by this point, I'm starting to think that game devs are in agreement with GPU manufacturers, probably putting some invisible bloat in their games just to tank frame rate and sell newer GPU. Otherwise, I can't explain everything. Graphics and games reached their peak in about 2015 to 2016. I can't imagine a game more complex than Cyberpunk 2077 to run, yet somehow every next new released game, regardless of developer, genre, series, raises the bar for requirement hardware. Someone should investigate this family-friendly show. So anyway, um, this particular, this is a comment on one of my videos, and I've selected it because I could have chose a hundred, a thousand other comments I've seen that encapsulate the same feeling, making basically the same statement, but I felt that this one comment, first of all, is recent. This happened, I think, about a week ago on my channel, uh, and also it's, uh, I think really captures the whole feeling and mindset behind this type of comment. Um, so this is definitely a widespread feeling I'm seeing.

expressed by my viewers, so I thought, how about I give some response to this? What do I think about that? Um, so let's take this piece by piece, break it down, and I'll give um kind of the response. So by this point, I'm starting to think that devs are in agreement with GPU manufacturers. I mean, if you stop there and don't go to the probably putting some invisible bloat in their games. Let's stop there. Are game developers in agreement with GPU manufacturers? And the answer is absolutely yes. I mean, not every game and not every game developer, but are game developers um in agreements with GPU manufacturers? Well, I mean, I think that's established beyond a shadow of a doubt. There are definitely games that have, you know, the Nvidia logo on their splash screen and have some deals with Nvidia, and there's games with the AMD logo on their splash screen and have some deals with AMD. Uh, oftentimes there's like a cross-brand marketing thing, right? So it's like uh, and it was

some kind of marketing synergy. A lot of times, if you buy a new graphics card, you might get a game bundle deal with that, and those games, in turn, oftentimes feature heavily the technologies being pushed by the GPU manufacturer that's sponsoring that game. So, for example, we'll see games like Black Myth Wukong, which has a full RT kind of a path tracing mode that I'm pretty sure was implemented with the help of Nvidia engineers to implement that path tracing mode. We also see things like that in Alan Wake 2 with that full RT mode where, again, I think there's assistance from Nvidia engineers to do that. And, you know, Cyberpunk 2077 path tracing mode, those are examples of what I'm talking about there. And I think you know that there is a deal there for some cross-brand promotion, right? There's marketing synergy on that. Nvidia gets to show off a cool new game that

features their technologies that happen to be Technologies. Their GPUs are better at than the competition um and that only their newer GPUs are able to do well at. And then the game developer gets help uh you know implementing cutting-edge technology into their game. And also uh you know they get that benefit from Nvidia is going to do stuff to promote their technology in this game and advertise that there's marketing behind that. And the game is mentioned in that marketing so there's that um you know Synergy behind the marketing between the game and the technology and the GPU manufacturer and vice versa. If the game is getting good press and good marketing and features this brand the GPU Brands technology that reflects well on the GPU brand and and you know right so so that's kind of the idea. There's this synergistic marketing agreements game bundle deals. I'm not privy to any information on whether the whether there is or how much money exchanges hands in those things but I'm sure there's at least you know uh you know engineering help and support in exchange for uh you

know, uh, you know, bundle deals and whatnot. And anyway, so I don't, I don't know all the details behind it, but I, I don't think there's any secret that there are agreements between game developers and GPU manufacturers. And it's not just Nvidia. I mean, you see games with that are like, you know, AMD sponsored. Uh, there was a big thing a while back about AMD sponsored games don't seem to have DLS, the latest DLSS or DLSS frame generation in them. They just have FSR. That was a whole giant debacle that AMD never really quite denied. Although then AMD's sponsored games after the backlash did start to seem to get updated with DLSS. Anyway, so the point is, are there, uh, agreements between GPU manufacturers and game devs? I would say absolutely yes. Now, probably putting some invisible bloat in their games just to tank frame rate and sell newer GPUs. Okay, that's where I think, um, it's, it's, it's pushing things a little far, are but not necessarily completely wrong.

so invisible bloat just to tank frame rate. That's a bit extreme. I don't think it's exactly that. Although in the past, um, I, you know, this was before my time as a tech YouTuber, but uh, I remember being more just a tech consumer and PC gamer, seeing like back with um, I think back when Nvidia GPUs were like way better at tessellation than um, than AMD GPUs were. Uh, there were some reports of some games um, having tessellation settings pushed up, maybe higher than was reasonable to take frame rate on uh, competing brands. You see what I'm saying? So sure, I think some stuff like that could go on, but I think uh, more lately, the more obvious thing that would sort of align to this is those big RT heavy games, right? Those path tracing modes on Black Myth Wukong, Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk 2077. Uh, those are definitely tanking frame rates, even on Nvidia hardware, uh, but even more so on um, uh, on AMD hardware. Um, and uh, but is that invisible?

bloat. That's where I don't feel like that's invisible bloat. There are visual differences between the full RT mode and the not full RT mode, especially in a game like Cyberpunk. I feel like the graphical fidelity of the full RT path racing RT overdrive mode, it's called in that game, is extremely transformative compared to the non-path trace mode in that game. In some of the other games, I feel like it's less transformative, but it's not invisible, and I don't think it's just to tank frame rate. I think, again, it is pushing a cutting-edge technology that does tank frame rate, but I don't think that's its sole purpose to exist. But is it there to sell newer GPUs? I'd argue yes. I think, I mean, I think that that is why Nvidia would partner with and develop those big full RT modes would definitely be to sell new GPUs, because, again, Nvidia's newer generations of products are better.

at Ray tracing than their older generation. So, if Nvidia is trying to get Nvidia users to upgrade to newer Nvidia products, you need to give them a game that doesn't run well on their older product, right? So, I think that does make sense. But then also, why if somebody's going to buy a new GPU, you need to create the reason to buy the Nvidia GPU rather than the AMD or Intel GPU, right? And realistically, AMD is the bigger competitor there. So, with Nvidia having that Ray tracing advantage in their hardware compared to their AMD competition, it makes sense for them to push big heavy RT games, which make their GPUs stand out relatively in competition. So, yeah, I think that is happening, but again, it's not just invisible bloat. There is an actual graphical feature there, which does have graphical advantages despite tanking frame rate and especially doing it on the others' competition. Now, I also see some people talking about Nvidia is now purposely

crippling the 4090, uh, for the sake of wanting you to have a reason to buy the 5090. And I mean, if you look at something like Black Myth Wukong, you know, if you're not using DLSS, uh, running at 23 FPS, uh, on the full RT mode at Native 4K on a 4090, it certainly feels that way. Although you can definitely, um, kick on some DLSS to get to a better point. Although even DLSS quality, we're only averaging, uh, 42 FPS on the 4090. Um, but if you go all the way down to DLSS, uh, performance mode, uh, we are now hitting that kind of 63 FPS as average. And then from there, you could kick on your, um, you know, uh, frame generation. Now I'm getting a YouTube ad on my own video. Are you kidding me, guys? Anyway, whatever. All right, uh, so that's frustrating. I thought I had an ad blocker on. Did it get bypassed again by, by all the YouTube whatnots? Whatever. Anyway, uh, so with

the frame gen. Okay, now we're at 99, but notice this. So, to get this high-end Nvidia GPU to run the high-end Nvidia feature with the full path tracing, you have to use the other Nvidia features, right? Right, the DLSS and the frame generation and all of that in order to get those good performance levels. So, it kind of does all sort of tie in, although in the end, you can end up getting a decent performance level on that 4090 in this hardware anyway. So, that's that bit. Now, however, here's where I also need to comment on where what video did this specific comment actually come from. This video was actually not about any of those big Nvidia path tracing games. This video was about Monster Hunt Wild's PC system requirements. We got Daniel Seion going on here from that video here. Maybe we'll cover that up. I don't know. Anyway, the point is, so this game specifically, people are reacting to the fact that, man, you need a pretty

beefy GPU and CPU to apparently just hit 30 frames per second because that 60 is using frame generation. Uh, so you'd be at closer to a 30 FPS, uh, uh, actual frame rate before then frame generation hitting 60. And we're only at medium settings again on fairly beefy hardware at 1080p. Oh, that feels pretty brutal. So this game in particular, as far as I can tell, doesn't seem to be one of those big, you know, Nvidia sponsored, uh, you know, path tracing modes. We're talking about the, the, the medium graphic settings, right? So I think, um, in general, when we're just getting into the other piece of this, which is otherwise I can't explain anything. Graphics and games reached a peak in about 20156. I can't imagine a game more complex than Cyber 277 to run. Yet somehow every next new released game, regardless of developer, genre, series, raises the bar for requirement and hardware. Um, okay, so this game in particular, I have some suspicions that

this game is going to be heavily CPU limited based on, um, uh, the, uh, engine being used, being similar to Dragon, uh, the engine used in Dragon Dogma 2. I mean, it's the same engine. I don't know if it's the same version of the engine, uh, but it's a Capcom de developer, and Dragon's Dogma 2 could get seriously CPU bottlenecked. And one of the only ways to push through a CPU bottleneck is kind of to use frame generation, although coming from 30 FPS, that feels really bad anyway. So, I would say that this game in particular doesn't give me any signs of this is, uh, you know, a mode being pushed by GPU, uh, uh, uh, manufacturers to kind of be in the secret agreement with game devs to sell the game. Also, I should push back also against the, the, uh, the, these, okay, we have these path tracing modes in these other games, which yes, I do think are implemented, uh, to try to sell you new GPU hardware, but you don't have to run the games at those settings, right, so

like if I'm on uh Allen Wake 2, I could just uh turn up where honestly the 4060 TI 16 GB's only hitting 34 FPS, and like yeah, it's beating the 7800 XT by 54%, but and that's doing worse, but neither of these are doing great, but again, you can just not use that big feature set. Even at 1440p uh High settings, we're doing a lot better, and then with like quality level upscaling, uh we're now hitting 60 FPS, well 64 on the 4060 TI and 94 on the 7800 XT, and now the 7800 XT is crushing the uh Nvidia competition. But the point isn't these specific GPUs and all that, the point is that when you have these big uh heavy maximum settings added to games, you don't need to use them. Now sure, still creates that fear of missing out um which to sell you the new GPU Hardware, but you can just turn it off right, you can just go down to a

lower graphics setting and oftentimes still reach good performance in a lot of games. Uh, there's scalability there. So, in general, I don't actually have a big issue with there being some maximum graphic settings that are designed to completely push the boundaries of what is currently possible in real-time rendering, as long as the game still looks good on reduced graphics settings that people can run on realistic hardware. So, if you want some crazy max setting mode, uh, to, you know, show off what a powerful GPU can do and sell new GPU hardware again, I think it's kind of cool to see pushing the boundaries of tech. But if, uh, if you have to offer that, that, uh, reduced graphic settings that run well, and like I said, the scary thing about the system requirements for Monster Hunter Wilds, which again, the game's not out yet, we don't actually know how it's going to perform, is that it's the mid graphics settings that appear to be, uh, kind of scary if you're needing frame generation to get past 30 FPS at 1080p medium on fairly reasonable.

uh you know GPUs. Again, game's not out yet. We'll have to see what happens. So, that's where I think it gets a little bit more brutal, but that's also where I feel like it's less of a collusion with GPU developers to try to sell you something. Because again, are there agreements between game devs and GPU manufacturers to implement technologies to sell you newer GPUs? Yes. But does a game developer want people to not be able to play their game without buying a new PC? No. Game development is incredibly expensive right now. We're actually in a bit of a crisis in the gaming industry right now where a lot of games have massive budgets, especially these big AAA games, and then aren't necessarily selling massive copies. And that is like 'cuz the amount of copies they need to sell to make up those budgets is astronomical. So, we saw for example a game like Star Wars Outlaw came out recently, and I think it sold only a million copies total. And like a million copies that it

just in and of itself, a million is a big number, right? But, uh, the amount it cost to develop that game is certainly not being covered by that million copies, uh, let alone trying to turn a profit on it, right? So, in the end, it's not good for a game developer, uh, to, uh, limit who can buy their game. It's actually better for them if lots of people can buy their game, and that's going to be easier to do if more people can run it well on their PC. So, in the end, I think the more reduced graphic settings, your medium settings, your low settings, game developers do in the end want those to run on, uh, as much hardware as possible, um, given the amount of time they're allowed by the publisher, whoever, uh, or financial constraints to optimize the game for that, right? So, um, in the end, when we get these games where, so can we explain what's going on, um, right, where they're like, I can't imagine a game more complex in Cyber 2770 to run, yet somehow every next new release game, uh,

regardless of developer genre series raises the bar for requirement Hardware. So, first of all, that's actually just still not quite true. Obviously, this is saying every next new game is a bit too much. Like, if we look at some recent releases, like, you know, God of War Ragnarok just came out on PC, and while it has a couple of quirks, my testing of that game shows it actually running extremely well on a wide variety of Hardware. Like, there are still games coming out that run very well on a lot of Hardware, but are there more and more games that are heavier and heavier to run, especially, let's maybe compare it to Cyberpunk 2077 since that was mentioned, but just in general. So, what's going on? Well, I mean, one of the big things is that gaming consoles are the lead for game development. They're going to, again, with the, like we said, game budgets are huge. They need to sell as many copies as possible, and quite frankly, it's going to

be easier to sell a ton of copies on um you know consoles uh maybe compared to just like focusing on on PC so exclusively right so a lot of this outlook on things is very PC Centric when most games actually aren't using PC as their lead development platform they're using consoles right so uh the I think base level of system requirements is often set by the base level of console Hardware that they're targeting and so for a game that's going to be like a PlayStation 5 exclusive the PlayStation 5 um is you know it it's not like an extreme high-end PC but it's a lot more powerful than the kinds than than like PS4 level Hardware right cyberpunk 2077 uh famously kind of struggled in somewhat failed to be a crossgen game it was in other words it was still trying to run on a PlayStation 4 not just exclusively developed around the PlayStation 5 and so a a big issue here is that uh we got a new generation of

consoles, which when you're still in the cross-gen period, didn't have as an extreme of an impact on the base level of hardware we're trying to target. But once you kind of leave the cross-gen period, where developers are targeting both the PS4 and the PS5, and now they're just targeting the PS5, um, now you have that, uh, the issue that, uh, some gaming PCs aren't quite up to the level of a PlayStation 5. And alternatively, uh, some, uh, I should I put it, some PC gamers aren't willing to accept the levels of performance, uh, that console games are NE, are maybe running at CU. A lot of times, console games, well, a lot of PC gamers actually seem to have the impression that a PS5 is actually running games at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second a lot of the time. If you actually follow it closely, watch channels like Digital Foundry and stuff like that that analyze, uh, console game performance quite a bit. Oftentimes, consoles are maybe you

know outputting a 4K image to a TV, but the internal rendering resolution is oftentimes sub-1080p, especially when they're trying to hit a 60fps mode. A lot of PC gamers, I think, are like, 60 FPS is the bare minimum I would accept. I want 100 FPS. I want 120 FPS, right? And we were used to getting that, I think, more in that cross-gen period and when we were still at the tail end of the PS4 generation, where gaming PC performance was so far ahead of a PS4 on a reasonable gaming PC that you just could get those crazy high frame rates pretty easily on the games that were targeting that level of hardware, right? And now, you know, if a gaming PC, you know, it's harder to just be absolutely crushing a PS5 spec right now. You might be better, but by how much? And if the PS5 games running at like 30 to 40 FPS, right, then you know, are you

getting to 60. Are you getting to 100? So that's part of it now. Do now, is that an, does that excuse it, right? Um, well again, game developers are targeting the PS5 platform, and they have some amount of time to try to, uh, you know, back, uh, you know, optimize for PC, and then for lower-end PCs, and things like that. But I think realistically, you know, publishers are pushing them to get this thing out. You know, you know how much time do they have for that, right? So, um, so every new game released, regardless of developer, genre, series, raised the bar for requirement hardware. Again, I think it has more to do with that shift in the baseline, but um, uh, can't imagine a game more complex than Cyberpunk 2077 to run. So let's talk about that a little bit too, because um, it can be hard to tell, like, like what is actually hard to run, like what makes a game hard to run. There's the graphic settings, that there's what they're pushing there, right? Um, there's how far

down are you allowed to push the graphic settings, but there's also what's going on with the CPU, with data streaming. A lot of older games, especially again cross-gen games designed around still working on a PS4, you know, a lot of times the amount of NPCs they'll put on screen is more limited, or the size of the areas you'll be in at one time is more limited. When we look at a game like God of War Ragnarok, which again runs really well in a lot of PCs, that was a cross-gen title. Honestly, I kind of, it'd be interesting to see a game like that that was designed for the PS5 and not the cross-gen, because when you're playing God of War Ragnarok, a lot of times you crawl through this little narrow space to give the game time, an older hardware like the PS4, time to load in the next area. A lot of times you're only fighting a handful of enemies at a time, and then as

you defeat some more enemies, spawn in, and then you fight them because of, you know, CPU constraints on that older hardware, right? So, I think just in general, games are designed around a certain base level of hardware, and that moved up with the cross, uh, with the, um, uh, with the generational change. However, uh, I do think that more console developers should make sure they're targeting at least running at 60fps at reasonable settings and resolutions on the PS5, because that's where I think we run into issues like this, like we're seeing with the, uh, Monster Hunter Wild's PC system requirements. And again, the game's not out yet, we don't know how it's actually going to perform, but again, that's where this original comment that I'm responding to in this video is coming from. But um, it seems pretty clear from the preview footage we've seen of Monster Hunter Wilds, uh, that they're targeting 30 FPS on consoles, and um, honestly, a lot of the footage we've seen so far and

again months out before the game launches shows that they're not even always locking to 30 FPS on a PS5. So, um, really the performance of the game, especially on consoles, really comes down to what the developers are targeting. And a lot of games, if they're developed, uh, with originally a 30fps, um, uh, target on, on their console development, then they might try to shoehorn in a 60fps performance mode, but that usually comes at a massive hit to rendering resolution. And if, if the game CPU, uh, CPU-dependent systems like AI and the amount of NPCs and all sorts of things, um, uh, was designed around a 30 FPS, uh, uh, target, sometimes there's just not enough headroom on that PS5 CPU to actually get to 60 FPS, no matter how far down you scale the resolution in the graphic settings. Um, so, uh, really, I think it's, it's important that game developers realize that. I think most gamers, even on consoles, prefer the 60fps mode, uh, Mark Cery, uh, uh.

when talking about the PlayStation 5 Pro, I actually mentioned that I think it was somewhere around 70-something percent, 75% of games. I don't have the article pulled up, uh, of Gamers on PlayStation 5 choose to play it, the 60fps mode when it's available, even if it's not like the default mode available in the game. You have to actually intentionally switch to that. Um, so in other words, I think, uh, it's important that game developers realize that a lot of people do value a performant game, uh, and aren't necessarily, uh, as interested in every visual boundary being pushed. And so, uh, I think we'll see less of these complaints and things like that, uh, if game developers do make sure that they're taking that into account. So, I think there's some responsibility here on game developers to make sure their game, uh, does perform well on reasonable hardware. Uh, yeah, absolutely. And I think the big deal for me, uh, though from the, uh, you know, the commenter perspective.

the consumer perspective is that also make sure you're willing to run at optimized settings, right? Uh, because a game having an extremely heavy, like, full RT mode, uh, doesn't necessarily mean the game's unoptimized if you can run at more optimal settings extremely well on reasonable hardware. So, as the consumers of the games, I think what's fair for us is to acknowledge that you can turn down graphic settings, and you don't have to chase those, uh, full RT modes and things like that, which I think, uh, it is fair to say are at least partially there to sell you newer GPUs, okay? Um, but it doesn't mean the game's unoptimized. However, if we're uh, getting games that, again, if this actually comes out only running at 30 FPS on, on fairly uh, tough hardware, maybe not even performing well on console, is it then fair to push back on game developers? I think absolutely, but in a lot of those cases, I think it isn't necessarily um, so if the low-end settings aren't running well on

reasonable hardware. I think that's more of a game developer issue and not a, uh, Nvidia is trying to sell you something issue. I think that's more of those top-end specs, uh, top-end settings where that's happening. Anyway, I know this was a bit of a different sort of video, but I see this kind of comment, uh, all the time, so I wanted to give my thoughts on it, uh, hopefully you guys found my thoughts useful and/or interesting. Uh, feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section here, um, and if you want to support what I do here on the channel, you can, uh, check out the join button down below to become a channel member. There's various, um, uh, advantages to that, including your comments being easier for me to see. YouTube, uh, automatically, like, highlights those for creators and things like that, you badge on your comment and stuff like that. So, anyway, you can check out what's available down there, but totally understand if that's, uh, doesn't work out for you financially, um, but, uh, either way, uh, thank you to viewers.

subscribers, commenters, uh, everybody, uh, I hope you all have an excellent day.

Is Nvidia destroying game optimization to sell you new GPUs?

Is Nvidia destroying game optimization to sell you new GPUs?