Verno wrote on Oct 4, 2011, 12:29:

Lorcin wrote on Oct 4, 2011, 12:26:
Or maybe it's just obsolete nowadays - remember when we as gamers had to tailor autoexec.bat and config.sys to cram as much low memory as we could while still enabling the cd-rom and soundcard etc? That all stopped with the introduction of Windows 95. Now with graphic options getting fewer and fewer over the last few years we're obviously getting to the point where the systems CAN configure themselves correctly to provide what the game designers have decided is how they want the game to look.

The number of configuration options hasn't exactly dwindled so I find this whole thing to be a false dichotomy. We're not at a point where engines can configure themselves perfectly and even if they could that's still ignoring that users might not like their choices and have to tweak to take into account varying eye sight and preferences.

And no I personally don't want to spend an hour or two tweaking settings, reading set up guides and running benchmarks (or worse playing the start 15 times with fraps running) to determine what is best - do it for me and let me play. But no I won't play an fps on a console either.

No one said you had to, the automatic configuration is there for people like you. I fail to see the problem in letting advanced users make advanced tweaks to meet their specific needs. Some of these things I wouldn't even classify as advanced, I shouldn't have to tweak cache sizes so I don't see texture pop in when I move my vision 20 degrees. That's something the game engine should be auto-configuring going by your logic.