Okay I'm going to go against the grain, and will probably get downvoted to hell, but this is not new. This is PC gaming. This has always been PC gaming. Hot take - you don't need 4k@60fps to be able to have fun playing games.

New games require top of the line hardware (or hardware that doesn't even exist yet) for high-ultra settings. Always have, always will. (Hell, we had an entire meme about 'can it run crysis', a game that literally could only play on low-medium on even the highest level machines for a few years) Game makers want to make their games not just work now, but want them to look great in 5 years too. Unless you have shelled out over a grand this year for the absolute latest GPU, you should not expect any new game to run on great settings.

In fact, I do keep my PC fairly bleeding edge and I can't drive more than High settings on most games - and that's okay. Eventually I'll play them on Ultra, when hardware catches up. It's fine.

And as for low to mid level hardware I was there too - and that's just PC gaming friend. I played Borderlands and Left4Dead the year they came out on a very old Radeon card at 640x480 in windowed mode, medium settings, at about 40fps.

Again, this is just what PC gaming is. If you want crisp ultra graphics, you're gonna have to shell out the ultra payments. Otherwise, fine tuning low to medium payments, becoming okay with sub 60fps, this is all fairly normal.

Personally, when I upgrade I find great joy in going back and "rediscovering" some of the older games and playing them on ultra for the first time.

This is getting out of hand. The other day I saw the requirements for "Hell is Us" game and it's ridiculous. My RX6600 can't play anything anymore. I've downloaded several PS3 ROMs and now I'm playing old games. So much better than this insanity. This is probably what I'm going to be doing now, play old games.

Edit: I wanted to edit the post for more context and to vent/rant a little.

I don't want to say I made a mistake, but I buy everything used, and I have scored a good deal on two 27" 4k monitors from Facebook marketplace. Got both monitors for $120.

They're $800 on Amazon used. Great monitors and I love 4k. I also bought an RX6600 AMD GPU for $100 from Facebook. It was almost new. The owner upgraded and wanted to get rid of it. My whole build was very cheap compared to what I see some folks get (genuinely happy for those who can afford it. Life is too short. Enjoy it while you can).

I can't afford these high end GPUs, but now very few games work on low settings and I'd get something like 20 FPS max. My friend gave me access to his steam library and I wanted to play Indiana Jones the other day, and it was an "omfg, wtf is this horrible shit" moment.
I'm so sick of this shit!

I don't regret buying any of these, but man it sucks that the games I want to play barely even work.
So, now I'm emulating and it's actually pretty awesome. I've missed out on so many games in my youth so now I'm just going to catch up on what I've missed out on. Everything works in 4k now and I'm getting my full 60FPS and I'm having so much fun.

This is getting out of hand. The other day I saw the requirements for "Hell is Us" game and it's ridiculous. My RX6600 can't play anything anymore. I've downloaded several PS3 ROMs and now I'm playing old games. So much better than this insanity. This is probably what I'm going to be doing now, play old games.

Edit: I wanted to edit the post for more context and to vent/rant a little.

I don't want to say I made a mistake, but I buy everything used, and I have scored a good deal on two 27" 4k monitors from Facebook marketplace. Got both monitors for $120.

They're $800 on Amazon used. Great monitors and I love 4k. I also bought an RX6600 AMD GPU for $100 from Facebook. It was almost new. The owner upgraded and wanted to get rid of it. My whole build was very cheap compared to what I see some folks get (genuinely happy for those who can afford it. Life is too short. Enjoy it while you can).

I can't afford these high end GPUs, but now very few games work on low settings and I'd get something like 20 FPS max. My friend gave me access to his steam library and I wanted to play Indiana Jones the other day, and it was an "omfg, wtf is this horrible shit" moment.
I'm so sick of this shit!

I don't regret buying any of these, but man it sucks that the games I want to play barely even work.
So, now I'm emulating and it's actually pretty awesome. I've missed out on so many games in my youth so now I'm just going to catch up on what I've missed out on. Everything works in 4k now and I'm getting my full 60FPS and I'm having so much fun.

This is getting out of hand. The other day I saw the requirements for "Hell is Us" game and it's ridiculous. My RX6600 can't play anything anymore. I've downloaded several PS3 ROMs and now I'm playing old games. So much better than this insanity. This is probably what I'm going to be doing now, play old games.

Edit: I wanted to edit the post for more context and to vent/rant a little.

I don't want to say I made a mistake, but I buy everything used, and I have scored a good deal on two 27" 4k monitors from Facebook marketplace. Got both monitors for $120.

They're $800 on Amazon used. Great monitors and I love 4k. I also bought an RX6600 AMD GPU for $100 from Facebook. It was almost new. The owner upgraded and wanted to get rid of it. My whole build was very cheap compared to what I see some folks get (genuinely happy for those who can afford it. Life is too short. Enjoy it while you can).

I can't afford these high end GPUs, but now very few games work on low settings and I'd get something like 20 FPS max. My friend gave me access to his steam library and I wanted to play Indiana Jones the other day, and it was an "omfg, wtf is this horrible shit" moment.
I'm so sick of this shit!

I don't regret buying any of these, but man it sucks that the games I want to play barely even work.
So, now I'm emulating and it's actually pretty awesome. I've missed out on so many games in my youth so now I'm just going to catch up on what I've missed out on. Everything works in 4k now and I'm getting my full 60FPS and I'm having so much fun.

This is getting out of hand. The other day I saw the requirements for "Hell is Us" game and it's ridiculous. My RX6600 can't play anything anymore. I've downloaded several PS3 ROMs and now I'm playing old games. So much better than this insanity. This is probably what I'm going to be doing now, play old games.

Edit: I wanted to edit the post for more context and to vent/rant a little.

I don't want to say I made a mistake, but I buy everything used, and I have scored a good deal on two 27" 4k monitors from Facebook marketplace. Got both monitors for $120.

They're $800 on Amazon used. Great monitors and I love 4k. I also bought an RX6600 AMD GPU for $100 from Facebook. It was almost new. The owner upgraded and wanted to get rid of it. My whole build was very cheap compared to what I see some folks get (genuinely happy for those who can afford it. Life is too short. Enjoy it while you can).

I can't afford these high end GPUs, but now very few games work on low settings and I'd get something like 20 FPS max. My friend gave me access to his steam library and I wanted to play Indiana Jones the other day, and it was an "omfg, wtf is this horrible shit" moment.
I'm so sick of this shit!

I don't regret buying any of these, but man it sucks that the games I want to play barely even work.
So, now I'm emulating and it's actually pretty awesome. I've missed out on so many games in my youth so now I'm just going to catch up on what I've missed out on. Everything works in 4k now and I'm getting my full 60FPS and I'm having so much fun.

Except for devs, completely abandoned realism and complex logic mid-2010s and have since been chasing nothing but unparalleled graphic quality at the cost of simulation, depth and realism.

Like I literally do not give a flying fuck If my puddle can accurately picture in picture recreate the skyline and cityscape with acurate ray tracing. I'm not going to be staring at puddles to notice. I do care when I lob an explosive that should be able to level the building into the building and the building is still standing.

This is getting out of hand. The other day I saw the requirements for "Hell is Us" game and it's ridiculous. My RX6600 can't play anything anymore. I've downloaded several PS3 ROMs and now I'm playing old games. So much better than this insanity. This is probably what I'm going to be doing now, play old games.

Edit: I wanted to edit the post for more context and to vent/rant a little.

I don't want to say I made a mistake, but I buy everything used, and I have scored a good deal on two 27" 4k monitors from Facebook marketplace. Got both monitors for $120.

They're $800 on Amazon used. Great monitors and I love 4k. I also bought an RX6600 AMD GPU for $100 from Facebook. It was almost new. The owner upgraded and wanted to get rid of it. My whole build was very cheap compared to what I see some folks get (genuinely happy for those who can afford it. Life is too short. Enjoy it while you can).

I can't afford these high end GPUs, but now very few games work on low settings and I'd get something like 20 FPS max. My friend gave me access to his steam library and I wanted to play Indiana Jones the other day, and it was an "omfg, wtf is this horrible shit" moment.
I'm so sick of this shit!

I don't regret buying any of these, but man it sucks that the games I want to play barely even work.
So, now I'm emulating and it's actually pretty awesome. I've missed out on so many games in my youth so now I'm just going to catch up on what I've missed out on. Everything works in 4k now and I'm getting my full 60FPS and I'm having so much fun.

Once you detach your mind from the big publishers and start looking at small indie devs, there are truly astonishing games out there that could run on potatoes.

My good old RX 480 will last me for a while longer.

I disagree and I'm too lazy to explain but in short, it's not about High/Ultra settings, that's just name for the settings. It's about how the games look, play, etc... vs how they perform. And I don’t remember that PC gaming was ever before so bad even when we've got shitty console ports.

The reason has nothing to so with higher quality. They just do cost cutting of not having to create lighting and pass the cost on to the customer by having us raytrace and thus requires more horse power that GPU makers failed to deliver.

4k gaming is a scam. I've been using 1440p for 20 years and never had issues running every game that comes out at max settings.

This is getting out of hand. The other day I saw the requirements for "Hell is Us" game and it's ridiculous. My RX6600 can't play anything anymore. I've downloaded several PS3 ROMs and now I'm playing old games. So much better than this insanity. This is probably what I'm going to be doing now, play old games.

Edit: I wanted to edit the post for more context and to vent/rant a little.

I don't want to say I made a mistake, but I buy everything used, and I have scored a good deal on two 27" 4k monitors from Facebook marketplace. Got both monitors for $120.

They're $800 on Amazon used. Great monitors and I love 4k. I also bought an RX6600 AMD GPU for $100 from Facebook. It was almost new. The owner upgraded and wanted to get rid of it. My whole build was very cheap compared to what I see some folks get (genuinely happy for those who can afford it. Life is too short. Enjoy it while you can).

I can't afford these high end GPUs, but now very few games work on low settings and I'd get something like 20 FPS max. My friend gave me access to his steam library and I wanted to play Indiana Jones the other day, and it was an "omfg, wtf is this horrible shit" moment.
I'm so sick of this shit!

I don't regret buying any of these, but man it sucks that the games I want to play barely even work.
So, now I'm emulating and it's actually pretty awesome. I've missed out on so many games in my youth so now I'm just going to catch up on what I've missed out on. Everything works in 4k now and I'm getting my full 60FPS and I'm having so much fun.

This is getting out of hand. The other day I saw the requirements for "Hell is Us" game and it's ridiculous. My RX6600 can't play anything anymore. I've downloaded several PS3 ROMs and now I'm playing old games. So much better than this insanity. This is probably what I'm going to be doing now, play old games.

Edit: I wanted to edit the post for more context and to vent/rant a little.

I don't want to say I made a mistake, but I buy everything used, and I have scored a good deal on two 27" 4k monitors from Facebook marketplace. Got both monitors for $120.

They're $800 on Amazon used. Great monitors and I love 4k. I also bought an RX6600 AMD GPU for $100 from Facebook. It was almost new. The owner upgraded and wanted to get rid of it. My whole build was very cheap compared to what I see some folks get (genuinely happy for those who can afford it. Life is too short. Enjoy it while you can).

I can't afford these high end GPUs, but now very few games work on low settings and I'd get something like 20 FPS max. My friend gave me access to his steam library and I wanted to play Indiana Jones the other day, and it was an "omfg, wtf is this horrible shit" moment.
I'm so sick of this shit!

I don't regret buying any of these, but man it sucks that the games I want to play barely even work.
So, now I'm emulating and it's actually pretty awesome. I've missed out on so many games in my youth so now I'm just going to catch up on what I've missed out on. Everything works in 4k now and I'm getting my full 60FPS and I'm having so much fun.

You were so lazy it sounds like you agree with the og comment, not disagree. In essence, I think your comment aligns with the one you are replying to.

(Calling u so lazy is a light hearted joke that joins into my point)

Not defending anyone, but I don't think implementing raytracing is a cost-cutting measure.

Also, are there games that force you to enable raytracing (when a big performance hit). The ones I have played always allow you to disable it.

I think (one of) the real reasons behind some games being so poorly optimized is the developers using upscaling as a crutch when they shouldn't.

Remember when oblivion came out? Or crysis? They were so hard to run that they became meme benchmarks lol

And now that "gaming" is incredibly mainstream, the push to be more and more marketable by investors by pushing technology in graphics because that's what sells.

Graphics too hard to run or not, I just want good games. And all this priority on intense graphical fidelity doth not maketh for many resources for the rest of the game and often shows a priority on PROFIT over all else.

Not buying games, for any reason, including you can't play them, is probably the best and healthiest thing to happen to gaming since indie gaming...

So, go, play your 15 year old games. Enjoy what's actually fun. The world will be a better place for it.

Don’t worry - once you’ve upgraded everything the games are still the same yellow-markings-mean-climbable, branching-skill-tree, press-Y-to-Parry, level-gated-fetch-quests, enemies-drop-loot-that-is-not-as-good-as-what-you-already-have, collect-all-the-orbs nonsense your computer could already play.

Dude can you link me to the ps3 tutorial or whatever software you used to get emulation running? I’ve got games, tried to rip them for the emulator or something, but still no joy. I am ze dumb oh and the “newest’ games I’m playing are near mage (released last month 2d point and click adventure game) so check out the Indy scene or different genres like map porn (crusader kings 3 & Europa universalis), couch games, etc…

This is getting out of hand. The other day I saw the requirements for "Hell is Us" game and it's ridiculous. My RX6600 can't play anything anymore. I've downloaded several PS3 ROMs and now I'm playing old games. So much better than this insanity. This is probably what I'm going to be doing now, play old games.

Edit: I wanted to edit the post for more context and to vent/rant a little.

I don't want to say I made a mistake, but I buy everything used, and I have scored a good deal on two 27" 4k monitors from Facebook marketplace. Got both monitors for $120.

They're $800 on Amazon used. Great monitors and I love 4k. I also bought an RX6600 AMD GPU for $100 from Facebook. It was almost new. The owner upgraded and wanted to get rid of it. My whole build was very cheap compared to what I see some folks get (genuinely happy for those who can afford it. Life is too short. Enjoy it while you can).

I can't afford these high end GPUs, but now very few games work on low settings and I'd get something like 20 FPS max. My friend gave me access to his steam library and I wanted to play Indiana Jones the other day, and it was an "omfg, wtf is this horrible shit" moment.
I'm so sick of this shit!

I don't regret buying any of these, but man it sucks that the games I want to play barely even work.
So, now I'm emulating and it's actually pretty awesome. I've missed out on so many games in my youth so now I'm just going to catch up on what I've missed out on. Everything works in 4k now and I'm getting my full 60FPS and I'm having so much fun.

Have you tried just setting the resolution to 1920x1080 or are you literally trying to run AAA games at 4K on a card that was targeting 1080p when it was released, 4 and a half years ago?