Systematic Gaslighting (PC)

[Creamhoven]

Hello fellow AAAs (atariageastronauts),

 

I really didn't want to do this. I really really did not want to write this thread, but I can't leave this subject undiscussed.

 

Allow me to tell you a little bit of a backstory.

 

I was going for a walk with the dog Kronos yesterday. As I returned home I saw a mainboard I was gifted by my girlfriend. She suprised me with this gift, but I had already ordered one online. So now I have an extra one, I don't know what to do with. I was contemplating building a gaming PC, and check what the AAA PC gaming scene is like at this time.

 

For three weeks now I hear the guys at Digital Foundry talking quite negativly about AAA PC gaming. At first I didn't think much of it, but then I thought it might be better to save the money and not buy a new PC.

 

Let's look back on Digital Foundry's negative coverage:

 

While there has been a lot of negativitiy before, it really picked up three weeks now.

 

Looking at the DF Direct on May 2, 2023.

 

'This has been a quite bad year for AAA gaming.'

On  May 8, 2023 it became even more extreme with the first segment 'PC gaming in crisis'

Finally on May 15, 2023 they dropped this weighty comment:

 

'(final question) Hi DF crew, every time when bizarre performance issues appear (ranging from lack of proper multithreading to intermittent stuttering), there's always a conversation about how QA cannot catch every bug, how it only effects 'a percentage of users' and how it's just a miracle that some other AAA games have proper ports or performance profiles. I find it very disingenuous, especially when it's coming from the developers themselves. Can DF emphasize in future videos that these are not gameplay bugs that need specific conditions to be reproduced, but something that is true for each and every modern PC. I'm tried of publishers GASLIGHTING us ('haha it is!') that PC parts permutations is the issues. Greetings from Georgia (not the state)'

 

[...]

 

'We are continually seeing statements that say things like: 'a certain proportion of the audience' or 'a small percentage' or 'a certain percentage'

 

'Or just a percentage'

 

'Yeah... a percentage, which could be 99.99 or indeed 100... having issues with the game, and it is gaslighting isn't it? Because either all processors would be effecte by stuff like stutter, shader compilation stutter, traversal stutter. It is just a case of whether you notice it or not'

 

'Yeah, so I wanted to say its complete bullsh*t ('Ooou! Ooof!') to say there is a certain percentage of users are effected by something that can only effect every user. The permutation issue exists, I don't wanna say that it doesn't and it does technically effect the reason why this is occuring. Permutations of PCs exist, so we get the necessity to precompile PSOs right? If there was only one PC, like a Mac or whatever then you wouldn't have this necessity anyways. [...] But in this case it's not true and I actually have if you I don't know what time I started doing this, but in a number of videos I started using the phrase and this effects every PC out there.'

 

Please share your thoughts whether or not this is true.

 

For the sake of conversation I am going to assume that it is spot on for now.

 

This is very sobering to me, and really makes me rethink if getting into PC gaming now is a good idea. I can understand that if you buy a top notch PC now that in 10 years you are going to be among an absolute minority of players that have these kind of issues. But if you replace that with, now it is bad for everyone that is quite an unstable situation. Is it really that bad that they resort even to tactics like gaslighting?! I mean if you can't make it work in a legit way, isn't it time to hand over the control to others who can do the job properly? Where is this going to end up if incompetent people are directing such critical institutions like culture creation. This is getting really ugly and the more this unstable situation is prolonged, the uglier it gets. There will be a change coming anyway, so it's better to be reasonable now to avoid further escalation. Please reconsider gaming developers.

 

And please share your thoughts as always, thanks for your attention.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Creamhoven

[Tanooki]

Sounds like you're just looking for an excuse not to upgrade.  Just because they're pointing out real issues on the PC side doesn't mean it's just gas lighting people.  There are millions, billions of potential perhaps combinations of each type of CPU, RAM, Motherboard, SSD, SSD+HDD, HDD, sound chips, sound cards, a huge spread of GPUs that vary even when they shouldn't as much, and then the other internal factors of stuff down to who manufactured this or that to whatever spec down to some crappy litttle tidbit like USB type/ports of all things or the power supply itself, even a dopey fan or few.  If you're going to let the DF people who are fed up with various stuff scare you off that badly, you might need to really dig deep and look at what you want to game on or even if you want to game on modern stuff at all anymore really.  And keep in mind, a PC isn't a gaming machine, it's a swiss army knife of many uses too, so take the games as a big perk depending how deep in the video card rabbit hole you dive.

 

It's hard to test stuff, but also there should be some push back against that bullshit too against the too hard to test bit.  Sure, it is, but there are hard enough caps of combinations you can test for that would knockout probably at least 2/3 or 3/4 of likely issues, so I mean if MOST people are shitting on a game for bad performance, I really doubt they all have the same oddball configuration that's causing a game to have a stroke.  I'm taking this from the experience of doing personal and for others (in the past mind you largely now) PC tech work, and before/around that also working in the gaming industry where that hardware was definitively a narrow line of pieces.  Some of it, quite honestly, it's developer incompetence, laziness, apathy, and bean counting twat waffles in administration that force out garbage in a BETA state for full retail.  They do a cost analysis of people losing their shit vs those who are happy, and if they figure in a bad scenario, they still win...well fuck the consumer.  That's how it goes on console, easily more so with a bit less rope to hang yourself on PC given the spread of parts and part combinations (OS's too.)

 

 

 

That said, given how goddamn awful consoles have been to be fair in the post PS3/360 era where they really just are out of date walled garden collated parts of past PC gem hardware to keep within a performance budget, that has to make at least some people think.  Sure you could drop $500-600 on a new console that'll last 5 years, it may get a pro version costing you again that much to eek out a few more...then what?  If yuo're a gimme gimme type who jumps in with no deals, no waiting you're out easily already $1000+ on a walled garden.  At $1000 you're already (video card aside) into a stunning PC.  Drop another 500-600 on a video card and shit...you got a PC that'll last you two console generations and all the other perks a PC allows over a gaming box.  And then factor in just how much you'll save not putting up with their shit (Sony/MS) buying PC versions of all the games those systems get (a few exceptions, largely 1st/2nd party on the Sony side) which will look better, run better, likely sound marginally better too...and not at $60.  Steam/GoG have huge quarterly seasonal sales even brand new games get a 20% cut, most others seem to sink 50-80% usually though.  The tens of dollars per title you save there, and knowing those games will work 10-20+ years down the road as long as Steam/GoG keep stuff up to snuff as they have done so far...you'd have to be a fanboy or on a real tiny budget to want a console from either maker now.  Want to play it on a huge TV?  Computers have HDMI out, jack that into the TV and stop making excuses.

 

I've been thinking on this for some many years now, then acted on it slowly, quite slowly but still have.  8 1/2 years ago I got a hell of a gaming DIY laptop(no soldered in parts) a mid-rage 3ghz i7, nvidia gtx 980 8GB video chip, 16GB of ram, etc.  I can outrun PS3 heavily, PS4 moderately, and I can just eek out what PS4 Pro can do too... can't keep up with PS5 though.  I knew upgrade time was coming, would have a year back or two but part shortages, greedy a-holes, video card price scams over moronic miners, I've put it off.  This will be the year, going with an ryzen machine, nvidia starter 4XXX chipset, 16/32 on the ram not sure yet, 1 or 2 TB SSD too depending on budget.  It will be a tower this time and I've already planned it from cyberpower pc who have been around decades now after seeing a backbone in a random bestbuy sale(then doing it better on the makers website.)  I see no reason anymore to support dedicated consoles, they're a joke, an expensive walled garden piss in the pot can't carry your games to the next waste of money.

[Flojomojo]

Digital Foundry sees things I cannot see, and don't really care about. I'm happy enough bashing thru (relatively) low-resolution games on Switch and don't necessarily need high frame rates to have fun. 

 

Value what you care about, don't worry about the rest. 

[Creamhoven]

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Sounds like you're just looking for an excuse not to upgrade. 

Hello Nook, and thank you for your post. You are alwaus taking great care crafting them and I appreachiate it.

 

You are correct. In a way I dont want to build this PC, but then again, not using this motherboard (it is a nice one) would be a shame, so I am going to do it anyway...

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Just because they're pointing out real issues on the PC side doesn't mean it's just gas lighting people.

As far as I understood it, they are upset because they are finding constantly errors that effects every PC gamer, while companies themself are pretending it is an issue that ony effects few. If DF is correct they are lying, and if they are doing so knowingliy it kind of is gaslighting.

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

  There are millions, billions of potential perhaps combinations of each type of CPU, RAM, Motherboard, SSD, SSD+HDD, HDD, sound chips, sound cards, a huge spread of GPUs that vary even when they shouldn't as much, and then the other internal factors of stuff down to who manufactured this or that to whatever spec down to some crappy litttle tidbit like USB type/ports of all things or the power supply itself, even a dopey fan or few.  If you're going to let the DF people who are fed up with various stuff scare you off that badly, you might need to really dig deep and look at what you want to game on or even if you want to game on modern stuff at all anymore really. 

Yes you are correct. I like the classics and I am going to build this PC to make use of the motherboard my girlfriend

 

gifted to

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

And keep in mind, a PC isn't a gaming machine, it's a swiss army knife of many uses too, so take the games as a big perk depending how deep in the video card rabbit hole you dive.

Yeah, they arent cheap these days. I am not in a hurry. Is it better to wait to buy a GPU right now? How can you catch great deals?

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

 

It's hard to test stuff, but also there should be some push back against that bullshit too against the too hard to test bit.  Sure, it is, but there are hard enough caps of combinations you can test for that would knockout probably at least 2/3 or 3/4 of likely issues, so I mean if MOST people are shitting on a game for bad performance, I really doubt they all have the same oddball configuration that's causing a game to have a stroke.

As far as I understanding there are issues with things lile shader compilation that causes stutter struggle, and this can not be effectivly overcome by better/more adequate hardware unfortunaly.

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

  I'm taking this from the experience of doing personal and for others (in the past mind you largely now) PC tech work, and before/around that also working in the gaming industry where that hardware was definitively a narrow line of pieces. 

That good to know. I am going to build this PC. I think I will use an old GPU I have lying around until I have figured out how I can get a good deal on a CPU.

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Some of it, quite honestly, it's developer incompetence, laziness, apathy, and bean counting twat waffles in administration that force out garbage in a BETA state for full retail.  They do a cost analysis of people losing their shit vs those who are happy, and if they figure in a bad scenario, they still win...well fuck the consumer. 

This saddens me. I hope that one day developers will look at games with the potential of high art and will treat it as such.

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

That's how it goes on console, easily more so with a bit less rope to hang yourself on PC given the spread of parts and part combinations (OS's too.)

Okay. The Console games according to DF are running better.

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

 

 

That said, given how goddamn awful consoles have been to be fair in the post PS3/360 era where they really just are out of date walled garden collated parts of past PC gem hardware to keep within a performance budget,

Yeah right? Since the PS4 the consoles are like out of date closed off PC systems, that dont differ all that much from the competition. Sad.

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

that has to make at least some people think.  Sure you could drop $500-600 on a new console that'll last 5 years, it may get a pro version costing you again that much to eek out a few more...then what?  If yuo're a gimme gimme type who jumps in with no deals, no waiting you're out easily already $1000+ on a walled garden.  At $1000 you're already (video card aside) into a stunning PC.  Drop another 500-600 on a video card and shit...you got a PC that'll last you two console generations and all the other perks a PC allows over a gaming box. 

That is impressive.

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

And then factor in just how much you'll save not putting up with their shit (Sony/MS) buying PC versions of all the games those systems get (a few exceptions, largely 1st/2nd party on the Sony side) which will look better, run better, likely sound marginally better too...and not at $60.  Steam/GoG have huge quarterly seasonal sales even brand new games get a 20% cut, most others seem to sink 50-80% usually though.  The tens of dollars per title you save there, and knowing those games will work 10-20+ years down the road as long as Steam/GoG keep stuff up to snuff as they have done so far...you'd have to be a fanboy or on a real tiny budget to want a console from either maker now.  Want to play it on a huge TV?  Computers have HDMI out, jack that into the TV and stop making excuses.

Yeah. I like the switch because it does something unique hardware and software wise, but the other consoles are not appealing. PC are the way to go. I like classic games, therefore a powerfil GPU is not a priority right now.

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

 

I've been thinking on this for some many years now, then acted on it slowly, quite slowly but still have.  8 1/2 years ago I got a hell of a gaming DIY laptop(no soldered in parts) a mid-rage 3ghz i7, nvidia gtx 980 8GB video chip, 16GB of ram, etc.  I can outrun PS3 heavily, PS4 moderately, and I can just eek out what PS4 Pro can do too...

Nice.

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

can't keep up with PS5 though.  I knew upgrade time was coming, would have a year back or two but part shortages, greedy a-holes, video card price scams over moronic miners, I've put it off.  This will be the year, going with an ryzen machine, nvidia starter 4XXX chipset, 16/32 on the ram not sure yet, 1 or 2 TB SSD too depending on budget. 

Great. Are you optimistic about the current state of AAA gaming. Ive heard that Gran Turismo is coming out for PC. Maybe that is something I can enjoy. Driving throu tokio in a vintage car.

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

It will be a tower this time and I've already planned it from cyberpower pc who have been around decades now after seeing a backbone in a random bestbuy sale(then doing it better on the makers website.)  I see no reason anymore to support dedicated consoles, they're a joke,

I agree (apart from the switch).

18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

an expensive walled garden piss in the pot can't carry your games to the next waste of money.

I understand you disappointment.

5 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

Digital Foundry sees things I cannot see, and don't really care about. I'm happy enough bashing thru (relatively) low-resolution games on Switch and don't necessarily need high frame rates to have fun. 

 

Value what you care about, don't worry about the rest. 

What about stutter struggle though?

[Tanooki]

Ok I can't do it, just going to do @Creamhoven and respond using 2 browser sessions to read back and forward.

 

1- No problem, and I'm in the same boat looking to upgrade after nearly a decade and it is quite overwhelming the choices but they're good choices.

 

2- Yeah I know, that is the definition of gaslighting, but this has been nothing new even if they're whining now.  That asinine behavior goes back to the earlier post DOS era considering Win95, then ME were glitchy turds and graphics card drivers/app suites were more often than not checkered dumpster fires.  I've largely almost built my computers other than the previous laptop and a Dell via a work program before though I semi-picked it's guts so not really pre-built.

 

3- Classics are largely where I rest these days, lack of time or interest in putting up with the bs.  What infected walled garden consoles got PC first with flaky drivers, weird bugs, etc and excuses, but before excuses were many just released patches that did stuff and at least the games came out functional, a true 1.0 vs some crap beta we get as a launch title now.  Things got worse.

 

4- Deals.  I did and have been doing a LOT of research.  It's best these days if you have a bit of room for fiddling with part makers and a will to do it if something crap out of the box to do it 100% yourself, but if you are fine losing minimally another $100 or so (nothing crazy) it's best to use a pick every single one of your parts and have a company assemble it scenario and ship it to you as you'll get at least a 1-3yr warranty with lifetime support.  See the end of my post I'll give you a link to who I will use and they run daily/weekly mega sales of choices (they seem pre-built but are 100% customizable.)  I'll also link the bestbuy ad to the backbone of what I want and led me to their site to tweak and their site has part combos for solid deals.

 

5- (Skipping a few due to overlap) the DF retro guys saying the console games run better depending is not a surprise, again, set hard limits on parts and their generally lower spec levels vs the spread of PCs makes it easier to tweak and tune a game for one format than the buckshot of parts PC has.

 

6- I found the weird math on the $1000 bit you quoted too interesting.  It's easy enough to get a good quality AMD/Intel chipset/cpu going on, and then dunk into the better video card later as they're widely compatible, so even if you went nuts now, sold something or saved up you could drop a good chunk later to get that insane video card to make the PC last years to come (and another chunk of ram chips too say from 16 to 32.)

 

7- I don't really have optimism about AAA gaming, I just don't care as I once did, and often now AAA can be confused with AAA of a few eras back and before.   AAA then was equally if not more about the actual quality of the game, effort on both design and gameplay(end user) that gave it a true loving AAA 100% awesome-o! level of status.  Now AAA is more about how big the game is in design, humans making it, even more so the asinine pre-marketing and marketing as it hits and after...it's corporate doublespeak and ad frenzy to determine AAA more than being an actual AAA game itself.  You'll notice in more recent years more of these AAA games have been widely ranging from quite good to largely dogshit.  NO ONE in the 80s and 90s would call a AAA game a AAA game if it was shit on a chip/disc like they do now.

 

I'll have to look at whatever you mean by stutter struggle or you can summarize it.

 

Anyway this is the PC backbone I was looking at at bestbuy its $2000.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cyberpowerpc-gamer-master-gaming-desktop-amd-ryzen-7-7700x-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-ti-1tb-ssd-white/6530460.p?skuId=6530460

 

The entity is CyberPower PC a trusted and quality parts/DIY computer supplier since the 1990s, I remember them well.  Now this is a direct link to their site, but their daily MEGA DEALS tab I mentioned. https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/page/Mega-Special/

This link here changes as you'll see by the rolling 24hr count down.  Scroll the choices, see what looks good and click inside.  They're not set in stone to still keep the deal.  You can tweak every single piece in there to your liking.  And also (deals or not) unlike a big box version or others, you get better deals on the other parts you may need if they're not just given to you in the package free.  Having a laptop I'll be down a keyboard and a screen.  I can get a panel (24"~) for like $200 that's far less than me buying it elsewhere, and I can also get: FREE keyboard, FREE mouse and mousepad, FREE games tied to whatever GPU I grab, they also will upgrade you from say a 8GB to a 16GB mem stick for free or knock off $50-100+ on some part over another taking the deals even lower.  The one I linked at BB I re-built on their site, it cost me less, enough less the parts missing I need from my laptop (optical drive and SD card reader) I could pick up and not take the hit as an added cost.

[Creamhoven]

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Ok I can't do it, just going to do @Creamhoven and respond using 2 browser sessions to read back and forward.

That's okay. Whatever suits you.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

1- No problem, and I'm in the same boat looking to upgrade after nearly a decade and it is quite overwhelming the choices but they're good choices.

Nice. I have been considering the Ryzen 5500 since it is cheaper than the 5600 but comparable in performance as far as I understand. Maybe even the 5800X3D but that one is substantionally more expensive and I dont know if that makes sense for a classic gaming enjoyer like me.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

2- Yeah I know, that is the definition of gaslighting, but this has been nothing new even if they're whining now.  That asinine behavior goes back to the earlier post DOS era considering Win95, then ME were glitchy turds and graphics card drivers/app suites were more often than not checkered dumpster fires.  I've largely almost built my computers other than the previous laptop and a Dell via a work program before though I semi-picked it's guts so not really pre-built.

I see. I didnt know about these things. Maybe things will get better even though they have developed quite the habbit to do otherwise.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

3- Classics are largely where I rest these days, lack of time or interest in putting up with the bs.  What infected walled garden consoles got PC first with flaky drivers, weird bugs, etc and excuses, but before excuses were many just released patches that did stuff and at least the games came out functional, a true 1.0 vs some crap beta we get as a launch title now.  Things got worse.

Maybe they are losing their grip. It seems like they dont care anymore.

 

I tried to install Lander by Psygnosis from myabandonware but I couldnt get it to run. Classic PC gaming is maybe to complicated for me but I will give it a try.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

4- Deals.  I did and have been doing a LOT of research.  It's best these days if you have a bit of room for fiddling with part makers and a will to do it if something crap out of the box to do it 100% yourself, but if you are fine losing minimally another $100 or so (nothing crazy) it's best to use a pick every single one of your parts and have a company assemble it scenario and ship it to you as you'll get at least a 1-3yr warranty with lifetime support. 

Good to know, but I already got the motherboard here.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

See the end of my post I'll give you a link to who I will use and they run daily/weekly mega sales of choices (they seem pre-built but are 100% customizable.)  I'll also link the bestbuy ad to the backbone of what I want and led me to their site to tweak and their site has part combos for solid deals.

Thanks!

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

 

5- (Skipping a few due to overlap) the DF retro guys saying the console games run better depending is not a surprise, again, set hard limits on parts and their generally lower spec levels vs the spread of PCs makes it easier to tweak and tune a game for one format than the buckshot of parts PC has.

Yes, I think they can precompile the shaders for the console versions.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

6- I found the weird math on the $1000 bit you quoted too interesting.  It's easy enough to get a good quality AMD/Intel chipset/cpu going on, and then dunk into the better video card later as they're widely compatible, so even if you went nuts now, sold something or saved up you could drop a good chunk later to get that insane video card to make the PC last years to come (and another chunk of ram chips too say from 16 to 32.)

Okay, thats what I am going to do then.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

 

7- I don't really have optimism about AAA gaming, I just don't care as I once did, and often now AAA can be confused with AAA of a few eras back and before.   AAA then was equally if not more about the actual quality of the game, effort on both design and gameplay(end user) that gave it a true loving AAA 100% awesome-o! level of status.  Now AAA is more about how big the game is in design, humans making it, even more so the asinine pre-marketing and marketing as it hits and after...it's corporate doublespeak and ad frenzy to determine AAA more than being an actual AAA game itself. 

That is true. It is the hollywoodisation of gaming.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

You'll notice in more recent years more of these AAA games have been widely ranging from quite good to largely dogshit.  NO ONE in the 80s and 90s would call a AAA game a AAA game if it was shit on a chip/disc like they do now.

I didnt know they called it AAA in the 90s.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I'll have to look at whatever you mean by stutter struggle or you can summarize it.

As far as I understand it, recent PC ports compile their shaders on the go. This leads to immense stuttering (it looks brutal to watch) in the first playthrough. This cannot be overcome by top notch hardware, and only be slightly mittigated by it.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Anyway this is the PC backbone I was looking at at bestbuy its $2000.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cyberpowerpc-gamer-master-gaming-desktop-amd-ryzen-7-7700x-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-ti-1tb-ssd-white/6530460.p?skuId=6530460

I will have a close look later.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

The entity is CyberPower PC a trusted and quality parts/DIY computer supplier since the 1990s, I remember them well.  Now this is a direct link to their site, but their daily MEGA DEALS tab I mentioned. https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/page/Mega-Special/

This link here changes as you'll see by the rolling 24hr count down.  Scroll the choices, see what looks good and click inside.  They're not set in stone to still keep the deal.  You can tweak every single piece in there to your liking.  And also (deals or not) unlike a big box version or others, you get better deals on the other parts you may need if they're not just given to you in the package free.  Having a laptop I'll be down a keyboard and a screen.  I can get a panel (24"~) for like $200 that's far less than me buying it elsewhere, and I can also get: FREE keyboard, FREE mouse and mousepad, FREE games tied to whatever GPU I grab, they also will upgrade you from say a 8GB to a 16GB mem stick for free or knock off $50-100+ on some part over another taking the deals even lower.  The one I linked at BB I re-built on their site, it cost me less, enough less the parts missing I need from my laptop (optical drive and SD card reader) I could pick up and not take the hit as an added cost.

Sounds great. I will check on this in detail later on as well.

 

Thank you very much.

[Creamhoven]

@Tanooki

https://youtu.be/Kr7RGkFuPdQ&t=1m55s

Check out this stutter struggle

[digdugnate]

AAA PC gaming refers to high-budget, high-production-value games developed and published by major gaming companies. The term "AAA" is often used to describe games that offer expansive worlds, advanced graphics, complex gameplay mechanics, and extensive marketing campaigns.

 

Whether AAA PC gaming is good or not is subjective and depends on personal preferences. AAA games are known for their high production values, immersive storytelling, impressive graphics, and polished gameplay. They often have larger development teams and budgets, allowing for more extensive content and features.

 

AAA PC games often provide a visually stunning and immersive gaming experience, with detailed worlds, realistic animations, and advanced technologies. They often attract a wide audience and can offer extensive single-player campaigns, multiplayer modes, and additional downloadable content (DLC).

 

However, it's important to note that AAA games are not without criticisms. Some common criticisms include a focus on graphical fidelity at the expense of gameplay innovation, repetitive gameplay mechanics, and potential issues related to microtransactions or loot boxes. Additionally, the development of AAA games can sometimes lead to a lack of diversity in game genres and ideas, as big-budget projects tend to prioritize market viability and established franchises.

 

Ultimately, the enjoyment of AAA PC gaming will depend on your personal preferences, gaming tastes, and what you value in a gaming experience. It's advisable to research specific games, read reviews, and consider your own interests and gaming priorities before deciding if a particular AAA title is suitable for you.

[Creamhoven]

36 minutes ago, digdugnate said:

AAA PC gaming refers to high-budget, high-production-value games developed and published by major gaming companies. The term "AAA" is often used to describe games that offer expansive worlds, advanced graphics, complex gameplay mechanics, and extensive marketing campaigns.

 

Whether AAA PC gaming is good or not is subjective and depends on personal preferences. AAA games are known for their high production values, immersive storytelling, impressive graphics, and polished gameplay. They often have larger development teams and budgets, allowing for more extensive content and features.

 

AAA PC games often provide a visually stunning and immersive gaming experience, with detailed worlds, realistic animations, and advanced technologies. They often attract a wide audience and can offer extensive single-player campaigns, multiplayer modes, and additional downloadable content (DLC).

 

However, it's important to note that AAA games are not without criticisms. Some common criticisms include a focus on graphical fidelity at the expense of gameplay innovation, repetitive gameplay mechanics, and potential issues related to microtransactions or loot boxes. Additionally, the development of AAA games can sometimes lead to a lack of diversity in game genres and ideas, as big-budget projects tend to prioritize market viability and established franchises.

 

Ultimately, the enjoyment of AAA PC gaming will depend on your personal preferences, gaming tastes, and what you value in a gaming experience. It's advisable to research specific games, read reviews, and consider your own interests and gaming priorities before deciding if a particular AAA title is suitable for you.

But what about shader compilation stutter that impacts all consumers of AAA PC ports especially of the unreal engine variety?

[digdugnate]

shader compilation stutter is a known issue that can affect PC games, particularly those using the Unreal Engine or other similar engines. Shader compilation refers to the process of converting shader code, which defines how graphics are rendered, into executable instructions for the GPU.

 

During gameplay, when a new shader is encountered that hasn't been compiled before, there can be a brief pause or stutter as the shader is compiled in real-time. This stutter can disrupt the smoothness of the gameplay experience, and it can impact all consumers of AAA PC ports, as you mentioned.

 

Developers are aware of this issue and constantly strive to optimize shader compilation to minimize or eliminate stutter. They employ various techniques to pre-compile shaders, cache them, or dynamically load them in the background to reduce the impact on gameplay. Additionally, game developers may provide patches or updates to address specific performance issues, including shader compilation stutter.