Forza Horizon 4 Benchmarked

Racing championship Forza Horizon iv is arriving to digital store shelves this week worldwide (October 2) and to piece of work out what kind of GPU power you'll demand to enjoy information technology nosotros've tested about 50 graphics cards, so we take a big GPU benchmark incoming.

Forza Horizon 4 is an open globe racing video game adult by Playground Games and published by Microsoft Studios. The game features over 450 licensed cars and is set in a fictionalised representation of the United Kingdom. Equally the proper name suggests it's the fourth Forza Horizon title, but likewise the eleventh installment in the Forza series.

Two years agone we skipped over testing Forza Horizon 3 due to terrible performance on PC, and that wasn't a suitable condition for testing. The situation with Forza Horizon 4 couldn't be more than different. The game is very well optimized, especially on modern hardware and to say that it's visually breathtaking would be an understatement.

For testing we used the game's built-in benchmark. Normally nosotros avert canned benchmarks merely the version provided here is very skilful and does a great job of representing bodily gameplay. We used the 'Ultra' quality preset at 1080p, 1440p and 4K resolutions. Then equally a bonus we've re-tested some of the electric current and previous generation mid-range GPUs along with some older models with the medium quality preset at 1080p.

Along with a ton of different graphics cards, our exam rig is comprised of a Core i7-8700K clocked at five GHz with 32GB of DDR4-3400 retentiveness. For the Radeon GPUs we're using Adrenalin Edition 18.9.three and for the GeForce GPUs driver version 411.lxx.

Benchmarks

Outset up let's accept a close wait at the 1080p results. Things await pretty normal here, the GTX 980 looks a little lackluster, getting beaten past pretty much all the mid-range AMD offerings such equally the R9 Nano and 390.

When looking at the more modernistic GPUs for 60 fps on boilerplate, all gamers require is a GTX 1060 6GB or RX 580, both delivered exceptional performance at 1080p, keeping frame rates above 60 fps at all times.

Something interesting here was how much lower the RX 560 2GB was than the 4GB model, basically delivering RX 550-like performance. The 2GB GTX 1050 was also quite a bit slower than the 3GB model. Then at the bottom of the graph we find the GT 1030 in both the GDDR5 and DDR4 variants. Both performing more badly usual in this championship.

The Fury X comes in just behind the GTX 980 Ti while the R9 380 just beat the GTX 960. For 60 fps on average you'll require the GTX 980 or better just for a minimum of 60 fps you'll require the Fury Ten or GTX 980 Ti, so that's a tall order at just 1080p.

Something else y'all've no doubt noticed is how well the AMD GPUs perform in this title, Vega 64 Liquid for example is yet matching the RTX 2080, making it noticeably faster than the GTX 1080 Ti. Vega 56 also crushed the GTX 1080 and wasn't much slower than the GTX 1080 Ti. We see this across the board, the RX 570 smashed the 3GB GTX 1060 as another example, offering a massive 21% performance boost.

Moving upwardly to 1440p nosotros've dropped a number of the entry level GPUs as they were only too irksome. Equally you lot can come across the GTX 960 and R9 380 are borderline playable, depending on your standards. Anything slower than the GTX 970 is really struggling here and short of the very fastest previous generation cards you will observe regular slowdowns.

Again nosotros encounter the graphics cards with merely 2GB of VRAM really struggling. For around 60 fps on boilerplate the GTX 1060 6GB or RX 580 will once again be required, while the GTX 1070, 1070 Ti, 1080 or Vega 56 volition be needed in order to keep frame rates above 60fps.

The Radeon GPUs keep schooling the GeForce competition here, peculiarly Vega 56 given it makes sense in terms of toll vs. performance. Vega 64 Liquid looks impressive, but truth exist told given the price it should always friction match the GTX 1080 Ti.

Interestingly the 2080 Ti was just 12% faster than the 2080 and less than 20% faster than Vega 64 Liquid and the GTX 1080 Ti. So a pretty weak showing here for the new RTX graphics cards in terms of price vs performance.

As you might accept expected 4K performance, at to the lowest degree with the ultra quality settings is off the table for the GTX 980 Ti and Fury 10. Overall non great performance from these older generations but I was stunned to discover the GTX 1070 delivering over fifty fps on average with a 1% low of 46fps.

AMD'south Vega GPUs do autumn away a little at the 4K resolution but even then we run into Vega 56 matching the GTX 1080, so however an impressive result for the red team. Vega 64 Liquid was able to button over 60 fps at all times and nosotros saw the same from the GTX 1080 Ti, RTX 2080 and, of course, the RTX 2080 Ti. Equally usual the RTX 2080 Ti was incredible at 4K pushing upwardly to 100 fps on average. However that meant information technology was just 20% faster than the GTX

To finish off testing we've tested nigh xxx GPUs using the Medium quality preset with MSAA disabled in favor of FXAA. This wasn't a quick do, you lot're looking at around 8 hours of work but to create this graph. The game has to exist completely reset when changing quality presets and almost every time it crashes on the reset, but I'll touch on this more in a moment.

Depending on the GPU yous're looking at anywhere from a 20 to 40% functioning uplift when downgrading from the ultra to the medium quality preset. The RX 570 for example saw a xx% operation boost while the GTX 1050 saw a 30% heave and the RX 550 a 40% boost.

The medium quality preset allowed the GTX 960 and R9 380 to average around 60 fps and enabled playable performance for most of the older mid-range GPUs. Finally the GTX 780 and 780 Ti for whatsoever reason locked upwards when loading the benchmark, I tried many workarounds, all failed.

Closing Remarks

Nosotros promise that serves you as a guide for those of you wanting to know how well Forza Horizon 4 will run on your PC. Frankly we're super impressed with how well optimized this title is, particularly for modern hardware. The game runs very well on older GPUs, but for the modern stuff the level of optimization is incredible.

Nosotros never expected to observe a game that looks this proficient and is comfortably playable at 4K using a GTX 1070, and we sure as hell never thought we'd see over 60 fps using Vega 56. In fact, Vega 56 was the star of the evidence, offering GTX 1080 performance or meliorate for less coin. If only performance looked like this in all games...

AMD dominated the lower-end battles as well, with the RX 580 and 570 completely cleaning up. It's very interesting that ane of the best looking nearly optimized titles nosotros've ever seen, shows off Radeon GPUs in such a positive light.

We were lucky to be able to play and test the game ahead of release, and while it does wait amazing and plays very well, information technology's non exactly bug free. I only ran into a few in-game crashes when testing, the biggest event was seen when just trying to become into the game. For me the game crashed way besides often when starting up or when changing quality settings.

Wait some early patch to fix this. Information technology was certainly annoying, but thankfully for the most office in one case you arrive, Forza Horizon 4 runs like a dream. Y'all still have to contend with the disgustingly poor Windows Store and the fact that it appears impossible to back up a 60GB game install, simply what tin can you do?