Game Optimization Issues Are Getting Out Of Hand In 2025

Over the years, gaming has continued to become a bigger deal, and as such, there are countless devices today that you can game on. However, PC has remained the dominant choice for quite some time now. Yes, consoles offer comfort and easy access, but the versatility, freedom, and limitless modification potential of a PC is something you can’t get anywhere else.

PC gaming lets you feel like you’re in control. Adjust in-game settings as per your preferences, run third-party software seamlessly, and above all, if you don’t like some aspect of a game, you can always count on the community to come up with the most creative and hilarious of mods. Consoles don’t let you do that, do they? Unfortunately, as amazing as it sounds, PC gaming now has a very dark side.

The State Of Optimization In 2025

My fellow PC gamers, things are not looking good for us, and you know it. Unless we buy the best GPU for gaming and have the latest hardware, PC gaming in 2025 is becoming increasingly difficult. And even with the best parts around, sometimes there’s no escaping the horror that is poor optimization.

What's the deal with all these unoptimized PC games lately? (Especially this year)
byu/Digital_7 inpcgaming

Game optimization is the leading problem plaguing the PC gameplay experience of today. I blame the dreadful creation that is Unreal Engine 5. Games today demand a little too much hardware strength, sometimes way more than what you’d think when you see the game running. A thought occurs, “Why is this game so heavy when it looks like this?” That, my friend, is the optimization landscape today.

Being a PC gamer in 2025 is heavy both on the heart and the wallet. First, the “Built on Unreal Engine 5” scares the hell out of you. You know it’s going to run like it’s on life support. Second, the system requirements section causes you to question your build. It crushes your hopes of not needing an upgrade anytime soon. And even if you’re way above the requirement cutoff, you’re still not out of the woods. When you play the game, the horrible performance presents itself.

The Era Of Fake Frames And Upscale

It seems PC gaming is becoming increasingly difficult every passing day. Game optimization is worse than ever, and every game essentially forces you to rely on upscaling and the fancy “frame gen” technologies. The era of pure raster performance is long gone. There’s only so much you can achieve if you try to run the games of today natively.

What's the deal with fake frames (frame gen)?
byu/kid_ghostly inbuildapc

Stuff like DLSS, FSR, and Frame Gen are mandatory if you wish to achieve playable performance. Not to mention the innovation called Ray Tracing makes things even more complicated. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always considered ray tracing needless. It’s just a minor visual improvement at too great a cost. I’ve always been a gameplay over visuals kind of guy.

Regardless, the decision to add un-disableable Ray Tracing in some games like the new DOOM is another punch in the gut. You can’t even boot these games on slightly older hardware. And even when you upgrade, it’s only a matter of time before your new hardware starts struggling too and is due for another upgrade. And for what? Just to run the game with fake frames since it has bad optimization. We live in dark times indeed.

Why games are starting to demand ray tracing instead of just supporting it?
byu/sylleryum ingaming

PC Gaming Needs A Fix

Don’t get me wrong, bad optimization is a universal issue that affects modern gaming as a whole, even on consoles. But it’s extremely pronounced on PC. Consoles will still run a badly optimized game a bit more consistently than PC, and that’s a serious problem. The PC gaming industry needs to understand that not everyone has the strongest hardware, and no, it’s not the consumer’s fault that they don’t have it.

I remember the good old days of PC gaming, when even low-end systems ran games just fine if you lowered the settings. Heck, optimization was pristine. Take a look at the DOOM reboot and how beautifully it ran on mediocre setups. Where has that optimization gone?

This issue is a critical concern for gamers and needs immediate fixing to secure the future of PC gaming. Everyone opting for the messed-up Unreal Engine 5, paying no heed to optimization and relying on frame gen, and continuing to blame it on users’ weak hardware, is going to result in gaming’s doom, especially on PC. I hope PC gaming returns to the peerless top as it once was.