Value of Hardware Unboxed benchmarking

[Kaotik]

Which explains why they had to shit on ray tracing first, and exclude it from being an advantage, and even though they admit DLSS is still a huge advantage, they are willing to set it aside and recommend inferior options. It's the same 5700XT vs RTX 2070 Super false argument/equivalency all over again.

You still can't accept the fact that not everyone has the same priorities as you do. They surveyed their audience which agreed that RT isn't that important.

 

[trinibwoy]

I guess HWUB is trying to fix what they perceive as a great injustice. Ironically all of their recommendations sold terribly compared to the cards they claim are terrible purchases. Im not sure their videos will change much though.

 

[DegustatoR]

The cherry on top of all this is because nobody buys whatever they are recommending they are free to claim whatever they want about these cards since there aren't a lot of people who would call them out on their bullshit.

 

[Cappuccino]

He doesn't like HUB and thinks they're biased towards Nvidia. That's the beef. Like the noise and artefacts are so very noticeable. Personally speaking, I'd rather have RT relegated to just lighting and shadows until GPUs get more powerful. Reflections are sufficient with either SSR with a good cubemap fallbacks or planar reflections. When most people play a game, they don't run around looking at the floor in an attempt to break SSR. It's not perfect at all but, for performance and image quality sakes, I much prefer it. It's just as of recent that SSR implementations have been so bad. Alan Wake is a prime example of bad SSR. It's like they spent their time enabling RT and just did the bare minimum for their SSR implementation.

If you go back and look at older games, you'll often find that their SSR implementations are more robust that recently released games.

One of the most insightful comments I’ve ever read on here lol. The average person isn’t cranking the camera around to find edge cases where SSR breaks but they are probably going to notice their game turn into a 70s analog film with the grain and noise.

That said, I do like RT (I have to say this on here and other hardware spaces otherwise people assume you are a Luddite/Radeon user lol) and eventually I think it’s going to be the dominant means of rendering. Some of the best looking games I’ve played are RT only (Metro Exodus EE), but some of the more disappointing looking games I’ve played are also RT (Cyberpunk with DLSS and FG on). Maybe in a generation or two we will have the horsepower for this (or developers can figure out that 4A’s method of RT is better than whatever they’re doing now).

 

[DegustatoR]

The average person isn’t cranking the camera around to find edge cases where SSR breaks

So the average person doesn't move the camera and is generally standing still in games with SSR?

but they are probably going to notice their game turn into a 70s analog film with the grain and noise

They will probably notice that if that would be what is happening when you enable RT. It is not however, which is why the whole video is just completely misleading.

 

[DavidGraham]

You still can't accept the fact that not everyone has the same priorities as you do. They surveyed their audience which agreed that RT isn't that important

This "our audience" rationale got old real quick, Steve and Tim went on the podcast and admitted their polls don't match reality in any way, shape or form. Besides, the polls are lopsided, most people don't care about 4K, 120fps, max graphics, or high end GPUs. If they want to stick to what people want then they should just stick to benchmarking e-sport games at 1080p on low end hardware.

Reality is, HardwareUnboxed admitted they value high refresh rate gaming (120Hz/144Hz) above all else, which also doesn't match what most people want. Most people play at 1080p60 or 1080p30. Most people play MOBAs, MMORPGs and e-sport titles. Going by the "popular" approach doesn't work because this is not a democracy. Their channel exists to benchmark high end stuff, AAA titles with max graphics, the opposite of what most people play.

So why does high refresh rate gaming matter more than ray tracing if both are not popular among most gamers? because Steve said so?

Then there is the DLAA/DLSS/DLDSR advantage, which they claim that they acknowledge it all the time in reviews, only to throw under the bus in any "best GPUs" video, they are that hyprocritical and contradictive of themselves.

What about the other advantages? DLSS Ray Reconstruction is an obvious image quality win with NVIDIA, not available on AMD hardware, RTX HDR is the same, and if Indiana Jones is any indication, Path Tracing is now the same.

DLSS3 Frame Generation exists on way more games than FSR3 Frame Generation (130 vs 55). DLSS2 Super Resolution also exists on 600+ games while FSR2 Super Resolution exists on ~150 titles.

Reflex exists on hundreds of games now, and has no equal alternative from AMD (AntiLag 2 is available in 4 games?), Reflex is important for high refresh rate competitive games and is loved by scores of people, yet there is no mention of it anywhere in their videos, despite their claim of love of high refresh rate gaming.

They throw all of that under the bus for a mere 50$-100$ bucks discount!! HardwareUnboxed is biased not because they just prefer a certain brand, it's because they contradict themselves and do extreme mental gymnastics to hide and obfuscate the market leader tons of advantages for nothing more than lame excuses.

 

[Cappuccino]

So the average person doesn't move the camera and is generally standing still in games with SSR?

The average gamer is playing on a console or on PC with default settings and is therefore probably using motion blur, so it’s all a soup anyways when the camera moves.

I’d say im a bit above average when it comes to graphics noticing and I don’t think I’ve ever seen serious reality breaks with SSR.

They will probably notice that if that would be what is happening when you enable RT. It is not however, which is why the whole video is just completely misleading.

It is, in my opinion. Most RT games I’ve tried look noisy, and that’s why Ray Reconstruction exists.

 

[Cappuccino]

This "our audience" rationale got old real quick, Steve and Tim went on the podcast and admitted their polls don't match reality in any way, shape or form. Besides, the polls are lopsided, most people don't care about 4K, 120fps, max graphics, or high end GPUs. If they want to stick to what people want then they should just stick to benchmarking e-sport games at 1080p on low end hardware.

Reality is, HardwareUnboxed admitted they value high refresh rate gaming (120Hz/144Hz) above all else, which also doesn't match what most people want. Most people play at 1080p60 or 1080p30. Most people play MOBAs, MMORPGs and e-sport titles. Going by the "popular" approach doesn't work because this is not a democracy. Their channel exists to benchmark high end stuff, AAA titles with max graphics, the opposite of what most people play.

So why does high refresh rate gaming matter more than ray tracing if both are not popular among most gamers? because Steve said so?

Then there is the DLAA/DLSS/DLDSR advantage, which they claim that they acknowledge it all the time in reviews, only to throw under the bus in any "best GPUs" video, they are that hyprocritical and contradictive of themselves.

What about the other advantages? DLSS Ray Reconstruction is an obvious image quality win with NVIDIA, not available on AMD hardware, RTX HDR is the same, and if Indiana Jones is any indication, Path Tracing is now the same.

DLSS3 Frame Generation exists on way more games than FSR3 Frame Generation (130 vs 55). DLSS2 Super Resolution also exists on 600+ games while FSR2 Super Resolution exists on ~150 titles.

Reflex exists on hundreds of games now, and has no equal alternative from AMD (AntiLag 2 is available in 4 games?), Reflex is important for high refresh rate competitive games and is loved by scores of people, yet there is no mention of it anywhere in their videos, despite their claim of love of high refresh rate gaming.

They throw all of that under the bus for a mere 50$-100$ bucks discount!! HardwareUnboxed is biased not because they just prefer a certain brand, it's because they contradict themselves and do extreme mental gymnastics to hide and obfuscate the market leader tons of advantages for nothing more than lame excuses.

You say all of this but every video I’ve seen from them that has recommendations includes caveats for all of this. They’ve never claimed Nvidia doesn’t have a feature set advantage, explicitly mentioning Reflex and DLSS.

 

[DegustatoR]

The average gamer is playing on a console or on PC with default settings and is therefore probably using motion blur, so it’s all a soup anyways when the camera moves.

Motion blur implementations are different and not all of them devolve the image into a "soup". You can most definitely see SSR artifacts with MB on. You can also see SSR being noisy even when you don't move the camera. Also if you go for the "MB hides all of this anyway" then you'd have to assume that MB hides the RT noise too.

It is, in my opinion. Most RT games I’ve tried look noisy, and that’s why Ray Reconstruction exists.

RR exists because RT done in subnative resolution results in lower quality of anything rendered with RT, not because of noise. The denoiser in RR is just a bonus.

 

[Boss]

So the average person doesn't move the camera and is generally standing still in games with SSR?

Thats a bad faith argument. The realm at which you’d have to move the camera during gameplay to break ssr often puts you at extreme angles that are not conducive to gameplay at all. Furthermore, in certain game types, camera angle movement is restricted making techniques like SSR suitable for reflections. Wasting performance to get RT reflections that most users can’t notice is a bad trade off. Personally speaking, RT has a better and more noticeable impact for lightning and shadows. Even then, some might prefer the look of baked lighting to that of RT.

They will probably notice that if that would be what is happening when you enable RT. It is not however, which is why the whole video is just completely misleading.

On this point, I don’t think I agree at all. RT is quite noisy and Ray reconstruction in its current iteration is not a solution to the problem.

 

[Cappuccino]

Motion blur implementations are different and not all of them devolve the image into a "soup". You can most definitely see SSR artifacts with MB on. You can also see SSR being noisy even when you don't move the camera. Also if you go for the "MB hides all of this anyway" then you'd have to assume that MB hides the RT noise too.


RR exists because RT done in subnative resolution results in lower quality of anything rendered with RT, not because of noise. The denoiser in RR is just a bonus.

I've never seen SSR noise the way I can clearly see RT noise.

Granted, I see more RT noise because upscaling is basically required in every RT game released to date with current-ish hardware. Perhaps at native it would be clearer.

 

[DavidGraham]

You say all of this but every video I’ve seen from them that has recommendations includes caveats for all of this. They’ve never claimed Nvidia doesn’t have a feature set advantage, explicitly mentioning Reflex and DLSS.

Here you go, none of these advantages materialized into any best GPU pick, they are just footnotes mentioned to deflect off criticism of bias.

The realm at which you’d have to move the camera during gameplay to break ssr often puts you at extreme angles that are not conducive to gameplay at all

Moving your camera to the sides will make SSR disappear, putting any object (such as your gun) in front of SSR will make them disappear and occlusion artifacts will appear in their place. None of these moves are irregular during gameplay.

 

[Boss]

Here you go, none of these advantages materialized into any best GPU pick, they are just footnotes mentioned to deflect off criticism of bias.

Moving your camera to the sides will make SSR disappear, putting any object (such as your gun) in front of SSR will make them disappear and occlusion artifacts will appear in their place. None of these moves are irregular during gameplay.

If a user playing is playing a fast FPS game, they don't have time to worry about SSR disocclusion. While I appreciate that you enjoy RT reflections, outside the first few minutes of booting an fps game, it's practically irrelevant. It's like when modern warfare 2019 added rt shadows. I enabled it and it looked good, however, once the shooting started, it didn't matter anymore.

 

[Cappuccino]

Here you go, none of these advantages materialized into any best GPU pick, they are just footnotes mentioned to deflect off criticism of bias.

You say footnotes, I say caveat. He’s done this for every GPU review and recommendation to date.

 

[DavidGraham]

outside the first few minutes of booting an fps game, it's practically irrelevant. It's like when modern warfare 2019 added rt shadows. I enabled it and it looked good, however, once the shooting started, it didn't matter anymore.

This remains true for any visual features, textures, polygon, particles, post processing ... etc, you can turn graphics to low and you wouldn't notice once the frantic shootings starts. RT is not special in that regards. Turn off those SS reflections as well, they are not needed.

You say footnotes, I say caveat. He’s done this for every GPU review and recommendation to date.

Yes, it's called double standards and bias, It's when the gigantic feature and performance advantage is a mere footnote, disregarded for a 50 bucks discount. Might as well get rid of product reviews all together, replace them with this card is cheaper, get it now, doesn't matter if it's slow or lack visual features. It's cheap!

 

[DegustatoR]

Thats a bad faith argument. The realm at which you’d have to move the camera during gameplay to break ssr often puts you at extreme angles that are not conducive to gameplay at all.

Now I wonder if you've ever played any game with SSR... You get artifacts in them at any angles.

Furthermore, in certain game types, camera angle movement is restricted making techniques like SSR suitable for reflections.

You'd be surprised - in games with fixed camera angles SSR generally is unusable because said fixed angles often prevents using screen space data for reflections and make SSR artifacts way more visible than in games where your camera is targeted at the world's horizon most of the time.

Wasting performance to get RT reflections that most users can’t notice is a bad trade off.

Right, which is why people aren't noticing them. Oh, wait, they do!

On this point, I don’t think I agree at all. RT is quite noisy and Ray reconstruction in its current iteration is not a solution to the problem.

RR in its current form is the best denoiser we have, and it is a solution to the noise problem. It comes with its own drawbacks but this isn't anything new in computer graphics - everything comes with a set of drawbacks, yes, even "rasterized" graphics is a set of drawbacks, and hacks, and RT improves that.

 

[Subtlesnake]

Thats a bad faith argument. The realm at which you’d have to move the camera during gameplay to break ssr often puts you at extreme angles that are not conducive to gameplay at all.

Any time you are facing a reflective object, SSR will not show what is behind you. That's why cube maps are used, which often provide a very poor approximation of what is being reflected.

 

[neckthrough]

Thats a bad faith argument. The realm at which you’d have to move the camera during gameplay to break ssr often puts you at extreme angles that are not conducive to gameplay at all.

Please speak for yourself. I notice SSR all the time during gameplay without looking for it, and it’s absolutely immersion breaking.

Personally speaking, RT has a better and more noticeable impact for lightning and shadows.

I agree. Grounding objects correctly in their environment, the absence of light leaks and the overall change in a scene’s look and feel is a transformative experience that makes everything feel less “gamey“.

Even then, some might prefer the look of baked lighting to that of RT.

That’s an odd statement. Baked lighting *is* RT, but generated offline. I’m a fan. But it doesn’t work on dynamic objects or dynamic lighting. There are very very few games where lighting can be fully baked, leading to hybrid hacks that start getting into the same shadow and light leak issues.

On this point, I don’t think I agree at all. RT is quite noisy and Ray reconstruction in its current iteration is not a solution to the problem.

Yeah there’s some noise here and there. It doesn’t bug me as much as the artifacts from the metric ton of hackery that RT does away with. I don’t want to go back.

 

[trinibwoy]

Any time you are facing a reflective object, SSR will not show what is behind you. That's why cube maps are used, which often provide a very poor approximation of what is being reflected.

This is a big one for me. I’m currently playing Far Cry 5 and there’s a lot of vehicular action where reflections in your rear view and side mirrors would be super useful for keeping tabs on enemies behind you. Unfortunately the mirror assets are just rendered as gray blobs. Massive visual and gameplay impact if they actually reflected the dynamic scene behind you.

This remains true for any visual features, textures, polygon, particles, post processing ... etc, you can turn graphics to low and you wouldn't notice once the frantic shootings starts. RT is not special in that regards. Turn off those SS reflections as well, they are not needed.

Yep it’s a silly argument. Why don’t we just render stick figures then? RT reflections on their own often aren’t game changing but they add to the overall consistency and completeness of the rendered image. You don’t notice amazing texture detail, beautiful GI or pristine shadow resolution either when you’re hopping around in a firefight.

 

[Dictator]

SSR Breaks If any Object occludes anything behind it - SSR Breaks nearly all the time. In an Game with a 3D camera or depth. It does Not require you to Stare at the ground to Break lol
SSR cannot also apply reflections to things facing the camera... So objects get weirdly matte when facing them at anything other than a grazing angle.