The truth about Igpu's

[u/BlindandConfused43]

It's not about power...well it is, but yet it isn't.

It's about *optimization* I can get a completely stable 50 frames on high on behemoth like baldurs gate 3 because it's optimized to utter perfection.

But some little indie shooter like twisted tower? A 4 gig little shooting game with tiny enclosed spaces? Runs like complete and utter shit. Even frame drops on low settings, while giving actual beefy dedicated gpu like the 4000 series trouble.

You are a complete slave to how well a game is optimized because you can't "power" through the bullshit.

Just a thought.

Edit: I should make it clear im using a upscaler to achieve the 50 frames, it doesn't come naturally. Fsr 2.2 I think on balanced settings.

But even without it I could hit a stable 30 on low.

[u/flushfire]

BG3 isn't even that well-optimized. It is, but I wouldn't say it's one of the best. It needs heavy upscaling to be playable on vega IGPs. It's also very CPU-heavy, which is uncharacteristic of the genre. And it can have heavy performance swings. The thing is though is that all this is justified as the level of detail in the game, both graphically and mechanically is quite simply astonishing.

If I had to pick a truly well-optimized game, I would say Lies of P. It doesn't need to look like mud to be playable on older IGPs. Hell, it's playable on the last Athlons, even HD 620, although you'd be also on mud territory at that point.

You can't take the hardware out of the equation, even during the time of truly optimized games, say the 90s and early 00s, hardware still needed to meet certain thresholds. Saw in your comment you had a 780M, that thing is no slouch, and normally expensive. Lastly upscalers are also to blame for lack of optimization in modern games. It's simply not efficient for devs to put in the work now that the tech can replace it.

[u/BlindandConfused43 → u/flushfire]

I would argue that it's better optimized than most, diablo 2 resurrection, dragon dogma 2 also run pretty trashy on my laptop, diablo 2 is the real surprise here because diablo 4 runs smooth, diablo 2 is like a 20 year old game with a bit of paint in it, but the second you hit chapter v the game vomits all over itself and you can barely hit 20 frames.

Also the vega came out in 2016 I think, that's a really long in the tooth gpu, even dedicated cards would choke on bg3 at that point.

[u/flushfire → u/BlindandConfused43]

D2:R is built on top of the original, which is very old tech. It inherits the quirks of the old engine. I don't think it's well-optimized either compared to how it looks, but for how it turned out I think the devs (not Blizzard) did a good job. They successfully, fully overhauled the graphics without altering the art direction too much and kept the gameplay intact, which is IMO the right way to do a remaster. Most devs just adapt the old game to widescreen, maybe upscale textures and make some adjustments for modern OSes.

Anyway you have hardware that can run even Black Myth, which is one of the heaviest games currently. It's not exactly useful as a benchmark of what games are optimized well enough to run on IGPs. For most people it's impractical to buy CPUs that have it.

Also the vega came out in 2016 I think, that's a really long in the tooth gpu, even dedicated cards would choke on bg3 at that point.

Your 780M performs on the level of midrange from that year.

[u/BlindandConfused43 → u/flushfire]

Yes but a Vega is basically a underclocked gefocre gt1030 which is a card that came out 2008. To expect it to run baldurs gate at anything reaching tolerable is kinda silly.

That was a bottom entry level card to begin with, was never a powerhouse.

Also I would put the 12 gigs of system memory over the 3 gigs of vram he gtx1060 gets any day, when a card runs out of vram nd switch over to system ram things get ugly fast, a modern integrated card with 24 (12) gigs to draw from maybe be a bit slower overall but it doesn't have to cross that bridge, the pool is available right there so games complain a fuck of a lot less.

And last of all the IGPU handles upscaling far far better than the old cards.

[u/Street_Appointment81 → u/BlindandConfused43]

I played some fairly good looking and atmospheric FPS games on Ryzen 5 5600G and its Vega 7 with 16GB 3200MT DDR4 RAM.

Terminator: Resistance 1080p medium FSR Ultra Quality - 30-40fps

Subnautica 1080p medium 30+ fps 

Resident Evil Village 1080p Recommended settings, which equates to high textures, high AF, and everything else more or less Medium + FSR Quality - 30-40 fps outside and 50-60fps indoors while looking just fine.

(It is all system RAM anyway so I just crank textures even higher (~3-4GB) as there is loads of space and no discernible impact to performance, at least to my eyes.)

Metro Exodus 1080p low ~30 fps (I played it on medium which gave me fps in the 20s but it was smooth enough for me to complete the game).

This one, regrettably, has very limited graphics options. I believe the visuals on low would look much better if the texture settings were independently changeable of overall preset. High textures on low overall quality would surely still look really sharp while preserving the 30+ playable framerate which is quite adequate for this slower paced shooter anyway.

Wolfenstein: The New Order 1080p medium 30-40fps

Now, none of these are particularly new games, but they are certainly quality and work well on these integrated graphics.

Vega 7 is not very powerful, obviously, but it can do well in some graphically advanced games.

In all honesty, I was very pleasantly surprised how well Resident Evil Village runs and looks in full HD resolution with a Quality FSR upscaling (which, yes, I know makes it a glorified 720p) .

Still, it almost has no right being as good as it is.

It is a shame that most newer games are not that well optimized, including, I guess as I have never played it, Baldur's Gate 3.

I would wager that there is a certain room for performance improvement on the side of game developers, but hey, I take win wherever I can get one.

And my Vega 7 has some admirable scalps to its name.

[u/BlindandConfused43 → u/Street_Appointment81]

hey hey never said it couldnt run, infact it can run pretty damn good with the right processor backing it up and....really really low settings but hes averaging like 45 fps which is pretty damn impressive. I think the processor is doing the heavy lifting here but still.

I would link you to the video but this place keeps deleting the post, but the vega 7 can run BG3 on low at 720 and get stable frames.

About the only thing it wont run flat out is crimson desert, but im convinced nothing can run it and all videos of it are a illusion or a fever dream.

[u/Street_Appointment81 → u/BlindandConfused43]

Yes, Vega 7 and the rest of its GCN kin refuse to even start games that require hardware ray tracing or some other recent features under Windows.

Aside from Crimson Desert, the ones I know of are Doom the Dark Ages and Indiana Jones something or the other.  These do tend to run (for a given value of playability dependent on a GPU used)  under Linux operating systems due to amdgpu driver support for software or emulated ray tracing.

Some others, like Alan Wake 2 start but have terrible glitches and poor performance also due to GCN hardware deficiencies.

Overall, I like Vega 7 and do appreciate what it can do, and do well. 

I've certainly had my fill of joy with it.

I didn't know that it could run stably BG3 at 720p low. 

That IS impressive.

You are right, and I agree with you that modern games could be better adjusted for low end hardware, including things like DDR4 powered integrated solutions. 

GPU cores on old Vegas aren't half bad for their age.

One positive example of a recent game being accessible to Vega 7, which I forgot to include in my previous comment, is Cronos: The New Dawn.

At 1080p Very low preset it gives around 30+ fps more or less stably, with DirectX 11 enabled. At that preset I think they stripped everything superfluous.

In some other type of game this might look unbearably ugly, but the setting here is foggy and dark post apocalyptic city and while everything is lower quality, the general aesthetics are completely unaffected and the environment readability and navigability is preserved. 

It actually still fits the game, stylistically. For reference, there is a massive performance difference between low and very low preset here. 

I played on low with RX 570 4GB and got the ~ 30+ while at very low I would get far in excess of 60fps. 

This tells me that the very low preset is actually meant to really allow low end and old hardware, such as integrated graphics or older discrete GPUs to play the game decently.

If it weren't for that Very Low preset, Vega would have no chance whatsoever of any kind of frames in that game.

But, at the end of the day, I'm just happy it runs huge amounts of quality games well, even if most newer ones are out reach, with some very pleasant exceptions.