Forza Horizon 4 Benchmarks Are Out

cageymaru

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Hardware Unboxed has run some canned benchmarks on the popular new racing game Forza Horizon 4. They normally "avoid canned benchmarks but the version provided here is very good and does a great job of representing actual gameplay." They used the latest game optimized drivers from AMD -- Adrenalin driver 18.9.3 and NVIDIA -- GeForce Game Ready driver 411.70.


Two years ago 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 different. The game is very well optimized, especially on modern hardware and to say that it's visually breathtaking would be an understatement.
 
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So they said this available through Game Pass, but does that apply to PC version? I can't find any mention of it being on game pass when looking at PC versions to pre-download, I only see full retail pre-order prices.
 
I found the canned benchmark to be inaccurate to the gameplay experience, as they usually are. The benchmark showed 56 FPS average for me while it gets 70-80 most of the time, and I have yet to see it drop below 60. This is at 4K with beyond Ultra settings.
So they said this available through Game Pass, but does that apply to PC version? I can't find any mention of it being on game pass when looking at PC versions to pre-download, I only see full retail pre-order prices.
Sea of Thieves is/was available on PC through Game Pass, don't know why Horizon 4 would be any different as a Game Pass title.
 
Have you found a way to download it early? Or do you think we will just have to wait til release to download?
 
Have you found a way to download it early? Or do you think we will just have to wait til release to download?
I don't think preloading was ever an option with Game Pass. You'll just have to wait until midnight to download it.
 
In reviewing the 1080p results, I am amused that they went all the way down to the 1030 level.

1030 DDR4 level.

12 F P S.

L....O.... L.... zzzzzzzzzzzz.
 
Wow, based on these numbers, I would be able to tie or possibly beat a 2080TI since my LC VEGAs run @ 1750/1100Mhz HBM vs the slower 16XX/945 of the 64 LC stock cards..Crazy how fast VEGA can be with the right optimizations..

It looks like great performance across the board for both teams, unless you are running that 1030 DDR4 :eek::eek::eek::eek:....
 
So they said this available through Game Pass, but does that apply to PC version? I can't find any mention of it being on game pass when looking at PC versions to pre-download, I only see full retail pre-order prices.

Yep. Any "Play Anywhere" game in Game Pass will be available to play on both the XB1 and Windows Store. Pre-loads don't seem to be a thing for Game Pass titles as they don't get added to Game Pass until release.
 
What is it about this title that gives the Radeons such great performance vs other games?
 
In reviewing the 1080p results, I am amused that they went all the way down to the 1030 level.

1030 DDR4 level.

12 F P S.

L....O.... L.... zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Well, NV does position it as an entry level gaming card. Pretty pitiful performance though given that this 12fps is at 1080p. Might be this game as here in most cases AMD cards beat NV. Still, I would expect a bit better from a discrete video card that retails for around $90.
 
Well, NV does position it as an entry level gaming card. Pretty pitiful performance though given that this 12fps is at 1080p. Might be this game as here in most cases AMD cards beat NV. Still, I would expect a bit better from a discrete video card that retails for around $90.

Nvidia positioned it as a POS bait and switch card that they have a much higher margin on...I believe IIRC they are being sued for calling it the same 1030. The DDR5 card is over 2X as fast.
 
AMD sponsored game it appears. They are pimping it on their website.

I believe this game is possibly using Rapid Packed Math(for VEGA skus)/DX12/A-sync compute for the entire product stack. This is VEGAs (and GCN as a whole) true potential realized...If only AMD could have given us this in every DX11 game, then we would have had a wonderful slugging match at the high end yet again!

I mean look at the performance of Vulkan games...One can dream lol...I am very happy with my GPUs, especially paired with FreeSync but who would not take this level of performance for every game? And before the Nvidia Defense Force arrives, I am well aware this is a racing game which makes it VERY easy to have stunning close visuals with little performance hit compared to a traditional FPS/RPG
 
I believe this game is possibly using Rapid Packed Math(for VEGA skus)/DX12/A-sync compute for the entire product stack. This is VEGAs (and GCN as a whole) true potential realized...If only AMD could have given us this in every DX11 game, then we would have had a wonderful slugging match at the high end yet again!

I mean look at the performance of Vulkan games...One can dream lol...I am very happy with my GPUs, especially paired with FreeSync but who would not take this level of performance for every game? And before the Nvidia Defense Force arrives, I am well aware this is a racing game which makes it VERY easy to have stunning close visuals with little performance hit compared to a traditional FPS/RPG

I agree with you about Vulkan. The new RTX series eats Vulkan games for lunch and spits out unbelievable FPS.
 
Nvidia positioned it as a POS bait and switch card that they have a much higher margin on...I believe IIRC they are being sued for calling it the same 1030. The DDR5 card is over 2X as fast.

Yeah, no kidding man! It sure is a ton of bullshit but they did it many times before. I recall same BS with GTX630/640 back in the days I was getting one for HTPC. Not even the DDR5 is decent though, I would expect a $100 card to at least deliver 30fps @ 1080p. Neither seems to be playable in that game. Overall the whole NV situation and reposition of card tiers and performance is very shady and questionable at best. RTX series is a real mess.
 
I believe this game is possibly using Rapid Packed Math(for VEGA skus)/DX12/A-sync compute for the entire product stack. This is VEGAs (and GCN as a whole) true potential realized...If only AMD could have given us this in every DX11 game, then we would have had a wonderful slugging match at the high end yet again!

I mean look at the performance of Vulkan games...One can dream lol...I am very happy with my GPUs, especially paired with FreeSync but who would not take this level of performance for every game? And before the Nvidia Defense Force arrives, I am well aware this is a racing game which makes it VERY easy to have stunning close visuals with little performance hit compared to a traditional FPS/RPG
I think the explanation is simpler in that they spent more time on an AMD-specific vendor code path for DX12 than they did for NVIDIA. The reason this is important is because the rendering pipeline is completely different between AMD and NVIDIA, and DX12 doesn't have high-level abstraction like prior versions of the API did. RPM does make a good bit of difference in the games using it effectively, but not enough to show what we're seeing here. Vega does have a lot of compute power on tap that is often not being utilized in gaming, though.
 
I think the explanation is simpler in that they spent more time on an AMD-specific vendor code path for DX12 than they did for NVIDIA. The reason this is important is because the rendering pipeline is completely different between AMD and NVIDIA, and DX12 doesn't have high-level abstraction like prior versions of the API did. RPM does make a good bit of difference in the games using it effectively, but not enough to show what we're seeing here. Vega does have a lot of compute power on tap that is often not being utilized in gaming, though.

You are definitely correct in the optimization they did, since it shows across the entire product stack..However I do feel its a very reasonable assumption that Async Compute is used considering the entire line has it enabled and every great performance we have seen with DX12 tends to involve it. RPM is much less likely, but I would have loved to see AMD see if would have offered any additional benefits just to say "Here is a little extra for buying VEGA".
 
What is it about this title that gives the Radeons such great performance vs other games?

Forza is a microsoft exclusive made mostly with the Xboxone in mind. Since the Xboxone runs on an AMD GPU, the game was built around and optimized for AMD GPU's.

Basically there is some bleed over onto the PC port of Forza of the massive amounts of optimizations made for consoles if you happen to have a newer red team card.
 
This is how ALL games should run today. Great FPS with amazing graphics on modern gpu's from both companies.

Compare this to many Nvidia sponsored titles (most recently Assasin's Creed Odyssey) that run ok on Nvidia and terrible with AMD.
 
Forza is a microsoft exclusive made mostly with the Xboxone in mind. Since the Xboxone runs on an AMD GPU, the game was built around and optimized for AMD GPU's.

Basically there is some bleed over onto the PC port of Forza of the massive amounts of optimizations made for consoles if you happen to have a newer red team card.
that being said the game still runs amazing on nvidia hardware. i'm sure we'll see the next WHQL drivers from nvidia have a similar performance increase we saw with Forza 7 when it first released.
 
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