Horizon Zero Dawn (Official Discussion Thread)

Bankie said:
Here I've been saying I would only buy it if was $20-$30...I bought my key from GMG yesterday.
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Heh don't feel bad, I caved also ;). I was saying if it had denuvo I'd wait for a big discount, but then I saw an OK discount on GMG and said f**k it I want it regardless lol.
 
Preload is live on Steam (y)
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It actually clocks in at 67.1GB but that may or may not be with the Day 0 Patch.
 
This is one I did not play on the PS4 simply because I heard it was coming to PC. I am pretty excited for it. I actually pre ordered it
 
whateverer said:
I think they were given a list of fixes for the patch, and it didn't see to be fixing much.
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Yet to be seen & it can be said that not everyone gets the same performance out of the exact same hardware. I'll do my own sleuthing with it & give my thoughts here.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
Yet to be seen & it can be said that not everyone gets the same performance out of the exact same hardware. I'll do my own sleuthing with it & give my thoughts here.
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Seeing as none of the other reviews I've read so far (Destructoid, IGN) had the same "problems" the ARS reviewer had, I'll also be waiting to see it on my own hardware before jumping to any conclusions.

The DigitalFoundry review and analysis should also be more technically competent if not a little more trustworthy.
 
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IGN.COM

Performance Deep Dive and CPU Performance
So far, we have only looked at the game’s performance in the GPU-limited case, which is actually relatively straightforward – the performance obviously scales with rendering resolution, some of the graphics settings, and general GPU hardware performance in a more-or-less expected fashion. However, there are some very interesting and important-to-know factors when it comes to what performance you can expect in a CPU-limited case, and what is required to ensure that you get the best possible performance out of Horizon Zero Dawn. Here are some of the unusual factors involved:
  • As noted previously, the internal framelimiter is not particularly consistent and also reduces performance measurably. It’s preferable to use external framelimiting if required.
  • HZD uses basic double-buffered V-sync if the in-game option is enabled, which means that the framerate will drop precipitously if rendering slightly misses the sync. Again, it is preferable to disable the in-game option and use external/driver-level vertical synchronization.
  • Unlike many recent games, there is a non-negligible performance difference between exclusive fullscreen and borderless windowed mode. I measured roughly 10% better performance in exclusive fullscreen.
  • Having a completely up to date driver is essential on both AMD and Nvidia GPUs. Prior to the latest driver version I was experiencing severe periodic stuttering which vanished with the latest driver.
  • The game makes significant use of PCIe bandwidth. Having your GPU connected via fewer than 16 PCIe lanes reduces performance to a larger degree than any other game either of us is aware of.
As such, to get the best possible performance out of the game, you should disable its internal framelimiter and V-sync, play in exclusive fullscreen mode, and ensure that your GPU actually has access to the full PCIe bandwidth – and this is how I performed all tests in this article.

Since this section is designed to illustrate the performance of HZD when CPU-limited, a very low resolution (50% of 1080p) was used.

cpu_core_scaling.png
 
Horizon Zero Dawn PC Port Analysis

I wrote an article analyzing HZD performance on PC...that by itself isn't too interesting in terms of hardware, what's more interesting is that it is the first mainstream PC game I'm aware of which shows a very significant performance drop when you run it with 8x PCIe compared to 16x...Previous analysis, even of recent games, shows differences <7% even in scenarios only intended for bottleneck testing, and <3% in 1440p and higher

Conversely, HZD can regularly show differences of 20% at 4k, when only changing the PCIe bandwidth...Hard to tell as yet whether this is a peculiarity of this particular implementation or a sign of things to come, but it could make the PCIe 4.0 discussion more interesting...

https://www.ign.com/articles/horizon-zero-dawn-pc-port-analysis
 
Who handled this port? I’ve no doubt the game could be demanding (and possibly more demanding than Death Stranding) but they’re both Decima Engine and hell HZD is from 2017. Properly handled the performance shouldn’t be bad I would think.
 
67 GB, oof. Still, pretty hyped to play this game again with a mouse and keyboard.
 
Hopefully they consider patching DLSS 2.0 in post-launch since its the same engine as Death Stranding and it worked wonders for that game. However I'm sure implementing it isn't trivial.
 
30fps
odditory said:
IGN.COM

Performance Deep Dive and CPU Performance
So far, we have only looked at the game’s performance in the GPU-limited case, which is actually relatively straightforward – the performance obviously scales with rendering resolution, some of the graphics settings, and general GPU hardware performance in a more-or-less expected fashion. However, there are some very interesting and important-to-know factors when it comes to what performance you can expect in a CPU-limited case, and what is required to ensure that you get the best possible performance out of Horizon Zero Dawn. Here are some of the unusual factors involved:
  • As noted previously, the internal framelimiter is not particularly consistent and also reduces performance measurably. It’s preferable to use external framelimiting if required.
  • HZD uses basic double-buffered V-sync if the in-game option is enabled, which means that the framerate will drop precipitously if rendering slightly misses the sync. Again, it is preferable to disable the in-game option and use external/driver-level vertical synchronization.
  • Unlike many recent games, there is a non-negligible performance difference between exclusive fullscreen and borderless windowed mode. I measured roughly 10% better performance in exclusive fullscreen.
  • Having a completely up to date driver is essential on both AMD and Nvidia GPUs. Prior to the latest driver version I was experiencing severe periodic stuttering which vanished with the latest driver.
  • The game makes significant use of PCIe bandwidth. Having your GPU connected via fewer than 16 PCIe lanes reduces performance to a larger degree than any other game either of us is aware of.
As such, to get the best possible performance out of the game, you should disable its internal framelimiter and V-sync, play in exclusive fullscreen mode, and ensure that your GPU actually has access to the full PCIe bandwidth – and this is how I performed all tests in this article.

Since this section is designed to illustrate the performance of HZD when CPU-limited, a very low resolution (50% of 1080p) was used.

View attachment 267647
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Such a shitty port, as far as CPU optimization goes!

Have a look here at how much better Death Stranding CPU scaling on the same video card (and at 100% 1080p resolution, as well)

16090330825l.jpg

The 4c/4th registers THREE TIMES the minimum framerate of HZD (and that's overclocked to FIVE GHZ to make that miracle happen, so at the same clocks, 1% is 4x faster and the average should be close to 3x faster!)

This port is a complete embarrassment, and anyone not holding them accountable (by getting a refund on their order) is just encouraging more shitty PC ports like this.
 
whateverer said:
30fps



Such a shitty port, as far as CPU optimization goes!

Have a look here at how much better Death Stranding CPU scaling on the same video card (and at 100% 1080p resolution, as well)

View attachment 267794

The 4c/4th registers THREE TIMES the minimum framerate of HZD (and that's overclocked to FIVE GHZ to make that miracle happen, so at the same clocks, 1% is 4x faster and the average should be close to 3x faster!)

This port is a complete embarrassment, and anyone not holding them accountable (by getting a refund on their order) is just encouraging more shitty PC ports like this.
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Bit too early to call it a "shitty port". A game being resource heavy does not make it "shitty". Even if two games share the same engine (though not the same version as KojiPro do customize it) it does not mean they will have identical performance. You cannot directly compare two games that way, especially across different hardware. Durante doesn't mention which CPU he used (9900K perhaps? Since he is running at 5Ghz in those benches). Also, the game seems heavily core reliant, as it remains entirely playable even when the CPU is down clocked to 2Ghz. None of this really points to it being "shitty", just different priorities when it comes to resource usage.
 
I thought the developers originally said that the PC version would not have an FOV slider as it would compromise the gameplay experience or something along those lines
 
https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Hori...-Zero-Dawn-PC-Test-Review-Benchmarks-1355296/

whateverer said:
The 4c/4th registers THREE TIMES the minimum framerate of HZD (and that's overclocked to FIVE GHZ to make that miracle happen, so at the same clocks, 1% is 4x faster and the average should be close to 3x faster!)

This port is a complete embarrassment, and anyone not holding them accountable (by getting a refund on their order) is just encouraging more shitty PC ports like this.
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Based on durante's results, it seems like another one of those games designed to run on HT.
Going from 4/4 to 4/8 was a 66% improvement.
 
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i think it's pointless to compare it to death stranding, that is a barren wasteland comparatively with very little foliage and objects.
 
Dang, I'm surprised Sony would let them launch the game in that state considering how well they did Death Standing and emphasize stable performance on PS4. I would be even more surprised if they didn't keep patching the game to fix most of this performance disparity between the AMD cards, Nvidia cards, and the console's 1440p (or checkerboard 4K) performance that's rock solid at 30 FPS on a RX 470ish level GPU. I can't consider buying it at any price though if I can't get at least 60+ FPS on my 2080 at 3440x1440, which should definitely be attainable at near max IQ settings.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
DF has an analysis video up. they cover each setting.



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From Eurogamer report:

Even with the game running in what I think are optimal conditions, performance is not where it should be. Death Stranding would deliver 1080p60 on a GTX 1060 or RX 580 system. Horizon Zero Dawn - based on an older iteration of the Decima Engine - does not, far from it. The lack of a day one driver from Nvidia is also curious. Horizon certainly seems to need it as GTX 1060 performance up against RX 580 - its perennial rival - is remarkably poor. Indeed, on optimised settings, the GTX 1060 can drop beneath 1080p30 with highly erratic frame-times, meaning that it's performing worse than a PlayStation 4 with only a small visual uplift.
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https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-horizon-zero-dawn-pc-tech-review

via fps review
https://www.thefpsreview.com/2020/0...ished-by-broken-texture-filtering-stuttering/

It appears that Guerrilla Games has a bit more to learn when it comes to PC ports. The developer posted an update on Steam yesterday warning of several annoying, if not severe, issues plaguing the current version of Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition, which officially releases tomorrow. Apparently, texture filtering options don’t work at all, and players are likely to encounter stuttering. There’s also an issue with animations being locked to a sad 30 FPS.

Known Issues
  • Anisotropic Filtering settings are not working. This is a high priority issue for us to resolve.
  • Some systems may experience a brief stutter during general world traversal, UI updates, quest updates, or camera swaps in cutscenes. This is a high priority issue for us to investigate.
  • Some animations are designed to only refresh at 30fps even if the game is running at a much higher frame rate. We are exploring how we can improve this with a future update.
 
Well that DF video made me cancel my preorder. Hopefully this stuff gets patched fairly quickly.
 
It's hard to discern what are mountains and what are molehills, since clickbait-driven sites and channels have a vested interest in maximizing controversy - meaning latching onto anything and then amplifying it to max. On one hand you've got people screaming "30FPS QTE's, the game is broken". On the other hand I see twitch streamers happily playing the game, and 4K youtube videos of a game playing pretty smoothly to my eyes.

Ultimately I'll judge for myself tomorrow, and the truth's likely to land somewhere in the middle. Patches for that last 5-10% of issues or FPS increases no doubt forthcoming.
 
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Colonel Sanders said:
Well that DF video made me cancel my preorder. Hopefully this stuff gets patched fairly quickly.
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I'm also holding off for a bit...I still plan on getting this but since I plan on getting a new Ampere 3080 (or maybe 3070) in September/October I'd rather wait since I hear I won't be able to play on Ultra Settings with my current GTX 1070 (1440p)...plus it'll give the developers a chance to fix the performance issues/bugs...
 
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1151640/announcements/detail/2749963490368114776

Initial Shader Compilation

In order to improve performance during play, we’ve implemented a one-time initial shader compilation before the game starts for the first time. This can take an average of 10-15 minutes for most systems to complete. Once it’s completed, you won’t have to do it again unless you make a significant hardware change or update your video drivers. We’re looking into ways to further optimize this process.

Known Issues
  • Anisotropic Filtering settings are not working. This is a high priority issue for us to resolve.
  • Some systems may experience a brief stutter during general world traversal, UI updates, quest updates, or camera swaps in cutscenes. This is a high priority issue for us to investigate.
  • Some animations are designed to only refresh at 30fps even if the game is running at a much higher frame rate. We are exploring how we can improve this with a future update.
Shader Compilation process does not properly verify remaining storage space on user PC and can result in crashes if the user’s storage drive is low on space (compilation process requires additional ~2GB storage space).
 
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15 minutes for shader compilation??...and every time I update my GPU driver it needs to run again??
 
It makes me wonder what happened, I thought Death Stranding ran well on PC and it's the same engine?

Either way, I will give it a try tomorrow when it unlocks.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
Something about different hair physics in the nv vs amd benchmark. i cant see anything tho.
19:54 in the digitalfoundry video.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/c...n_zero_dawn_pc_an_amazing_game_gets_a/g0ld1sa
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they handle hair physics different so seems normal to me. the amd hair to me looked more realistic, the nv side looked like it moved way too much.

MavericK said:
It makes me wonder what happened, I thought Death Stranding ran well on PC and it's the same engine?

Either way, I will give it a try tomorrow when it unlocks.
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different port team.
 
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