Gaming

What those leaps do result in, however, is major performance gains.

Which many devs will make sure you never feel them by "optimizing" the game for only the most bleeding edge hardware

Then there’s efficiency. What if you could run Monster Hunter Wilds at max graphics, on battery, for hours? The first gen M1 Max MacBook Pro can comfortably run Baldur’s Gate III. Reducing power draw would have immense benefits on top of graphical improvements.

See, if the games were made with a performance first mindset, that'd be possible already. Not to dunk on performance gains, but there's a saying that every time hardware gets faster, programmers make their code slower. I mean, you can totally play emulated SNES games with minimal impact compared to leaving the computer idling.

Saying “diminishing returns” is like saying that fire burns you when you touch it.

Unless chip fabrication can figure a way to make transistors "stack" on top of one another, effectively making 3D chips, they'll continue to be "flat" sheets that can only increase core count horizontally. Single core frequency peaked in early 2000s, from then on it's been about adding more cores. Even the gains from a RTX 5090 vs a RTX 4090 aren't that big. Now compare with the gains from a GTX 980 vs a GTX 1080

I am reminded how much better Forbidden West looks and runs on PS5 compared to either version of Zero Dawn.

Really? I've played both on PS5 and didn't notice any real difference in performance or graphics. I did notice that the PC Version of Forbidden West has vastly higher minimum requirements though. Which is the opposite of performance gains.

Who the fuck cares if leaves are actually falling off or spawning in above your screen to fall?

And BG3 has notoriously low minimums, it is the exception, not the standard.

If you want to see every dimple on the ass of a horse then that's fine, build your expensive computer and leave the rest of us alone. Modern Next Gen Graphics aren't adding anything to a game.