Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR don't belong in system requirements for PC games

System requirements are important to PC gamers. They are the guides that give what should be a reasonable expectation of how a gaming PC will perform in any given game. Whether it's just the basic minimum and recommended specs or the more demanding needs of ultra settings, system requirements are important, and the recent trend of upscaling being used in them needs to stop.

Let me make it clear that this isn't an attempt to bring down the use of upscaling. Even the best gaming PC can benefit from the use of upscaling or frame generation in the right conditions. It's an incredibly useful tool that we sometimes actively use when testing the latest games. However, the likes of Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR do not belong in system requirements, especially if the game requires it at all tiers, as we've seen recently with FBC Firebreak and Hell is Us.

The crucial point here is that the inclusion of upscaling in system requirements, to me, suggests that a developer may be choosing not to raise the general level of the game's PC specs to avoid putting gamers off from buying the game.

A counterargument to this could easily be that developers may be privy to statistics that show most gamers use upscaling if it is available, so they include it as part of the system requirements to give a look at the lowest possible spec you'll need to reach certain performance targets.

However, this logic is damaged by the fact that many of the system requirements, which include upscaling, that we've seen so far, rarely state what level of upscaling is being used. As such, it's possible the requirements have been tested using a low-resolution performance mode, but the end user might assume they're using a higher resolution quality mode. This is where I'll give the FBC Firebreak system requirements some credit, as the level of upscaling is listed throughout the specs.

Regardless, upscaling is a tool that alters the image quality of a game in a variable way, so the idea that you should have to use it under any circumstances is highly questionable. Even though Nvidia's new DLSS 4 transformer model has made its upscaling look remarkably good, it's still a feature that fundamentally turns down the resolution of your game, and that isn't available on all graphics cards to an equal degree. After all, AMD FSR and Intel XeSS offer decent upscaling, but they're not as good as the latest DLSS upscaling and aren't identical to each other either.

The writing has been on the wall for some time now for older components and their inclusion in system requirements. Few games have taken the leap and used a non-ray tracing capable GPU in the minimum tier, but it is becoming more common. As we've seen with the recent release of the Borderlands 4 system requirements, there are no non-ray tracing capable GPUs listed, and generally speaking, all of the requirements appear high initially. However, when you consider how far PC gaming and the hardware have come, they're extremely fair demands, and the fact that no upscaling is listed gives off a sense of confidence.

I am of the opinion that most gamers would rather face the reality that their hardware is simply too old to run a game than be faced with misleading or unclear system requirements that could build a false sense of security in that PC hardware. Perhaps we need more big studios to come out and make this shift, much like id has done with its Doom the Dark Ages and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle system requirements, although this was unavoidable given that these demands can be attributed to ray tracing more than general performance.

Either way, the impact of using upscaling in system requirements is still too early to gauge. It's only popped up as a regular occurrence since late 2024, but we'll know a lot more about the direction in which we're heading by the end of the year. I can only hope it's one where system requirements are simply raised rather than compromised with workarounds in order to keep older GPUs relevant.

If you want to know where we think PC demands could be in a few years, check out our Witcher 4 system requirement predictions, where we take an educated stab at figuring out which PC hardware you'll need to run the upcoming RPG.

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