A method, system, and computer-readable storage medium are disclosed for time-based degradation of images. In one embodiment, the rendering of a first frame of a digital video using a GPU may be initiated. In one embodiment, it may be determined that a time elapsed in rendering the first frame exceeds a threshold. In one embodiment, a downsampling factor may be determined in response to determining that the time elapsed exceeds the threshold. In one embodiment, a second frame of the digital video comprising a second set of one or more images may be rendered based on the downsampling factor using the GPU. Rendering the second frame based on the downsampling factor may comprise sending each of the second set of images to the GPU at a reduced resolution comprising a respective original resolution for each image divided by the downsampling factor.