Firebreak Skips Native System Requirements, Raising Alarming Precedent for Upcoming Games

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Firebreak Skips Native System Requirements, Raising Alarming Precedent for Upcoming Games

FBC: Firebreak system requirement is out; however, it doesn’t bring any good news for us PC gamers. No doubt that it is one of the most anticipated co-op games of this year, but it certainly had huge demands. Apparently, Remedy Entertainment thought it was about time GPU upscaling joined the minimum requirements.

There have been concerns with the rapid growth of upscaling technology usage in games, but it was optional. GPUs are natively capable of handling games, but the latest revelations are going to cause a lot of ruckus. Is this the future of gaming? Will other companies follow in the footsteps of Remedy Entertainment?

The minimum requirements of FBC: Firebreak are scarier than the game itself

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? No thanks. | Image Credit: Nvidia/Remedy Entertainment

Ray-tracing technology has spread like a pandemic and is almost a necessity for modern games. Which is reasonable, but it is hard to justify the usage of upscaling technologies as the bare minimum. So far, no games have made it mandatory to use upscaling to get smooth 1080p 60 FPS on PC. However, that trend breaks with FBC: Firebreak.

To play FBC: Firebreak at 1080p 60 FPS, a GTX 1070 or RX5600 XT is enough. This looks good on paper; however, the magic disappears once upscaling is taken into account. So, players will render it at a much lower resolution and use the GPU compute to guesswork the remaining pixels. I’m not doing a fake frames drama here, but this is concerning.

Even the highest ray-tracing setting with 4k 60 FPS requires the RTX 4080, which also requires upscaling to be enabled. This is insane! You’re using a high-fidelity card, and it needs a crutch to deliver the expected performance. Not forgetting to mention the exorbitant amount of 10 GB VRAM. Is this the new era of optimization?

If the math is done right, to pull off a 1080p 60 FPS natively with ray-tracing, it will require an RTX 4080 with no upscaling—maybe medium at most. That graphics card is pretty powerful by itself, but does it need the help of upscaling to deliver the performance it was meant for? That’s not justifiable for us.

By moving ray-tracing out of the equation, you might think it would be able to deliver high FPS at a better resolution. Well, you are partly right. However, didn’t you pay for a ray-tracing supported card for a reason? The main reason was to use ray-tracing, and doing so requires upscaling. It’s time we woke up and spoke.

Will upscaling become a mandate for future games?

With how things are going with games nowadays, it might be possible that other developers will consider upscaling an option. With Remedy Entertainment taking its first step to bring doom for gamers, it might start a new outrageous trend.

The gaming industry is always quick to catch on to unreasonable trends, such as Xbox raising its game prices to $80. Yet consumers have been vocal about that, but I don’t think that will last. It’s just that game companies are taking consumers for granted, be it Nvidia, Activision, or anyone else. Sadly, everyone jumps in to get the latest and greatest.

After the normalisation of ray-tracing, upscaling may be the new normal. If that happens, make sure your pockets are filled, as you’ll have to swap your PC parts more often. Alternatively, you can switch to a console that supports you in the long run. Either way, both are losses in the books of gamers.

Are you fine with the usage for upscaling and frame generation in games? Do you think developers should work harder on optimization? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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