The defaults can be a double edged sword. Places like DF put out optimized defaults for really mainstreams config for just that reason. If you have a 3080 ti o

The defaults can be a double edged sword. Places like DF put out optimized defaults for really mainstreams config for just that reason. If you have a 3080 ti or 4090, sure, you have paid to just push play and expect stuff to work (well that still doesn't solve the compilation issues), but then you are leaving a lot of performance / fidelity on the table. However, if you are even somewhat underpowered (think of all the people that bought 6500 xt or 3050 because of the GPU shortage), you are going to have to do some type of manual tuning. Most users according to the April Steam survey use worse than a 3060 and a large fraction of those use something way worse than a 3060. Plus the CPU side isn't always a solved issue. I play on an 64 core epyc I primarily use for simulation. I have plenty of power on tap, but the lower clocks plus NUMA arch force me to do some fiddling. And I'm spoiled on that front, over half of gamers still play on 4 and 6 core machines (again, see the steam hardware survey for April) that chock gpus very quickly. A 300 dollar Series S may not show the most crisp image, but I often use mine to avoid the whole song and dance.