Forza Horizon 4 PC Demo Performance Impressions

Forza Horizon 4 PC Demo Performance Impressions

Introduction 

Microsoft’s Forza Horizon Demo is now available from Microsoft’s Windows 10 Store, allowing us to get our first glimpse of the game’s PC version and see for ourselves how well the game runs today’s PC hardware.  

Now I know that some of you are thinking, Yes, this is a Microsoft/Windows 10 Store title, making Forza Horizon 4 a UWP title, which in itself presents some issues for PC gamers. Thankfully, we can confirm that Forza Horizon 4 can offer PC gamers an unlocked framerate out of the gate, a major problem for early UWP titles, though the game will operate in a Fullscreen Windowed mode, which some PC gamers may dislike.   

The question today is how well does Forza Horizon 4 run on PC, and whether or not the game’s PC version requires a little bit of extra polish before the full game releases on September 28th for Ultimate Edition purchasers and October 2nd for other editions of the game. 

On Xbox One X Forza Horizon 4 is designed to run at 1080p 60FPS or 4K at 30FPS, leaving plenty of space for PC to offer both graphical and framerate enhancements. Will 4K 60FPS framerates be possible on PC? 

Playground Games has also confirmed that PC gamers will be able to push the graphical envelope beyond even the Xbox One X version, though for now, we will limit our testing to the game’s Ultra settings while disabling the game’s “Dynamic Optimisation” option. 

Drivers

For our Forza Horizon testing, we will be using the latest GPU drivers from both AMD and Nvidia. For AMD, we will be using the company’s Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.9.1 drivers. On the Nvidia side, we will be using the company’s Geforce 399.24 “Game Ready” driver. 

PC System Requirements

Forza Horizon 4 players should have a minimum of a dual-core, quad-thread Intel Core i3-4170 processor or a quad-core i5-750 processor, with the developers recommending an i7-3820. The game will require PC players to be using Windows 10 build 15063.0 or higher and have access to 8GB of system memory, though 12GB is recommended for higher graphical settings.

On the graphics side, the games minimum requirements remain the same as Forza Horizon 3, asking for an AMD R7 250X or Nvidia GT 740, though the Nvidia GTX 650 Ti has also been added to the list. Playground Games recommends Nvidia’s GTX 1060/GTX970 graphics cards or AMD’s R9 290X or RX 470 graphics cards.
 

Minimum

OS: Windows 10 version 15063.0 or higher
Architecture: x64
Keyboard: Integrated Keyboard
Mouse: Integrated Mouse
DirectX: DirectX 12 API, Hardware Feature Level 11
Memory: 8 GB
Video Memory: 2 GB
Processor: Intel i3-4170 @ 3.7Ghz OR Intel i5 750 @ 2.67Ghz
Graphics: NVidia 650TI OR NVidia GT 740 or AMD R7 250x

Recommended

OS: Windows 10 version 15063.0 or higher
Architecture: x64
Keyboard: Integrated Keyboard
Mouse: Integrated Mouse
DirectX: DirectX 12 API, Hardware Feature Level 11
Memory: 12 GB
Video Memory: 4 GB
Processor: Intel i7-3820 @ 3.6Ghz
Graphics: NVidia GTX 970 OR NVidia GTX 1060 3GB OR AMD R9 290x or AMD RX 470