Comment by SchemaLoad
14 hours ago
I'd guess that the difference only matters if you have the latest most expensive gear pushed to the limit. I have a 2019 RX5700 XT and one of the DDR4 ryzen 5 cpus and all of my games run flawlessly on Linux with great performance.
I've long since decided that buying the latest top end hardware is just spending a lot of money to be upset by buggy drivers or not being able to get 5000 fps in a benchmark but has no real gains in how fun games are.
> I have a 2019 RX5700 XT
So you have very old hardware, can barely play modern AAA games (if ever), and are still happy. Good for you.
But your opinion is relevant to average gamer who enjoys playing games released in current year in the same way that someone drinking instant coffee can advise on coffee beens that it's all just caffeine in the end.
This. I understand that getting your desktop fps to ridiculous heights is a hobby in and of itself, an obsession that I don't share at all, and good luck to them that do. But I'm colourblind and have the reaction speed of a slug. Anything over 25fps is wasted on me.
After building a few PCs over the years something I've noticed is every time I've bought the highest end new part I feel bad about the money spent, and then I feel bad every time there's a delayed frame or feature missing, and then I feel bad when the next model comes out.
Every time I get something mid range or second hand I feel good about what a good deal I got, and how I'm getting 98% of the features for 40% of the price, and how realistically as soon as you stop pixel peeping screenshots, you won't even notice your settings are on High instead of Ultra. You just take in the story, the sound design, and the actual game.
> all of my games run flawlessly on Linux with great performance.
Your definition of great performance is not mine, but it’s fantastic to watch Linux users continue to hand wave away real issues whilst continually claiming the same or better performance across the board, which is provably false.
> but has no real gains in how fun games are.
It absolutely does for me. Modern displays are absolutely dogshit. I won’t play at anything less than 144hz, as much as I can I aim for 200hz and I want that with consistent frame times.
This is exactly the mentality I'm talking about. People have entertained themselves for all of human history without anything nearly as sophisticated as modern displays. At some point this unchecked desire will suck all of the fun out of a hobby and leave you constantly buying the latest thing and dissatisfied at anything that isn't the highests specs possible to acquire.
The game story, gameplay elements, and such have become secondary to the real hobby of consumerism. If people could have fun gaming 20 years ago, there is no reason it isn't possible to have just as much fun gaming on low to mid range hardware today.
I think this is similar to how buying books is a related but different hobby to reading books, or buying board games is a related but different hobby to playing board games. I know people who have hundreds of board games, thousands of dollars worth, but rarely get to actually play them (for various reasons but mostly involving children).
The hobby of optimising your gaming desktop is a related but different hobby to actually playing games.
2 replies →
> At some point this unchecked desire will suck all of the fun out of a hobby
You’re projecting. I think I’ve got what I enjoy from my hobby figured out after 35+ years, but thanks anyway.
> The game story, gameplay elements, and such have become secondary to the real hobby of consumerism.
You’re projecting.
> If people could have fun gaming 20 years ago
I didn’t have to endure sample and hold slop 20 years ago, now I do. You may accept or tolerate it, I am under no requirement to do so, nor live in a world where I must accept a significant performance loss is “ok” in any circumstance.
If I wanted less performance, I’d buy something with less performance to begin with.