What I wonder is, when did it become automatically expected to play every major new release at a constant 60 fps+ at "max" settings, and on mid-tier (and yes, even high-end hardware) no less?
I remember the community (knowing more as a whole on a technical level than nowadays it seems), would look forward to maxing new releases out in a couple years time (what, not NOW you say?), and keeping a few graphical notches down in the meantime.
Not to say recent releases haven't had legitimate technical issue, but since when did 30 fps, let alone 40 fps become "unplayable?" Some of these same people call the games "unoptimized," (usually because they can't max them out at a constant 60) and then to "show the developers," they'll turn around and buy the inferior PS4/Xbox One versions instead, which sometimes run at sub 1080p resolutions and at or under 30 fps, when they could have a superior experience with a locked 30 fps on their PCs.
I myself am happy to either lock newer games at 30 fps on my 770 4GB and max them out, or lock them to 60 and compromise a few settings to reach it. And no, I don't expect a constant 60 on a single mid/high-end card with the visual quality of recent games, it's downright unrealistic. People keep asking for more advanced graphical effects to push their PCs, and then when that real-time particle or lighting effect is delivered, they whine about frame drops.
We claim PC gaming is so far ahead of the consoles, but in reality, a single shadow, draw-distance, AA, or AO setting can instantly fill the performance gap between a PS4 and a GTX 970.
