Season 18, Episode 28

In-Game Chat

Is it really time to upgrade?

I don’t know if it’s my weird sense of time, but it seems way too soon for me to be thinking about getting a new graphics card. But now I’m realizing how LONG it took before I moved onto the 3080 that I currently have. Due to the inability to find the cards because of COVID it was well over a year or more before I grabbed one. And looking at the 4070s currently, they are seemingly cheaper than what I paid for a two year old 3080.

We got into this discussion when looking at the PC requirements for the new Star Wars Outlaws game. It was nice to see more than just the min-max specs. Hopefully, more studios will show us more options. More than the consoles, PC’s have a wide array of different methods of displaying a game. You have at least three different resolutions to pick from, you have different targets of FPS, and then you’ve got wide and ultra wide monitors. So it’s good to see they take that into consideration, just sad to see that my current card (for THAT specific game) can’t pull off 60FPS at 1440p.

And yeah, I know PC gaming is more tweaking the settings than it is actual gaming but that’s actually the fun part to me – finding that sweet spot of performance and looks. It’s just nice when you have the card that allows you to really adjust that to your liking. And it’s also nice to not have to worry about whatever is thrown your way.

To be clear, I’m not worried about games coming out that I can’t run. This card is still a beast of a card and is working very well. It can decently handle any game out right now that you can throw at it. Maybe not at max settings but easily enough that I can hit a target FPS without really worrying too much about lower settings. It’s just that, when you’re looking at the min-max settings on games and your card begins to trend towards the lower settings, it puts that notion in your mind about moving up a step.

It makes me wonder what kind of PC I’ll have whenever a new Splinter Cell is released. Ubisoft, it has been 3,998 days since a new Splinter Cell game (non-animated series or guest spot in another game franchise, remake, BBC radio drama, or VR exclusive) was released.