Portal with RTX

[AusWolf]

So many so called "tech heads" here, yet hate graphical progression. Perplexing to say the least. I use to frown on lighting, but now I see the truth. Baked in lighting is a thing of the past!

Maybe those tech heads just don't want to spend $1,500+ on a GPU?

Personally, I still think that better skin textures and facial animations is what the industry needs, not an improvement on lighting that's already good enough.

I'd take the former without hesitation, higher resolution with upscaling, I want it in all the games. They don't really sound the same at all to me, one stands head and shoulders over the other for visual fidelity imo, not a doubt in my mind.

Each to their own, I guess.

To me, upscaling will never be more than a helping hand if you absolutely can't run your game at native resolution.

 

[wolf]

To me, upscaling will never be more than a helping hand if you absolutely can't run your game at native resolution

While I can appreciate each to their own, I'd caution you as to stating you'll never see it as more, you place your current bias gathered from current information against it, in front of accepting new and improved information to alter your perception by doing so, for example will you always be on a 1080p60 monitor, what about 20 years from now? best to just stay open minded.

All of this is fascinating magical wizardry to me, whether its natively rasterized, antialiased, ray traced, path traced, reconstructed, generated... use whatever technical terms fit, but in a broad sense magic pixels end up on my screen and I simply judge the output, I'm not going to draw an uncrossable line in the how or why, when the end results speak for themselves and should essentially be all that is judged.

 

[AusWolf]

While I can appreciate each to their own, I'd caution you as to stating you'll never see it as more, you place your current bias gathered from current information against it, in front of accepting new and improved information to alter your perception by doing so, for example will you always be on a 1080p60 monitor, what about 20 years from now? best to just stay open minded.

All of this is fascinating magical wizardry to me, whether its natively rasterized, antialiased, ray traced, path traced, reconstructed, generated... use whatever technical terms fit, but in a broad sense magic pixels end up on my screen and I simply judge the output, I'm not going to draw an uncrossable line in the how or why, when the end results speak for themselves and should essentially be all that is judged.

Exactly: I judge based on what I see. A native resolution image will always look better than an upscaled one. No one in their right mind denies this. The best thing you can say about DLSS/FSR is that "it's good enough".

I probably won't stay on 1080p60 for the rest of my life, but as long as I'm happy and my monitor works, I will. Even if I change, my target GPU+monitor combo will always be a native resolution image at decent framerates. If I can't afford a 4K capable graphics card, I won't buy a 4K monitor either. It's that simple.

You say 4K+DLSS looks better than 1440p native. I say 4K native looks better than 4K+DLSS. You compare to the resolution below. I compare to my monitor's native capability. If I coughed up the cash for a high resolution panel, I'd want to see that resolution crisp, not a slightly less blurry version of the one below. Let's leave it at that.

 

[Guwapo77]

Maybe those tech heads just don't want to spend $1,500+ on a GPU?

Personally, I still think that better skin textures and facial animations is what the industry needs, not an improvement on lighting that's already good enough.


Each to their own, I guess.

To me, upscaling will never be more than a helping hand if you absolutely can't run your game at native resolution.

Because you choose not to afford the prices in which its sold at doesn't mean the tech is bad. Textures are getting better, but lighting is what has been missing. Lighting brings that next level immersion that has been sorely missing.

One thing that I have come to realize though, I won't be moving to 4K like I had hoped. I don't think a 4090Ti will be strong enough for where games are heading to power 4K @ high frame rates. Between UE 5 and RayTracing, cards are going to be a lot more powerful and soon.

 

[Godrilla]

Exactly: I judge based on what I see. A native resolution image will always look better than an upscaled one. No one in their right mind denies this. The best thing you can say about DLSS/FSR is that "it's good enough".

I probably won't stay on 1080p60 for the rest of my life, but as long as I'm happy and my monitor works, I will. Even if I change, my target GPU+monitor combo will always be a native resolution image at decent framerates. If I can't afford a 4K capable graphics card, I won't buy a 4K monitor either. It's that simple.

You say 4K+DLSS looks better than 1440p native. I say 4K native looks better than 4K+DLSS. You compare to the resolution below. I compare to my monitor's native capability. If I coughed up the cash for a high resolution panel, I'd want to see that resolution crisp, not a slightly less blurry version of the one below. Let's leave it at that.

4k native is obviously better than 4k with dlss quality but 1440p native is worse than 4k dlss set to quality ( which uses 1440 sampled image) Dlss is definitely subjective. The way to look at upscaled technology if you are satisfied with the base resolution like 1080p or 1440p than you will be satisfied with 4k dlss set to performance ( 1080p sample) or 4k dlss set to quality ( 1440 sample) respectively. If you normally don't like a 1080p image than 4k dlss set to performance is not for you. Its like paying for an rtx premium with dedicated cores and not using it.
Eventually I see upscaling technology being used above the native resolution from 4k upscaled to 8k like dldsr especially if there is performance on the table to improve the image quality. Upscaling technology is here to stay and now we have a upscaling techniques war between Dlss FSR and xess. Is upscaling technology perfect in its current forms? Obviously there is room for inevitable improvement.

 

[wolf]

Exactly: I judge based on what I see. A native resolution image will always look better than an upscaled one. No one in their right mind denies this. The best thing you can say about DLSS/FSR is that "it's good enough".

I deny that. Native isn't the pinnacle of IQ that people assert it is, it's not the gold standard, certainly not with substandard forced AA that can't be turned off, but in other senses too. Let's say you get a 4k monitor, If you run 3840x2160 on a 3840x2160 monitor, then compare that to 7680x4320 downsampled to 3840x2160 (think DSR/Supersampling), tell me which one looks better. Ergo simply rendering a game at a given monitors native resolution is not the best image quality that you could display on that monitor

Super sampling has been a tried and tested way of increasing image quality for any given display resolution, compared to just rendering the native resolution, and it has been for decades. In certain situations, DLSS and FSR can demonstrably achieve this result too, take this example.

The monitor is Native 3440x1440, enable DLDSR 2.25x in NVCP Set your DLSS supported game to that resolution, using a native 3440x1440 monitor, this is 5120x2160. Now enable DLSS in Performance mode, for me this is now an internal render res of 2560x1080. This method has shown categorically better than native IQ, bonus that it also performs better.

You say 4K+DLSS looks better than 1440p native. I say 4K native looks better than 4K+DLSS. You compare to the resolution below. I compare to my monitor's native capability. If I coughed up the cash for a high resolution panel, I'd want to see that resolution crisp, not a slightly less blurry version of the one below. Let's leave it at that.

I disagree and I won't leave it at that, you can agree to disagree, but I categorically cannot agree with the sentiment you put forward. This is a hill I will die on. Reconstruction and Upscaling has a boatload of demonstrated potential, and clearly untapped potential. The fact that native 1440p on a 1440p monitor and 1440p reconstructed to 4k have a divide in quality is one proven aspect of this. And I'll say it one more time, FSR @ Quality and DLSS @ Quality vs Native 4k is often better, not worse or blurrier, the native 2160p with average TAA is blurrier, I am literally compromising nothing and only gaining in this situation, running 4k native is the compromise to me, in both IQ and performance.

Nothing you could type here can undo what my eyes have experienced, and experience on a daily basis, believe me I test and try and retest and retry this constantly, seeing is believing. Your words about 'blurry' and 'crisp' etc apply in varying and often inverse proportion to your assertion when compared against my experience. I get that your point of view comes from trying reconstruction in unfavourable circumstances, but there are a boatload of favourable circumstances that I cannot and will not ignore.

 

[AusWolf]

Because you choose not to afford the prices in which its sold at doesn't mean the tech is bad. Textures are getting better, but lighting is what has been missing. Lighting brings that next level immersion that has been sorely missing.

One thing that I have come to realize though, I won't be moving to 4K like I had hoped. I don't think a 4090Ti will be strong enough for where games are heading to power 4K @ high frame rates. Between UE 5 and RayTracing, cards are going to be a lot more powerful and soon.

I didn't say the tech was bad. All I'm saying is, I miss more realistic-looking characters more than I miss more realistic-looking environments. The environment looks awesome in most games, but the characters still look like they're made of plastic. Can we make the environment look even better? Of course we can. I just think attention should be focused elsewhere first.

I deny that. Native isn't the pinnacle of IQ that people assert it is, it's not the gold standard, certainly not with substandard forced AA that can't be turned off, but in other senses too. Let's say you get a 4k monitor, If you run 3840x2160 on a 3840x2160 monitor, then compare that to 7680x4320 downsampled to 3840x2160 (think DSR/Supersampling), tell me which one looks better. Ergo simply rendering a game at a given monitors native resolution is not the best image quality that you could display on that monitor

Super sampling has been a tried and tested way of increasing image quality for any given display resolution, compared to just rendering the native resolution, and it has been for decades. In certain situations, DLSS and FSR can demonstrably achieve this result too, take this example.

The monitor is Native 3440x1440, enable DLDSR 2.25x in NVCP Set your DLSS supported game to that resolution, using a native 3440x1440 monitor, this is 5120x2160. Now enable DLSS in Performance mode, for me this is now an internal render res of 2560x1080. This method has shown categorically better than native IQ, bonus that it also performs better.

I disagree and I won't leave it at that, you can agree to disagree, but I categorically cannot agree with the sentiment you put forward. This is a hill I will die on. Reconstruction and Upscaling has a boatload of demonstrated potential, and clearly untapped potential. The fact that native 1440p on a 1440p monitor and 1440p reconstructed to 4k have a divide in quality is one proven aspect of this. And I'll say it one more time, FSR @ Quality and DLSS @ Quality vs Native 4k is often better, not worse or blurrier, the native 2160p with average TAA is blurrier, I am literally compromising nothing and only gaining in this situation, running 4k native is the compromise to me, in both IQ and performance.

Nothing you could type here can undo what my eyes have experienced, and experience on a daily basis, believe me I test and try and retest and retry this constantly, seeing is believing. Your words about 'blurry' and 'crisp' etc apply in varying and often inverse proportion to your assertion when compared against my experience. I get that your point of view comes from trying reconstruction in unfavourable circumstances, but there are a boatload of favourable circumstances that I cannot and will not ignore.

Then I guess you'll die on your hill and I'll die on mine. If you're saying that for example, 1440p + DLSS looks better than 1440p native, then I'll just say that's wrong. Period. It can be close, but it'll never be as good, let alone better. Does 4K + DLSS look better than 1440p native? Probably, but I personally still wouldn't buy a monitor that my PC can't drive natively in the games that I like.

 

[nguyen]

I deny that. Native isn't the pinnacle of IQ that people assert it is, it's not the gold standard, certainly not with substandard forced AA that can't be turned off, but in other senses too. Let's say you get a 4k monitor, If you run 3840x2160 on a 3840x2160 monitor, then compare that to 7680x4320 downsampled to 3840x2160 (think DSR/Supersampling), tell me which one looks better. Ergo simply rendering a game at a given monitors native resolution is not the best image quality that you could display on that monitor

Super sampling has been a tried and tested way of increasing image quality for any given display resolution, compared to just rendering the native resolution, and it has been for decades. In certain situations, DLSS and FSR can demonstrably achieve this result too, take this example.

The monitor is Native 3440x1440, enable DLDSR 2.25x in NVCP Set your DLSS supported game to that resolution, using a native 3440x1440 monitor, this is 5120x2160. Now enable DLSS in Performance mode, for me this is now an internal render res of 2560x1080. This method has shown categorically better than native IQ, bonus that it also performs better.

I disagree and I won't leave it at that, you can agree to disagree, but I categorically cannot agree with the sentiment you put forward. This is a hill I will die on. Reconstruction and Upscaling has a boatload of demonstrated potential, and clearly untapped potential. The fact that native 1440p on a 1440p monitor and 1440p reconstructed to 4k have a divide in quality is one proven aspect of this. And I'll say it one more time, FSR @ Quality and DLSS @ Quality vs Native 4k is often better, not worse or blurrier, the native 2160p with average TAA is blurrier, I am literally compromising nothing and only gaining in this situation, running 4k native is the compromise to me, in both IQ and performance.

Nothing you could type here can undo what my eyes have experienced, and experience on a daily basis, believe me I test and try and retest and retry this constantly, seeing is believing. Your words about 'blurry' and 'crisp' etc apply in varying and often inverse proportion to your assertion when compared against my experience. I get that your point of view comes from trying reconstruction in unfavourable circumstances, but there are a boatload of favourable circumstances that I cannot and will not ignore.

If someone tell me they stay with 1080p because they want 60FPS Ultra settings no RT I would think they are crazy , no point explaining anything to these people.

 

[wolf]

If you're saying that for example, 1440p + DLSS looks better than 1440p native, then I'll just say that's wrong. Period. It can be close, but it'll never be better. Does 4K + DLSS look better than 1440p native? Probably

Why talk in absolutes when it's a moving target that can vary and improve? "it'll never be better", how can you possibly know that? I've already given an example of a 1440P and a situation where a game upscaled from lower than the native resolution can looks better. You can choose not to believe me, but it doesn't make you right or make me wrong. Same as supersampling giving better results, proven.

Your purchase decisions are your own and nobody can take that from you, and I won't try to, but your absolute statement that "1440p + DLSS looks better than 1440p native, then I'll just say that's wrong. Period." is not only subjective, but if there is even one case where this has been the opposite, your statement is wrong, period. At this point it's fact that in at least one game/condition/scenario an upscaled from sub 1440p image has exceeded native 1440p image quality, then your 'period' statement is disproven factually, and facts aren't bothered with how you feel about them.

I also feel like the goalposts are shifting here... so lets bring it back, you think upscaling is counter intuitive, I disagree and have provided evidence as to why it's not, accept it... don't.... I don't really mind, but please allow in your mind the room to believe that your bias and predisposition based on your experience doesn't accurately show the side of the coin that I am presenting. You can absolutely die on the hill of never using upscaling, but don't tell me what image quality concessions I'm making on my setup, just because you don't seem to want to accept what I'm telling you.

 

[Bwaze]

So many so called "tech heads" here, yet hate graphical progression. Perplexing to say the least. I use to frown on lighting, but now I see the truth. Baked in lighting is a thing of the past!

That is true, there were often games that required new tech which wasn't widely available. Microprose Falcon 3.0 in 1991 required mathematical co-processor. Plenty of games at the start of GPUs were only playable if you bought one, all the rest were excluded. Crysis. And so on.

But what we have here isn't really a game that would entice anyone to buy a new expensive tech. It's just an update of an old game that uses a new tech in a manner that artificially excludes all but the most expensive GPUs of one vendor. And an update that visually improves one aspect, but breaks others. At a time when we had the highest price bump in all GPU history - 70% price bump for a 50% speed increase is a regression, not progress.

No wonder people are voicing their frustrations. And it isn't because of "graphical progression".

 

[nguyen]

That is true, there were often games that required new tech which wasn't widely available. Microprose Falcon 3.0 in 1991 required mathematical co-processor. Plenty of games at the start of GPUs were only playable if you bought one, all the rest were excluded. Crysis. And so on.

But what we have here isn't really a game that would entice anyone to buy a new ecpensive tech. It's just an update of an old game that uses a new tech in a manner that artificially excludes all but the most ecpensive GPUs of one vendor. And an update that visually improves one aspect, but breaks others. At a time when we had the highest price bump in all GPU history - 70% price bump for a 50% speed increase is a regression, not progress.

No wpnder people are voicing their frustrations. And it isn't because of "graphical progression".

It's a minimum effort remastering a very old game to make it look modern, and it looks modern enough by today standard. RTX Remix certainly show its worthiness with Portal RTX.

Yes it's like putting lipstick on a pig but there are barely any good AAA games coming out these days that the option of playing old remastered games sounds very enticing. If you don't like it, just play any other games.

4080 is a good 25-30% faster than 3080Ti at the same price point, so there is that progress you are so hung up about. If you want to make any new GPU look bad, just stick with your old GPU, it's free, the Price to Perf ratio is infinite.

 

[Bwaze]

4080 is a good 25-30% faster than 3080Ti at the same price point, so there is that progress you are so hung up about.

At which point do you give up?

2020, RTX 3080 - $700
2022, RTX 4080 - $1200 <- WE ARE HERE
2024, RTX 5080 - $2040
2026, RTX 6080 - $3468
2028, RTX 7080 - $5896
2030, RTX 8080 - $10022
2032, RTX 9080 - $17038
2034, GTX 1080 - $28965

It didn't use to work like that. Or right now we would still have an GeForce 256 from 1999 for $250 (plus inflation, I guess, so $447). Adding all the generations of progress and price increase equally since then will get you flagships into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Silly Nvidia, to give up on all that profit, good thing they have Jensen!

 

[nguyen]

At which point do you give up?

2020, RTX 3080 - $700
2022, RTX 4080 - $1200 <- WE ARE HERE
2024, RTX 5080 - $2040
2026, RTX 6080 - $3468
2028, RTX 7080 - $5896
2030, RTX 8080 - $10022
2032, RTX 9080 - $17038
2034, GTX 1080 - $28965

It didn't use to work like that. Or right now we would still have an GeForce 256 from 1999 for $250 (plus inflation, I guess, so $447). Adding all the generations of progress and price increase equally since then will get you flagships into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Silly Nvidia, to give up on all that profit, good thing they have Jensen!

I would probably give up at around 2060 with your BS "progression" .

If the PC gaming industry shit itself up, time to find another hobby, right now it's the cheapest hobby for me though.

 

[ratirt]

Why talk in absolutes when it's a moving target that can vary and improve? "it'll never be better", how can you possibly know that? I've already given an example of a 1440P and a situation where a game upscaled from lower than the native resolution can looks better. You can choose not to believe me, but it doesn't make you right or make me wrong. Same as supersampling giving better results, proven.

Your purchase decisions are your own and nobody can take that from you, and I won't try to, but your absolute statement that "1440p + DLSS looks better than 1440p native, then I'll just say that's wrong. Period." is not only subjective, but if there is even one case where this has been the opposite, your statement is wrong, period. At this point it's fact that in at least one game/condition/scenario an upscaled from sub 1440p image has exceeded native 1440p image quality, then your 'period' statement is disproven factually, and facts aren't bothered with how you feel about them.

I also feel like the goalposts are shifting here... so lets bring it back, you think upscaling is counter intuitive, I disagree and have provided evidence as to why it's not, accept it... don't.... I don't really mind, but please allow in your mind the room to believe that your bias and predisposition based on your experience doesn't accurately show the side of the coin that I am presenting. You can absolutely die on the hill of never using upscaling, but don't tell me what image quality concessions I'm making on my setup, just because you don't seem to want to accept what I'm telling you.

It can also look worse. You pick a scenario where upscaled and reconstructed image looks better due to inefficient programing in native resolution. That is a mere one and there is literally no many of those but you have hundreds where DLSS looks worse and has severe artifacts (DLSS 3 for example) DLSS is not better than Native it does a good job with image details and boosting FPS where you can enjoy gamplay. You can see the difference in many cases between native and upscaled and it is not in DLSS's favor.

It's a minimum effort remastering a very old game to make it look modern, and it looks modern enough by today standard. RTX Remix certainly show its worthiness with Portal RTX.

If gaming and hardware purchases is your hobby, stick to it and don't spread bullshit rumors remastering a game is easy and takes minimum effort because that is so not true.
For instance. Diablo 2 Resurrected development started 2019. It took around 2 years to release it.

4080 is a good 25-30% faster than 3080Ti at the same price point, so there is that progress you are so hung up about. If you want to make any new GPU look bad, just stick with your old GPU, it's free, the Price to Perf ratio is infinite.

yeah what a shit price for the 4080. Advancement crumbles and is literally an embarrassment. Good that NV is sane enough to cut the price. Lets see how much sanity NV has.

 

[nguyen]

If gaming and hardware purchases is your hobby, stick to it and don't spread bullshit rumors remastering a game is easy and takes minimum effort because that is so not true.
For instance. Diablo 2 Resurrected development started 2019. It took around 2 years to release it.

Remastering old games with RTX Remix sure is minimum effort , but hey, just stick to you limited knowledge on just about everything and spreading BS like ever.

 

[Bwaze]

yeah what a shit price for the 4080. Advancement crumbles and is literally an embarrassment. Good that NV is sane enough to cut the price. Lets see how much sanity NV has.

I don't think they're in any pressure to really lower the price - they didn't lower the Turing prices in two years of bad sales. They earned tons of money during 2020-2022 crypto high, and mostly pocketed it, Ada architecture is really just a bit bigger Ampere on a new, more efficient TSMC process, all the new architecture development was saved for later cards.

I think we'll see embarasingly small effort from Nvidia, like 5% price reduction, and they'll cry they're cutting from their own flesh!

Or, if AMD fails to compete, we could even see price increase. They don't have to sell the gaming cards, they could spend next two years positioning themselves for next wave of crypto. It worked twice in a row now, third time's the charm!

 

[ratirt]

I don't think they're in any pressure to really lower the price - they didn't lower the Turing prices in two years of bad sales. They earned tons of money during 2020-2022 crypto high, and mostly pocketed it, Ada architecture is really just a bit bigger Ampere on a new, more efficient TSMC process, all the new architecture development was saved for later cards.

I think we'll see embarasingly small effort from Nvidia, like 5% price reduction, and they'll cry they're cutting from their own flesh!

Just because they are not in a pressure it does not mean the price is good or OK. That is my take. It has been said that the 4080 price cut is plausible. I see why and I'm not shocked about the cut. 5% is not a price cut but reduction and that is still a slap in gamers face. Of course there are many no-brainers there who will clap their hands in approval praising NV how great they are. I'm sure you can think of someone like that. We live in a world where common sense makes no sense nowadays.

 

[nguyen]

Just because they are not in a pressure it does not mean the price is good or OK. That is my take. It has been said that the 4080 price cut is plausible. I see why and I'm not shocked about the cut. 5% is not a price cut but reduction and that is still a slap in gamers face. Of course there are many no-brainers there who will clap their hands in approval praising NV how great they are. I'm sure you can think of someone like that. We live in a world where common sense makes no sense nowadays.

Welcome to the real world pal

 

[vmarv]

All this complaining about the prices... we live in years where everything is more expensive, so why do you expect new hardware to be cheaper?
MSRP prices are higher because the production costs went to the roof. Buy when you will be able to afford it, it's simple as that. Keep your old hardware and deal back some settings.

 

[ratirt]

Remastering old games with RTX Remix sure is minimum effort , but hey, just stick to you limited knowledge on just about everything and spreading BS like ever.

great but that is just lighting nothing more. Ray tracing added in game. It is cool dont get me wrong. It is like applying a lens with RT on a game like in snapchat.
Portal has been a simple game with squares. Adding light reflections makes difference. Try that with more complex games. you wont get far.

Welcome to the real world pal

Just because you consider that real and maybe many more people, it does not mean I have to agree with it.

 

[nguyen]

great but that is just lighting nothing more. Ray tracing added in game. It is cool dont get me wrong. It is like applying a lens with RT on a game like in snapchat.
Portal has been a simple game with squares. Adding light reflections makes difference. Try that with more complex games.

Just because you consider that real and maybe many more people, it does not mean I have to agree with it.

Nope, RTX Remix automatically capture and replace old assets with AI enhanced ones, you can even choose to use the old assets with RT in Portal RTX.

I'm sure you have no interest in learning about some Nvidia software, but a little more digging effort about what you are talking about sure goes a long way.

 

[64K]

I'll just say this:

Common Sense isn't common these days.

 

[Bwaze]

Just because they are not in a pressure it does not mean the price is good or OK. That is my take. It has been said that the 4080 price cut is plausible. I see why and I'm not shocked about the cut. 5% is not a price cut but reduction and that is still a slap in gamers face. Of course there are many no-brainers there who will clap their hands in approval praising NV how great they are. I'm sure you can think of someone like that. We live in a world where common sense makes no sense nowadays.

I'm not arguing that is what should happen. I'm guessing that's the most logical and consistent behaviour based on their behaviour during crypto crash in 2018, Turing release, and subsequent two years of low sales and high prices. All that just to be positioned perfectly for the 2020 crypto wave, during which they earned much more that gamers could ever pay, and more they showed in their numbers - they're hiding crypto earnings in all manners possible.

 

[ratirt]

Nope, RTX Remix automatically capture and replace old assets with AI enhanced ones, you can even choose to use the old assets with RT in Portal RTX.

I'm sure you have no interest in learning about some Nvidia software, but a little more digging effort about what you are talking about sure goes a long way.

Ok and again. Apply it on some more demanding game than Portal's triangles and squares and see the result. It is good like I said but it has limitations.
From what I read, it says literally, apply modern lighting techniques, DLSS and NV reflection into the game.
That is what the Remix does. the AI does exactly that.

I'm not arguing that is what should happen. I'm guessing that's the most logical and consistent behaviour based on their behaviour during crypto crash in 2018, Turing release, and subsequent two years of low sales and high prices. All that just to be positioned perfectly for the 2020 crypto wave, during which they earned much more that gamers could ever pay, and more they showed in their numbers - they're hiding crypto earnings in all manners possible.

I know. For some reason people got used to overpriced cards during the mining crazy in a way they consider it new normal. How crazy is that? It is hard to explain this phenomena to be honest.

 

[wolf]

But what we have here

Is pretty much a tech demo, take it for what it is. A free mod to a 15 year old game that pushes visual techniques to the absolute limit. One can also choose to not be outraged by it, like so many preceding tech demo's wether they call themselves that or not.

Silly Nvidia, to give up on all that profit, good thing they have Jensen!

Silly AMD, happily following in Nvidia's footsteps, good thing they have Lisa Su!