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> In parallel I don't understand gamers with 15 years old hardware leaving bad reviews or whining when a game chokes above 720p with minimum settings. I won't
by sombragris 1y ago
> In parallel I don't understand gamers with 15 years old hardware leaving bad reviews or whining when a game chokes above 720p with minimum settings.
I won't leave a bad review or whine on BG3, and my (otherwise very capable laptop) is just 6 years old with an Intel UHD 620 integrated GPU, and BG3 barely reaches the 10fps level on 1024x768 with lowest settings on everywhere. So it's not even 720p, and BG3 chokes a lot in this somewhat recent hardware.
I see BG3's graphics and while they are beautiful, they're nothing out of the ordinary in comparison to other games. That is, there are good games that could run very well in my laptop and which look good.
In sum, I see BG3 as being needlessly demanding, and pushes out a large sector of machines and potential buyers. I'd love to have an RTX-class GPU (and have the cash to afford it), but all I have it's a laptop whose GPU cannot be upgraded, and that is perfectly capable in all other areas.
Every time when I point out this limit in games, which I see as silly, I get flamed to death. People in the gaming communities are seemingly unable to understand why making extremely high minimum requirements is not a good sales strategy.
Games can look good with integrated GPUs. See the Wolfenstein games (id engine). Even more recent games like Generation Zero (Apex open world engine) can be run decently at lowest settings on my hardware. MGS5:PhantomPain also runs and looks very good. But no luck with BG3.
- sailingparrot 1y agoTo be fair, there is world between "extremely high minimum requirements" and a 6 years old laptop, considering laptop of even the current year are never considered super high end rigs.
- sombragris 1y agoIf you had s/minimum/recommended I would agree. But no, we are talking about minimum requirements. I submit that a game should be playable even on 10-year old hardware. Of course, the devs can blow the ceiling in their highest settings. Do they need three RTX-7000 series in parallell cooled with liquid nitrogen and eating 3000W of electricity in order to run at the highest/ultra settings? Yeah, be my guest, more power to them. But we are, I insist, talking about minimum requirements. These should be as broad as possible in order to keep the entry barrier low. In a game which doesn't even look especially good, I see the very demanding hardware requirements as just a contribution to planned/artificial obsolescence. (and yeah, I got downvoted as expected. This is getting old...)
- ben-schaaf 1y agoI get where you're coming from, and I do think game devs should put more effort into supporting lower-end hardware. That said, bg3 does run on 10-year old hardware. The minimum requirements lists a gtx 970, released 2014. Which, despite its age, is still 6x faster than your integrated graphics.
- sombragris 1y agoGood, but it is still a discrete GPU. My point is that games should be made at least playable on integrated GPUs.