Horizon Zero Dawn (Official Discussion Thread)

different port team.
I always wonder about this stuff; it seems that game developers simply cannot standardize on frameworks. It happens over and over; a game in development longer releases on an engine used for a game that was in development less, but releases later and with more bugs / fewer features / worse peformance. And it's a tossup if it will get such features and fixes that were already present.

Obviously it's not an uncommon problem, especially in software development in general, but it's also one that's solvable.
 
Horizon Zero Dawn is properly lovely in ultrawide, most of the time

I found my RTX 2070 Super averaged around 55fps on Ultimate Quality at 3440×1440 with the FOV slider at its default 70 degrees, but this dropped to around 50fps when I set the FOV to 100 degrees...Consequently, if I wanted to maintain that higher frame rate at 100 degrees FOV, I felt like I had to drop the quality preset down to its PS4-oriented ‘Original’ settings to get a frame rate that was consistently above 60fps...

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/08/06/horizon-zero-dawn-ultrawide/
 


from PC gamer (running on 2080 Ti): " Hoping to play Horizon in 4K with performance beyond what the PS4 version can offer? You may also be out of luck. The best I could manage at 2160p on a mix of medium and high settings was a stuttering experience that ranged from 25fps to 40fps. "

getting 25fps to 40fps on medium settings for a PS4 game that runs on the same e Decima engine as Death Stranding is just unacceptable to me. I get the game is amazing, but if they want my money they will have to do a better job on making a proper PC port like they did with Death Stranding.
 
HZD needs at least 2 more major patches...I almost pre-ordered from GMG earlier this week but am glad I held off...seems like a great game but needs some optimizations/drivers/bug fixes
 
from PC gamer (running on 2080 Ti): " Hoping to play Horizon in 4K with performance beyond what the PS4 version can offer? You may also be out of luck. The best I could manage at 2160p on a mix of medium and high settings was a stuttering experience that ranged from 25fps to 40fps. "

getting 25fps to 40fps on medium settings for a PS4 game that runs on the same e Decima engine as Death Stranding is just unacceptable to me. I get the game is amazing, but if they want my money they will have to do a better job on making a proper PC port like they did with Death Stranding.

Is this the same guy, who said he liked to keep his FoV as wide as possible !?

(EDIT: Looks like it is not. Which is even more wierd
https://www.pcgamer.com/au/horizon-zero-dawn-review/ )

https://www.pcgamer.com/au/pc-contr...horizon-zero-dawn-the-game-it-was-meant-to-be

Horizon Zero Dawn is properly lovely in ultrawide, most of the time

I found my RTX 2070 Super averaged around 55fps on Ultimate Quality at 3440×1440 with the FOV slider at its default 70 degrees, but this dropped to around 50fps when I set the FOV to 100 degrees...Consequently, if I wanted to maintain that higher frame rate at 100 degrees FOV, I felt like I had to drop the quality preset down to its PS4-oriented ‘Original’ settings to get a frame rate that was consistently above 60fps...

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/08/06/horizon-zero-dawn-ultrawide/
 
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LOL, not a great start. They force you to watch a 10 minute cut scene to get to the options menu. I tried to change some things (like my resolution and render) and the damn game freezes up. It's happened twice...and I'm sick of this cutscene. Time to try and find the config file manually.
 
Digital Foundry review. Something interesting is that they found a GPU running in 8x PCIe 3.0 was causing performance issues. Moving to 16x PCIe 3.0 improved performance. I think this is the first time I have ever seen this.

 
LOL, not a great start. They force you to watch a 10 minute cut scene to get to the options menu. I tried to change some things (like my resolution and render) and the damn game freezes up. It's happened twice...and I'm sick of this cutscene. Time to try and find the config file manually.
I'm still stuck at "Launching". The game unpacked in less than 15 minutes, but it's been at least 30 minutes stuck at "Launching", building DX12 assets I assume, but didn't think it should take this long. I'm about to hit "Cancel" and try it again.

ETA: I finally cancelled and restarted. Now it seems to be in the game and building the DX12 stuff. Waste of 30 minutes, I should have known something was screwed up and cancelled earlier.
 
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The unlock is taking an eternity for me, says 5 hours remaining.
Don't preload on steam. Unpacking takes longer than post-launch download if you have a decent connection. Yes I'm probably spoiled by 500MB/s.
 
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Here's what I've discovered so far. I'm working at the same time, so I don't really have a ton of time to experiment.
1. The game has to "optimize for your setup" on startup. That took my machine around 10 minutes to complete.
2. There's an unskippable cutscene that immediately follows. It looks to be running at 30fps and there's no way to speed it up or change the visual settings at all.
3. If you exit the game after this, you're going to see that damned cutscene again. It doesn't matter if your game freezes or if you simply hit "quit." Any settings you changed won't stick.
4. There IS a resolution render setting.
 
Here's what I've discovered so far. I'm working at the same time, so I don't really have a ton of time to experiment.
1. The game has to "optimize for your setup" on startup. That took my machine around 10 minutes to complete.
2. There's an unskippable cutscene that immediately follows. It looks to be running at 30fps and there's no way to speed it up or change the visual settings at all.
3. If you exit the game after this, you're going to see that damned cutscene again. It doesn't matter if your game freezes or if you simply hit "quit." Any settings you changed won't stick.
4. There IS a resolution render setting.
If you can figure out what the cutscene file is, you could rename or delete it. Possibly if its in a config file, comment it out. I'm hoping there's a way around that. Oddly, such doesn't happen on PS4.
 
Performance actually seems okay for me with my rig - 1440p and Ultra detail. Benchmark was 57 FPS average, and actually playing so far it feels fine. Love the mouse and keyboard controls. Game still looks gorgeous.
 
How to get Horizon Zero Dawn's Cutscenes running in 21:9/Ultrawide
This leads to Hor+ scaling Cutscenes without Blur/Black Borders.

  1. --> Open HxD
  2. --> Press Control O
  3. --> Choose the Game's Exe (''HorizonZeroDawn.exe'' in \steamapps\common\Horizon Zero Dawn)
  4. --> Press Control R
  5. --> Go to Hex Values (on top)
  6. --> Search for 39 8E E3 3F and change it with 8E E3 18 40 (or other resolutions)
  7. --> Activate Search direction all
  8. --> Press Change everything (bottom middle)
  9. --> Should change one hex value
  10. --> Go to the top left and save it where the normal exe is, changing it with the old one. If you have problems, just repair the game via Steam.
  11. --> Set the inGame Aspect Ratio to ''Automatic'' instead of ''21:9'', press Space to Save
21:9 Resolutions:
2560x1080 = 26 B4 17 40
3440x1440 = 8E E3 18 40
3840x1600 = 9A 99 19 40
5120x2160 = 26 B4 17 40
6880x2880 = 8E E3 18 40

I have no way to test this Game in 32:9, if someone can test these hex values it would be great!

32:9 Resolutions:
3840x1080 = 39 8E 63 40
3840x1440 = AB AA 2A 40
5120x1440 = 39 8E 63 40

There might be some Pop-In. Haven't tested it too far yet and sadly can't test it this weekend.

Comparison Screenshots:
21:9 Cutscenes without the Fix: https://************/d7JM8bh & https://************/kS9T29h
21:9 Cutscenes with the Fix: https://************/j5PNpVb & https://************/nLm3dpy

Edit:
Added an 11th extra step that should fix the problems some people had!

https://www.reddit.com/r/widescreen..._to_get_horizon_zero_dawns_cutscenes_running/
 
Well so far I had no issues with about 1.5 hours played. Running at 2560x1600 at ultra preset but with shadows and clouds set to high. So far the only thing I ran into was a slight texture pop in on occasion, a quick stutter on rare occasion, and some hair issues where it goes through the ear geometry. That is using the latest hotfix drivers from nvidia. The start with the compiling the shaders part took a bit of time but it wasn't that bad on my rig. But no crash bugs or anything like that. I have it set to fullscreen and not borderless like I usually have most games. Overall I am very happy with the port I think they did a great job.
 
Well so far I had no issues with about 1.5 hours played. Running at 2560x1600 at ultra preset but with shadows and clouds set to high. So far the only thing I ran into was a slight texture pop in on occasion, a quick stutter on rare occasion, and some hair issues where it goes through the ear geometry. That is using the latest hotfix drivers from nvidia. The start with the compiling the shaders part took a bit of time but it wasn't that bad on my rig. But no crash bugs or anything like that. I have it set to fullscreen and not borderless like I usually have most games. Overall I am very happy with the port I think they did a great job.

Performance could be better, I am seeing a bit of stuttering as well, but overall it's very playable and looks amazing.
 
had to down clock my 8700K to stock just to get through the optimization screen. Just got out of the cave and am about to go back to overclock at 5 GHZ. Been waiting for this game to come out on PC for a looong time. I hope it doesn't turn out to be a waste and disappointment
 
I've had a ton of trouble getting this to run.

That opening cutscene - I had to watch it 3x because the game was crashing on the main menu before I realized that you needed to START a new file for it to save settings.
Anyway, if you want to force past that original cutscene, hit Alt+F4 during the cutscene, it will ask if you want to exit the game, hit NO and it'll take you straight to the menu.


I'm running a 1080ti and I could get about 45FPS using the DF settings at 4k. However, this wasn't stable for whatever reason. After getting the new beta drivers and moving things to my 1440p monitor I can get the game to run at 1440p60 - this was fine for about 2 hours, then it crashed again and I lost about 30 minutes of gameplay and so here I am.

Compiling is crazy CPU intensive, but it only takes about 3 minutes with my 3900x.

Also,because apparently it matters, I'm playing the game at 8X PCI-E because my gaming SSD occupies my second 8x slot, that's... not gonna be changeable.
 
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wait for at least 2 patches...play the game at its best...HD Texture Pack would have been nice

Horizon Zero Dawn Ultimate Settings 4K | RTX 2080 Ti | Ryzen 9 3950X OC

 
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62 fps... definitely could be better
 
Did the initial cave section, performance didn't seem bad at all; but the animations and graphics are definitely of the previous era. I'm using a VA panel and the need for ray tracing in a game with this much natural contrast is striking.
 
OT: what happened to Armenius?...did he get banned?...according to his profile he hasn't posted in close to 4 weeks...
 
Seems like it has some notable issues, would've thought Sony would get it right considering this seems like a pilot program for expanding their brand/IPs.

Hopefully it gets cleaned up sooner rather than later.
 
Possibly a month long ban? Kyle tends to be a little heavy handed with bans from time to time. I felt his wraith many times.
Is Kyle still here? I don't see any recent posts from him and I can't even find the account after some quick searching. I'm not even sure if there are any mods here at all.

On the topic of bans I was permabanned back in 2011 for this post:
https://hardforum.com/threads/amd-radeon-hd-7970-video-card-review-h.1660744/page-6#post-1038178204

The profile also says "Not available" which means it just goes *poof* when you get banned.
 
Is Kyle still here?

Yes, posts under his original user name FrgMstr.

On topic, I just played through the prologue. Performance seems to be pretty smooth for me without any noticeable hitching or graphical artifacts on my ancient sandybridge paired with a 1080ti. Playing at 3440x1440 with maximum details and 90 FOV. Enjoying it so far...the direction, cinematography, animation and music are all very polished and top notch.
 
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