My love affair with the PC platform is quite unusual. In my teenage life, I hadn’t seen life outside of sheet metal, and played all the major titles with my mouse and keyboard. Thus, I missed most Nintendo or Sony games, but I didn’t care.
However, going back in time – at least 10 years ago – in an earlier time, with relatively few processors and graphics cards designed for playing video games, developers were able to optimize every game so well that even low-end PCs could handle it. Until now, I remember how a well-worn AMD Athlon 64 followed the blow with GTA 4 or Mass Effect 3 without any shortness of breath.
Today, due to the multiplicity of processors, graphics cards and other components such as the motherboard, RAM bones and even disks, developers face an uphill battle (which is also not an excuse for making weak gaming ports for PCs), because they are not able to predict all the specifications of the “tin” receiver. . Today’s equipment offers up to hundreds of combinations of processors or graphics cards from companies such as Nvidia, AMD or Intel.
Significant decrease in the quality of computer games
This is quite evident after the first performances from the last quarter of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. In my opinion, this is the worst period for PC players in several years when it comes to developers’ interest in optimization. It all started with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, where many gamers complained about crashes and all sorts of graphical bugs that prevented them from enjoying smooth gameplay – and this is very important in a shooter focused on online fun.
However, in December we received the Callisto protocol, which suffered from stuttering, i.e. shortcuts that completely freeze the image on the screen for a split second. This can drive you crazy, because none of us want the game to pick up the so-called. “to cut”. It’s no better with Forspoken, which, while it doesn’t suffer from stuttering, doesn’t offer smooth gameplay even on powerful hardware. Frame rate drops are standard in Square Enix games – especially during moments on screens full of action.
In contrast, with the release of Dead Space (remake) and The Last of Us Part I a few days ago, creating shaders was quite an issue. This process takes a very long time and causes graphic errors that seriously spoil the perception of the situation, because some elements on the screen take on a different color or create blurred (blurred) textures. The developers from Electronic Arts quickly dealt with this problem, so let’s hope that it will be the same as Ellie and Joel’s adventure.
For several months I’ve been preferring consoles to PCs
You could easily add Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and WILD HEARTS to this list – especially since the latter looks awful and runs even worse – the fault here is the very poorly designed Katana engine for the new generation of consoles, which Koei Tecmo (the creators of this production) probably didn’t understand. ). This is not what it should be.
Looking at the games mentioned above, I think switching from PC to consoles in recent years was a good decision. I still play PC-only exclusive games with a smile on my face (I have fond memories of Expeditions: Rome, among others), but when I’m multi-platform, I get a version adapted for Sony or Microsoft devices, because I know That there is 99.9% of the time, there is no negative surprise waiting for me. I’m not sure about PC, and given the recent releases, I guess I’m not alone in this thought.
“Prone to fits of apathy. Introvert. Award-winning internet evangelist. Extreme beer expert.”
