One change I’ve noticed is that while 3D games have always had performance issues, games of the past almost always had graphics settings that allowed the player to overcome those issues by giving up some effects/fidelity/detail. Modern games usually still have settings, but more and more often, those settings don’t make much difference in responsiveness or frame rate.

It feels like some modern developers have given up spending time on optimization, instead expecting players to use upscaling, which in my experience is not a good substitute.