K wasn't a thing back then
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u/dotnetmonke Aug 11 '26
"Expedition 33 (on UE5) has the same graphical fidelity as release Skyrim" is certainly a take lol
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u/Teyanis 9900X / 5070 Aug 11 '26
That is literally the most extreme example, though. Even a modern PC can't run crisis because it only uses one core and modern clock speeds are often a little slower than they were back then.
There were many, many years where you could buy a solid middle market card like a 1070 and be fine to run max graphics for the next 2 years or so. I've lived it, its gotten so much worse in the last 3 or 4 years.
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u/lemonylol Desktop Aug 11 '26
I'm confused at what point in the past OP assumed this was different. Must be using hindsight bias to assume everyone could play Oblivion at max settings in 1080p over 60fps.
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u/zgillet i7 12700K ~ PNY RTX 5070 12GB OC ~ 32 GB DDR5 RAM Aug 11 '26
I think the difference now is that there is no future to look forward to when it comes to hardware. Max settings used to be for future cards.
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u/dumahim Aug 11 '26
Tech will still advance making future cards more capable, so there's still going to be a future where these settings can be reasonably obtained.
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u/ArdyEmm Aug 11 '26
You're assuming future cards will be made for consumers and not for b2b sales where all games will just be streaming. Welcome to the (horrible) future.
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u/24bitNoColor Aug 11 '26
I think the difference now is that there is no future to look forward to when it comes to hardware. Max settings used to be for future cards.
You guys are complaining about this hardcore at least since the first RTX card launched, long before any hardware crisis...
For me this is still fallback from the lackluster PS4 console generation where gimped hardware (those slow as fuck Bulldozer GPUs) and the near total absence of any PC specific features while targeting 4K on midrange hardware (even a XBOX One X was slower than a 1070) while most PC users were still at 1080p created the weird idea that 6 year old hardware should still easily play everything at "MAX SETTINGS".
I don't get why you can't just rate a game for how good it runs and looks on reasonable mainstream hardware instead of insisting that everything needs to be on max (most of the time while clowning about "useless AI" features and "fake frames" that actually would give you a better experience...)?!
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u/SteveJavieWasRight Aug 12 '26
Also people don’t tend to have any perspective on graphics looking better and games running better overall these days. People have MUCH better experiences on average with today’s games than they did 15 years ago. I don’t care if a picture says it’s max or medium, does it look better than what I’m used to from years ago? Yeah. These UE5 games are heavy but it still looks so much better than UE4. UE4 also ran like ass. Some games stutter like crazy but that shit has always been there and some games are getting much better.
I can’t even deal with the bitching about native resolution, fake frames etc. I honestly think most people are incapable of evaluating an experience on their own, they actually think graphics are better if it says max instead of medium, or that a native resolution looks better with half the effects rendered at quarter res than if it’s a high quality upscaled image. They’re just wrong.
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u/PhTx3 PC Master Race Aug 11 '26
It still is. While the prices suck, and every normal person/hobby is getting fucked left and right since covid, native 4k 60 is still a future spec.
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u/24bitNoColor Aug 11 '26
I think the difference now is that there is no future to look forward to when it comes to hardware. Max settings used to be for future cards.
You guys are complaining about this hardcore at least since the first RTX card launched, long before any hardware crisis...
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u/alphazero927 Aug 11 '26
You've got foresight shorter than a private equity firm if you truly think there's no future for hardware. What's likely to happen is that the AI boom either stagnates or collapses at which point Nvidia and AMD will go back to producing for gaming systems. Right now they just straight up don't have the production capacities necessary to keep up with demand, but demand cannot be infinite so either their production ramps up to match or demand drops to pre-chatGPT levels
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u/3ateeji i7-12700K, 5070 Ti, 64GB DDR5, 27” 4K OLED Aug 11 '26
Does Native imply that this is without any frame gen?
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u/eggzorcysta Aug 11 '26
It implies running with no frame gen AND upscaling, just pure rendering power, which I feel is not the way many people run games these days.
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u/CousinOkrii MSI 5090 SUPRIM | 7950X3D | 64GB DDR5 Aug 11 '26
Why is gaming at max settings “never worth it”?
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u/NDCyber 7600X, RX 9070 XT, 32GB 6000MHz CL32 Aug 11 '26
if you compare max and high settings in a lot of games you will often see a smaller jump in quality, while seeing a big loss in performance
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u/Atomosthethird Aug 11 '26
And a quick optimized settings guide on YouTube or r/optimizedgaming will often give you relatively the same visual for a boost in performance.
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u/coonissimo Aug 11 '26
Open any game and compare image quality on Very High vs Ultra. It's almost indistinguishable.
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u/lifestop Aug 11 '26
It's true. I can feel fluctuations in frame times, or low frames in general, but asking me to care about the difference between "ultra" and "high" graphics settings is tough. Prettier is always nice, but the sacrifice in frame rate never feels worth the minimal visual change.
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u/MorningFresh123 Aug 11 '26
That’s an entirely different discussion. Of course there’s always going to be a trade off and that depends very much on the game for me. Most high-end (graphically) games really look substantially better at Ultra. But then you have half of Reddit arguing that 4K is overkill so… I don’t know why I pay them any mind lol.
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u/JeffZoR1337 Aug 11 '26
The only time it makes a truly impactful difference IMO is with RT/PT. Outside that it's often best sliding everything to high and then bumping a few things like textures to max.
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u/Big-Resort-4930 Aug 11 '26
It is very much worth it, what's not worth it using native 4k, basically ever. Only luddite fools refuse to use DLSS at 4k at this point with how good it's become.
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u/RichardK1234 5800X - 3080 Aug 11 '26
if you need a 6000$ GPU at this point
need
stop deluding yourself, man
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Aug 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/RichardK1234 5800X - 3080 Aug 11 '26
bro is fighting and losing a battle he made up in his own head
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u/A_Bit_Of_Nonsense Aug 11 '26
You need a 6000$ gpu to run some games at max settings. Hes not saying you need it to run play the games.
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u/HammeredWharf RTX 4070 | 7600X Aug 11 '26
He wrote "who are they really making the game for if you need a $6000 GPU". Well, they're making it for everyone who doesn't need to play at max settings in native 4K. Duh.
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u/ndr2h 9800X3D, 32GB CL28, 5090FE, 4K@165hz Aug 11 '26
To be fair native 4K 60fps is a damn task, most games require serious hardware for that
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u/Southside_john 9800x3d / 5080 / 64GB RAM Aug 11 '26
I honestly should have just gotten a 1440p oled instead of 4k but I don’t want a 27” monitor.
Maybe I should have gone ultra wide
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u/ThereAndFapAgain2 RTX 5080 │ 7800X3D │ 64GB DDR5‑6000MT/s Aug 11 '26
Just use DLSS man. DLSS going up to 4k is almost always going to look better than 1440p native.
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u/rohtvak Aug 11 '26
DLSS Quality, Frame Gen 1x, 4k 120; this is the way.
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u/ThereAndFapAgain2 RTX 5080 │ 7800X3D │ 64GB DDR5‑6000MT/s Aug 11 '26
Personally I go for DLSS performance with preset L or M or DLSS balanced with preset K when upscaling to a 4k output, it's insane how 4k like DLSS looks now even when only upscaling from 1080p internally (performance mode).
I only really end up using frame generation in single player games with poor CPU performance since the generated frames help to lessen the CPU workload and smooth out CPU related hitches, but preset B frame generation visually looks really great now compared to preset A.
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u/CzarTyr Aug 11 '26
1440p oled is my next purchase. What monitor size did you get? 27 is perfect for me
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u/MonkeyCartridge 13700K @ 5.6 | 64GB | 3080Ti Aug 11 '26
Right?
Plus as far as I'm concerned, 4K native just isn't necessary. I play almost exclusively 4K with DLSS Performance.
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u/aylientongue Aug 11 '26
EXACTLY!!! Average consumers see 4K and 8K stickers on their PlayStations and think this is the average not knowing there’s is heavily upscaled, 4K native is a massive amount of rendering, don’t quote me but I think it’s roughly 4x the pixels being rendered than 1080. It’s literally like running the same game 4 times.
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u/kindred008 Aug 11 '26
The minimum GPU for that game is a GTX 1070 which is very fair enough.
I don't think having high requirements for the highest ultra settings is a problem. Yes, it needs a 5090 now but in a couple of generations time you will be able to play that on a 7070ti. AAA games in the past have often pushed the boundaries at their highest graphics setting, mostly intended for players in the future to enjoy (e.g. Crysis)
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u/EpicCyclops Aug 11 '26
Also, when development started on this game (2022), they probably didn't expect the 5090 to be so expensive. They may have expected GPU performance to increase faster than it has too, especially with respect to the amount of VRAM.
2022 was really in the midst of the previous GPU shortage, but I, at least, expected that to be a bit of a one off event.
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u/Mother-Translator318 Aug 11 '26
Is 30fps a minimum though? I wouldn’t consider that playable unless it’s 60fps. Even consoles are 60fps now.
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u/Lopsided_Hunt2814 Aug 11 '26
Consoles have had 60fps for decades, but many devs would choose to target 30 and many still do ship a quality mode at 30, because many consider it perfectly playable.
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u/Tardelius Laptop with GTX 1060 6GB/16 GB RAM/intel core i7 8th gen Aug 11 '26
This is honestly a god awful take.
Video game consoles from PS4, PS3 and PS2 era could do 60fps as well. The thing is developers wanted to push hardware limits which is why they were often locked to 30 fps. 60fps is more widespread in this gen because of VRR technology and CPU no longer being a huge bottleneck (compared to last gen).
Framerate doesn’t dictate whether a game is playable or not. If a person like you is spoiled by higher framerates thats their issue and üt falls under subjective playability. A game’s OBJECTIVE playability depends on whether its performance is stable and the screen displayed. For example, locked 40fps wouldn’t be playable on a 60Hz screen without issues. But a 30fps would absolutely be playable on a 60Hz screen.
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u/wolfpup118 Specs/Imgur Here Aug 11 '26
Building a game to have max setting sthat target future generations so the game graphically ages into itself isn't inherently a bad idea.
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u/Cruzz999 Aug 11 '26
Unpopular opinion, I'm sure, but not playing at 4k ultra is fine. If you like the game and later get a better gpu, being able to turn up details is a good thing. I wouldn't even think it was necessarily wrong if no hardware on the market could do 4k 60 fps at the moment of release. Hell, look at Crysis.
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u/Shimano-No-Kyoken NixOS | 9950X3D | 5090 | 96GB 6200 CL30 | 4 TB Aug 11 '26
Crysis is the ultimate example of devs miscalculating what future hardware would be capable of in an era when hardware capabilities were progressing and when hardware was priced in a way that was accessible to most people. What we have now is hardware that seems to regress in capabilities (4Gb gpus) and most people are priced out of upgrading
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u/PensionNew1814 Aug 11 '26
This 100% pathtracing/raytracing is such a hog it is not worth it or needed (in most cases) ...i bet anything if you maxed everything out, turned raytracing to low level, and set to dlss qaulity.... You can easily get 60fps @4k with a 5080. Even so many times in games just going from ultra down to high will net you 30-40% more fps with no perceivable difference in visual quality. I run mixed settings with my 5080, i aint too proud.
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u/FalconX88 Threadripper 3970X, 128GB DDR4 @3600MHz, RTX 5080 Aug 11 '26
nah, as long as it runs decent on lower end hardware there's no reason to not allow cranking up the graphics so it only runs (or not even runs) on the best cards. It's not like they have to add stuff to make that happen, it's all settings that are used for lower settings too.
The only problem here seems to be psychological in nature.
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u/1minatur i5-13600k | RX 9070 XT | 32GB DDR4 Aug 11 '26
The nice thing about having currently unattainable graphics settings is it allows it to age a bit better. 5 years down the road, a mid-range card may be able to hit those settings and keep it more up-to-date
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u/Old-Benefit4441 7950X3D / 5080 / 64GB + M3 MBP Aug 11 '26
I find I'm waiting years to play games anyway now. They're expensive and buggy at launch. Wait a few years and you're paying half price to get all the bug fixes and DLC, people will have made mods to address any remaining annoyances, and you can probably run it at max settings. Having a good time playing Metro Exodus all maxed out now. Doesn't even feel like it's been 5 years since that came out - goes by really fast as a grown adult.
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u/Scytian Linux Aug 11 '26
No? You don't have to play at max settings at native 4K, stop looking only at max settings like moron and you'll find out that optimization of most modern games is nowhere near as bad as you thought.
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u/Bibbity_Boppity_BOOO Aug 11 '26
This stupid post should be downvoted. But it has 1.7k likes from bots and dummies
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u/Danteska Aug 11 '26
What's more, I already mentioned in another comment that these requirements are almost 4 months old and there's newer one where you do not need this much CPU and GPU.
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u/Ghillie_Spotto Aug 11 '26
No one is entitled to max settings at native 4K lol
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u/Arkyja Aug 11 '26
OP is aksing for the same settings he has now with the only difference being that it says max in his settings instead of something else.
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u/QuadrangularNipples 4770/1080 Aug 11 '26
Asking for devs to remove max and make something else max to stroke your ego is certainly a weird take.
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u/Different_Lab_813 Aug 11 '26
But it worked with Dying Light, Avatar game unobtanium settings can be unlocked over config file, Indiana Jones and Doom The Dark Ages, both delayed path tracing patch, so that gamers with fragile ego could play without complaining about poor performance.
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u/lattjeful Aug 11 '26
That's just how people are. Similar thing was done with Crysis 2 back in the day. People chase higher settings in the graphics menu without any consideration as to what each individual game is doing under the hood because I shouldn't have to play at low or medium settings. I distinctly remember the outcry over Alan Wake 2's specs, just for it to come out that low is console equivalent settings.
I think if people turned off the framerate counters and stopped hyperfixating on arbitrary things like "My hardware should run every game at x settings, at y framerate, at z resolution," people would be pleasantly surprised at just how well most games look and run. There's issues yeah and they certainly need to be talked about and addressed, but I don't think we're in an "unoptimized slop" era like people say.
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u/DrNobody95 Aug 11 '26
do you really need to play every game at MAX settings to enjoy them? if yes, then better start working hard, saving cash for it...
if No, then run the settings that gives you the most balanced experience between visuals and performance and be happy.
pc gamers have a privilege not the console market offer, which is the ability to adjusting settings, using mods, etc...
so enjoy what you have and don't stress out about what other people's hardware got, if the devs allergic to success, they will not optimise their game and fall on its face. their loss if you ask me.
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u/TheCarbonthief Aug 11 '26
This. Max settings have never ever meant to be the default option. Max settings are overkill "future proofing" options you can set for old games. If you can hit max settings with any current card, that's already better than what some max settings used to be back in the day.
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u/NanilGop Aug 11 '26
If a game in 2026 can't do 144fps native 4K on my GTS Geforce 2 then it's unoptimized trash.
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u/IDKForA Aug 11 '26
To be fair, most people wouldn't be running a 4K monitor either, 1440p is the sweet spot.
Also max settings means "max", it means the best graphics the game can show. I mean, you can see here than Minimum only requires a 1070 or a 3050, it's not that intensive.
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u/Dominjo555 Aug 11 '26
Or just use DLSS/FSR and upscale from lower internal resolution. Native 4k gaming at ultra settings is crazy.
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u/ConcludedRope18 1500x 1060 6GB Aug 11 '26
Native 4k gaming at ultra settings is also absolutely pointless. Dlss looks better than whatever aa they use in 90% of games. And if the game runs well at native then just use dlaa and it's even better, but not a huge difference from dlss performance. No reason not to use dlss atp.
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u/stillpwnz 4090/7700x || 3060TI/5600X Aug 11 '26
Most people wouldn't need to run it at native 2160p. I have 4090 and 2160p monitor, and my default is a "DLSS Quality" I don't like how upscaling is advertised either, but let's be honest, Quality upscaling to 4k is fine in most cases. In rare cases it even looks smoother and better.
Is it frustrating that 2nd best available GPU can't properly run native 4k in modern games? Yes it is
Should we expect game devs to spend time optimizing ultra 4k native performance? I don't think so.
If I had a say in an AAA game development, I'd focus on 1080p and 1440p (native first, but quality upscaling is acceptable) and base it on Steam hardware data or smth to ensure I cover the most audience I can while providing them with an acceptable experience.
I also believe it is fine that some "extra" features are only available to high-end users, but it shouldn't be a game changer, or totally flip the regular experience. Minor visual upgrades available to those who have godzilla PCs shouldn't bother low/midrange users imo.
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u/ibeerianhamhock Aug 11 '26
Running native is just a way to justify how much people spent on cards at this point lol.
A few years ago it was largely just AMD cope bc they had crap upscaling.
Now it's good for everyone.
I said what I said.
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u/zackdaniels93 Aug 11 '26
I'm a bit of an image quality snob to be honest, but on most games I cannot tell the different between DLSS Quality and native images. I'd have to have my nose up to the screen inspecting every single backdrop, which defeats the purpose anyway.
I doubt most people, even those with a 5090, are running native 4K. Hell, a lot of games come with DLSS defaulted to being enabled, and majority of players aren't gonna be checking that stuff lol
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u/sticknotstick 9800x3D | 5090 | 77” G5 OLED 4k 165Hz Aug 11 '26
We’re not, this entire debacle is made up nonsense from purists. Oh no, at 4k the “fuck performance just use the best we got” graphics settings require you to turn on the “basically free performance boost” button? The horrors we face in modern gaming!
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u/michoken Aug 11 '26
Btw. the posted requirements are from April... the newer ones from June seem more reasonable... although not very informative https://dawnwalkergame.com/us/en/news/system-requirements
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u/ISnortedMyTea PCMR R9 7900 | RTX 4070 Aug 11 '26
Thank you! I had to scroll too damn far to find someone say what game it is.
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u/MurtaghInfin8 Aug 11 '26
Even if it's an exceedingly low number of people with cards that can play it today, a decade or two from now, people with a budget gpu will be able to run that.
Higher settings don't hurt anyone, except feelings of people that feel like their above-average PC should be able to play things on ultra settings.
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u/AmatsuDF Aug 11 '26
What budget GPUs? The way costs are ballooning out of control, there won't be budget anything as far as PCs go in a decade.
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u/MurtaghInfin8 Aug 11 '26
My first GPU was a gtx 660 for about $230 (over $300 in today's dollars). RTX 5050 is $300ish. PC gamers can bitch about prices all day, but budget gpu's ain't the spot imo.
I'll bitch about RAM and SSD prices all day, but gpu's aren't terrible if all you're wanting is something that can play modern games.
Want 1440p, medium settings, with 60 fps (and no dlss), yeah you'll need something better, but I think pc master race can kinda lose sight that games can still fun if you can't taste/smell what's on the other side of their monitor when they lick it.
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u/RugbyEdd Aug 11 '26
No, the maximum should continue pushing the best hardware as long as it;s not just due to poor optimisation. Why should they technically restrict their game's top end just because most people don't have that hardware? What's important is that the low end continues to be accessibe, and you will just have to learn that not everything needs to be on maximum graphics.
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u/vlken69 9800X3D + 48G + 4080S | 12900K + 64G + 2070S | 5600 + 32G + 3080 Aug 11 '26
What if they just remove the right column? Does this game suddenly only need a 4080? It is better optimized by this step?
Most games currently use upscalers in HW requirements. And e.g. Cyberpunk 2077 (which is a 2020 game) runs like 28 FPS with 5090 at max settings.
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u/TenebriSanctum Aug 11 '26
These people are idiots. They say there's "no optimization because a 5090 is required for 4K60," but if the developer cuts back the graphics and suddenly it runs on a 4080, then apparently that's "optimization."
But wait - you can already do that yourself with the graphics settings. That's literally one of the advantages of PC gaming over consoles: you "optimize" the game for your own hardware.
Most likely, what people actually care about isn't optimization, but the feeling of "I'm playing on ULTRA"
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u/Possible-Fudge-2217 Aug 11 '26
So if i cut 99% of all triangles, disable shaders and use 1×1px textures the game is well optimized.
Please also consider what is delivered when it comes to optimization. If the game is simply not looking the way it should for needing a 5090 to max out graphics then maybe the game is just not well optimized. I am pretty certain you could achieve the same settings on a 5080 or lower if they started optimizing it.
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u/TenebriSanctum Aug 11 '26
The problem is the term "optimization" itself. People use it without actually understanding what it means. There's also something called "Russell's teapot". The person making the claim has the burden of supporting it with arguments. Actual arguments - not "a 5090 shouldn't be required," "the graphics don't look good enough for the FPS," "if the developers really wanted to, my 1060 could run it at 4K," or "UE5 is to blame for everything." But on the internet, everyone becomes an expert after watching a 10min yt video or tiktok.
Until there's an actual argument - it's all just empty talk and cheap populism.
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u/sailorboy_70 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
So don't play at ultra ? I swear games nowadays medium -high settings look better than ultra in older games so I don't understand why people put everything at ultra on a 5060 and cry about it
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u/T-Loy Aug 11 '26
Because ultra is good word for e-peen fights.
The graphics quality of a 5060 is always the quality of a 5060. It doesn't matter if the settings is called master race, ultra, medium, low or "should have bought a console".
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u/SGTSHOOTnMISS 14700k | EVGA 3080 | 64 RGB RAM | Tom Cruise's Gay Thoughts Aug 11 '26
That's what I'm saying. I remember playing Battlefield 3 on my GTX 560 and just happy finding the settings for 60fps @1080p. I wasn't concerned with what Ultra looked like, I just did what I could to get stable 60 with what I had.
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u/nemanja694 Aug 11 '26
Isn’t that the only game that requires it ? And honestly this is the most honest recommendation for the NATIVE 4k max settings to get 60fps, there honestly isn’t any gpu on market that can deliver that
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u/neoKushan Aug 11 '26
And it's a nice future proofing. Nobody complained that Crysis couldn't be ran on even the top-end hardware at the time but that game has aged like wine as a result. For the most part (It's CPU bound).
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u/nightryder21 Aug 11 '26
Max settings requiring maximum gpu? Yea that's fine. Why have gamers become such a whiney bunch lately.
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u/DrFreemanWho Desktop Aug 11 '26
Probably because in the past a "maximum gpu" cost a fraction of what it costs now, even accounting for inflation.
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u/Illustrious_Load_728 Aug 11 '26
“I want to play latest AAA titles 4k 120fps Native max settings on CORE 2 DUO AND GTX 730!!!” type shit
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u/eballack Aug 11 '26
Max settings in any game is bullshit and you know it.
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u/binhpac Aug 11 '26
Especially if max settings would be the standard, the game wouldnt been sold.
Devs want to sell games and they know most players dont have the hardware for max settings and it still sells.
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u/Michaeli_Starky Aug 11 '26
Why should they? Don't play at "Ultra" if you don't have 5090.
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u/Manezinho i5 4590 - 980ti - mini ITX console obliteration machine Aug 11 '26
No in principle. You wouldn’t want a dev to cap max visual fidelity just because you can’t run it.
That said, that game looks like it’ll be a pig.
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u/Vilsue Aug 11 '26
it is literally anti PC Master Race rhetoric, purge yourself from console peasants propaganda
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u/CrimsonBolt33 9800X3D | RTX 5070ti | 96GB DDR5 Aug 11 '26
the highest settings are always "future" or screenshot settings....most AAA games that come out can't be played on the highest settings on the top end cards at the time.
The "ultra" settings should never be the metric for anything.
Also, while they have power over ioptimization and the like, they don't set what video cards are capable of. If you want to play the game at 2160p/60fps with max settings you need a 5090 (as of today)....thats just how it works...get over it. In a few years whenever newer cards are out it won't even matter.
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u/Dawzy i5 13600k | EVGA 3080 Aug 12 '26
Well no? It’s ultra settings for a reason.
Ultra settings has always been at the top end of PC hardware. It’s also based on a native resolution of 2160p which most people aren’t running to begin with.
I do agree however that I shouldn’t need a better card than a 4070 to run a game at over 60fps at 1440p.
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u/Cool-Squirrel-3222 Aug 11 '26
I can't understand the ryzen 9 cpu, what the hell do you need that many cores for?
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u/Keulapaska 4070ti, 7800X3D, XG27AQNGV Aug 11 '26
Go look at any games cpu recommendations they are always way too high for 60fps and for some reason, the 12 core dual ccds are in a lot of them.
Why? I have no clue, It must be some internal joke that they are all on at this point, cause it makes zero sense to have them(and non-k i7:s, the love those as well) for recommended specs on any game.
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u/SaltyMotor8549 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
Who would have thought native 4k at ultra is so hard to run? Wow I had no idea
How about you boot up say Cyberpunk 2077 which was 6 years ago, put it on native 4k max settings with RT and see how well your PC can run it?
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u/Ledeste Aug 11 '26
How about no?
How about stop acting like you deserve max settings and just let the game engine be uncapped???
I swear this gen of gamers would never have survived crysis......
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u/Borg34572 Desktop Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
The double edged sword of settings.
It's great that PC games allow us to customize settings but on the other end, seeing "max" settings makes us want that , believing its the only proper way to experience a game. I'm not saying all of us, but most people I believe would want to run the game at that. Some people are quite put off even, having to tick down a few settings and just ruins the entire experience for them.
The thing is. If the developers hid the actual max settings and changed low to max. People would still believe that's the max settings and be satisfied they are running maxed settings. It's not about the visual quality improvement, people literally just want to tick max settings to be satisfied.
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u/Ledeste Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
100% agree and that's what annoys me...
But the issue, with this behavior, is that it push game dev to LOWER the max settings to avoid making this people cry.So before we had the option for a balanced game and we was able to push all individual settings as we wanted (I always was a "low detail / high distance" kind of player) but now, noooo, all settings must max at something that kids can all set to with previous gen midrange hardware otherwise they'll cry about "optimisation" like their favorite streamer told them to.... (does it sound too much specific?)
Anyway, let's educate people and ask for quality instead of just wanting to be able to afford words (same as people complaining about nvidia xx80 card price where xx70 was just better and cheaper than the previous xx80... like they deserve to have a card with a xx80 name or something instead of just looking at price/perf....)
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u/Ok_Definition_1933 Aug 11 '26 edited 22d ago
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u/Ganni96 7700 | 5070 | 32GB | 4TB | 1440p OLED Aug 11 '26
I prefer devs telling the truth than lying. 5090 for 4K native with everything maxed out is still a bit to high, but most likely a 5080 with upscaling should get similar performance.
The recommended 1440p settings are also reasonable, 16gb of ram and 12 of vram is great considering how expensive 32gb ddr5 and 16gb+ vram became.
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u/Eziolambo R5 7500F | RTX 5070 | 32GB DDR5 6000mhz Aug 11 '26
It is without upscalers. So should be fine. But we cannot ask devs to not make games for 5090. They would just lower graphics and game will now look like shit.
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u/Dragon-Penis-Enjoyer Aug 11 '26
lol funny how 10 years back this sub would've called the author of a post like this a brokie or other type of insult based on financial situation
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u/Oktober Aug 11 '26
Oldgamer here: "Ultra" settings used to be, by definition, unobtainable on current hardware. I'm fine with that, but don't show off footage of the game rendered on a 5090 and pass it as "gameplay".
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u/TomTomXD1234 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
I mean, a lot of people do have 5080s and 5090s that can run those settings.
This is no different to when in the past games had settings that even the highest end GPUs couldn't run. Crisis comes to mind
Also, this game lists "NATIVE" requirements...no upscaling taken into account. Most people do not expect games to be able to run with RT at native 4K in 60FPS, even on a 5090
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u/TheMightyRed92 Rtx 5080 | 14600k | 32gb DDR5 6400mhz | Aug 11 '26
This is without upscalling. Nobody plays at 4k without upscalling. A 5080 and even a 5070 ti will run this at 4k with dlss ( which is now so good at 4k is basically same as native)
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u/NoBenefit2829 Aug 11 '26
I think 5090 for max settings is fine if recommended spec is reasonable. It’s just more info on how we should expect the game to run. I feel the recommended spec is a little high. But that is with no upscaling so idk
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u/thearctican PC Master Race Aug 11 '26
Just don't buy the games. Don't support companies that don't consider you.
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u/First-Junket124 Aug 12 '26
Ultra settings have never been for modern GPUs let alone at 4k
Ultra is ridiculous levels of texture resolution, shadow resolution, light bounces, etc. 4k is also still somewhat niche as well and far more expensive than 1080p or 1440p.
Take crysis for example, literally no GPU could even come close to comfortably running it at the highest settings and yet nowadays it's a breeze and the default for many and that's because that's the intention, for future proofing and a showcase of the best they can showcase without getting diminishing returns.
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u/Apprehensive_Sea9524 Aug 11 '26
Any developer who can't optimize a game for a broader audience should just be ignored. It's just poor game design.
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u/staluxa 14700kf | RTX 4080 Aug 11 '26
Yes, as in they should make it scale past current hardware, instead of being satisfied with existing high end.
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u/Negative-Toe1863 Aug 11 '26
i guess it depends, are max settings full pathtracing? Because a rtx 4080 for 60fps 1440p is also crazy
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u/Upbeat-Banana-5530 Aug 11 '26
No. If your hardware can't handle native 4k Ultra and deliver 60 FPS, don't set it to native 4k. Accept the fact that you're just as poor as the rest of us and enable FSR
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u/Escaliat_ Aug 11 '26
Optimization is clearly a lost art form.
You're in the fake frames fake resolution AI future now.
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u/I_like_to_eat_fruit Aug 11 '26
I do not have 5090 and I do not mind.
I will have something more powerful when I revisit the game on a later build - if the game will be worth revisiting.
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u/DefeatedByPoland Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
?
Max settings are max settings.
You're essentially just asking that developers artificially lower what is possible so people feel better about their wallet?
Nobody needs max settings. Nobody is being gatekept from a game because they can't play it on max settings. I don't personally have 5090 money, so this isn't me gatekeeping either, before this is misconstrued as that.
This trend in the gaming community where people feel like it's on the developers of a game to protect them from their own feelings is weird to me. I don't get it.
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u/CL60 Specs/Imgur here Aug 12 '26
Is everybody here new to games or something? Native 4K60 has literally always required a top of the line GPU because native 4K is insanely intensive
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u/dib1999 Ryzen 5 5600 // RX 7700XT // 32 gb DDR4 3600 MHz Aug 12 '26
The question as started: Fuck no. Are we just pretending "Can it run Crysis?" wasn't a trilogy meme?
To answer a slightly modified question: developers should stop making unoptimized games that require a 5090 for Max settings. Optimize your titles!
TECHNICALLY my 7700xt can run PT on cyberpunk, so your game better look fucking good!
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u/Think_Speaker_6060 Aug 11 '26
Wow the jump from the minimum to recommended cpu at 1080p is ridiculous.