html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" Table of ContentsTable of ContentsUnreal Engine 5 still stuttersVRAM is more important than everFixes for 20252023 was one of the most disastrous years for PC gaming I can remember. In terms of highlights, we had games like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, The Outer Worlds: Spacers Choice Edition,andStarfield, each hyped up as major launches. Regardless of what you thought about these games, they had terrible performance issues on PC at release, and as much as I hoped wed see a course correction this year, that hasnt been the case.The major issues facing PC gaming today are largely the same as the issues it faced at this same point last year. Whats frustrating is that the issues in PC gaming today are solvable. Heres what we saw this year, and how I hope the situation can improve in the next 12 months.You can see from the frame time here the inconsistent performance in the open world, as well as routine stutters. Jacob Roach / Digital TrendsUnreal Engine 5. Need I say more? Its not a good idea to attribute performance issues solely to one game engine. Its a combination of developers, tech, and workflow that ultimately leads to performance issues in PC releases, so you cant pin blame solely on the engine a developer chooses to use. If level design makes massive levels and artists build highly-detailed meshes, and tech isnt brought into those conversations, well, you can see what can go wrong with large AAA games during development.Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming But Unreal Engine 5 certainly doesnt have a good track record.RelatedThere were some early stumbles in games like Immortals of AveumandLords of the Fallen,but as the year has continued and weve seen an uptick in UE5 games, theres been a clearer trend of issues. Im talking about games like Silent Hill 2, Stalker 2,and Black Myth: Wukong,and thats before talking about Intels struggles with UE5 in games like Tekken 8.The engine now includes automatic PSO caching and on-demand shader compilation, both of which shouldreduce stuttering. It just doesnt seem to be working. I cant think of a more inconsistent game Ive played this year thanSilent Hill 2,which should be smooth given its relatively slow, methodical movement. Regardless, so much as flipping the camera around causes a huge hitch, which isnt uncommon in games packing Unreal Engine 5.BiowareItd be less easy to pin blame on UE5 if we didnt see so many games using different tech to much greater effect.Indiana Jones and the Great Circle despite some problems that Ill get to next is a rock-solid experience with its use of idTech 7.Dragon Age: The Veilguardis a perfect showcase for how powerful the FrostBite engine really is. AndLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealthshows that the RGG Dragon Engine still has legs.There are exceptions, of course most notably Dragons Dogma 2and its use of the RE Engine. But nearly every UE5 game Ive played this year has suffered from some form of stuttering. Hopefully that wont continue into next year because there area lotof games slated to use Unreal Engine 5, includingAvowed, The Witcher 4, Borderlands 4,andMetal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.Digital TrendsOutside of stuttering, the other big conversation in PC gaming has been VRAM. The issues started late in 2022 and really came to the forefront in 2023, with games like Resident Evil 4, The Callisto Protocol, The Last of Us Part I, andRedfallstruggling to reach playable frame rates on 8GB graphics cards, particularly at higher resolutions and graphics settings.Games likeIndiana Jones and the Great Circleshow that the VRAM issue is getting worse, not better. This is a game that can even bring the RTX 3080 and its 10GB of VRAM to its knees at 1080p. You can get better performance by turning down your graphics settings, but its a problem that a new 8GB graphics cards cant max-out a AAA release at 1080p simply due to VRAM limitations.I dont think were going back here. There have been plenty debates about how big the VRAM issue really is, and how much you can do with the whole memory system in order to improve performance without just slapping another memory module on a GPU. But as AAA games continue to become larger and more detailed, and as they experiment with more advanced lighting through ray tracing on full-on path tracing, VRAM capacity only become more important.Computer BaseIn fairness to AMD and Nvidia, we didnt see a new generation of graphics cards this year. Its fair to call 8GB GPUs like the RTX 4060 Ti and RX 7600 short-sighted something AMD and Nvidia themselves seem to recognize due to the fact that these GPUs have variants with higher memory capacity but its also fair for AMD and Nvidia to meet the needs of gamers with products at the time they released. And at the time, 8GB did the job, even if signs showed games trending in a different direction.Now, its undeniable. There are still plenty of games that are just fine with 8GB of VRAM, so I dont want to impose some lofty standard above that mark. If you just want to playMarvel RivalsorBaldurs Gate 3orFortnite,you dont have much to worry about. But if AMD and Nvidia really want to sell the idea of a premium 1080p gaming experience in the upcoming generation, it better be a GPU packing more than 8GB of VRAM.Epic GamesIm under no illusions that a new date on the calendar will suddenly fix the issues with PC gaming, but there are a couple of simple ways that PC gaming could drastically improve in the upcoming year. And hopefully we see those solutions come to fruition.VRAM is an easy issue to address we need more VRAM on graphics cards. That doesnt mean all 8GB graphics cards need to bite the dust, but Id love to see any graphics card coming in over $300 have at least 12GB onboard. We can talk all day about the pricing of memory modules and manufacturing costs, but frankly, thats not the concern of me or you. AMD and Nvidia are some of the largest and wealthiest companies in the world. Let them figure out the math.We just got the Intel Arc B580, which is a $250 graphics card packing 12GB of VRAM. And sure enough, that extra capacity provides some legitimate performance benefits in games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circleat 1080p, and in even more games likeForza Motorsportat 1440p. The $230 RX 480 released more than eight years ago with 8GB of VRAM. Its fair to demand more out of graphics cards at $300 today.For stuttering, things are more nebulous. There are a couple of positive signs, however. Although automated PSO caching and on-demand shader compilation have been available in Unreal Engine 5 for a while, theres a very good chance that the games we saw this year werent using the latest and greatest experimental features of the engine during development. Now that these features have been baked into a few core Unreal Engine 5 updates, Im hopeful theyll improve the stuttering situation on PC.There are also the improvements of Unreal Engine 5 being more mature in general. As more developers learn how to leverage the engine properly, hopefully that leads to more stable experiences. Thats what we saw with games likeLies of Pand Unreal Engine 4, at least.Theres a lot to get excited about in the upcoming year, both on the game release front with titles likeDoom: The Dark Agesand on the hardware front with new generations from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. I dont think PC gamings issues will go away in the next year, but I hope that some of the major trends weve seen over the past few years will finally be put to rest.Editors Recommendations