Who is "we"? Are you talking about yourself in plural?
You make too many assumptions, you "big person" that you think you are, about "little people" - I suppose that includes me, rofl.
Yes, I actually play a lot of games (you want a list for 2021-2022? last 10 or 20 years maybe?) and I could not give a flying **** about $1000 GPUs or more, I'll never pay more than $600-700.
That being said my point still stands: 1st gen nvidia RT, as in Turing, was and still is as abysmal in RT as 1st gen RT from AMD, as in, RDNA2. Those are facts, not feelings.
Secondly vision is more important than sound, in every metric, in every tier and class and even social spectrum. Again facts, not feelings. If you're a competitive player or just a audio-snob, don't care which, you are still the minority with your wishful-dreaming of RT sound. Again facts, not feelings.
Careful not to fall off your high horse, "big person" - you might wake up to reality. In the mean time go cry to nvidia to make RT sound for you and your minority, see how that goes...
I am referring to the Thousands of Streamers and competitive players...
Nobody cares how many games you play... Unless you are playing them competitively against others.. where games are recorded. In which environmental sound placement is are critical.
You ever hear of Dr. Disrespect? He can have a stadium full of people following him every stream and is designing his own game where sound is important!
Casual players need not apply.. They like shiny things and afraid to compete.
Secondly, you entirely made my point about RT... because even you will not buy an expensive video card to get RT frames playable... You just admitted it.
Again, people buy expensive gpus to compete.. To have an advantage, NOBODY cares about 60fps ray-tracing.. or 120fps ray tracing, they are buying $1k+ 144hz monitors and $1k GPUs because they want moAr frames, not less.
And to your ultra casual point, show me one Streamer who uses Ray Tracing.... even the ones who got FREE rtx3090 don't use ray tracing.
Again, for those people buying high end cards, are not doing it for lighting.. When they turn all that garbage off, to get highest frames.
What is more important, perfect reflection or to be able to tell exactly where that bullet came from..?
Your a casual player and have no idea how many gaming clans there are or how much competitive play goes on daily... You should follow twitch TV more... Then you won't seem so out of touch with reality...
My EVGA RTX2080 will never run Ray tracing at gaming speeds, so why would I buy a newer GPU at $1,200+, to get less frames than I already do.. for a superficial gimmick.
Kinda weird that 15 years ago people would spend big money on a 3d sound card... Nobody is buying a reflections generator..