GRID PC Performance Review and Optimisation Guide

GRID PC Performance Review and Optimisations Guide

GRID 2019 – When Codemasters committed to DirectX 12

The GRID series has finally returned to PC, bringing the series back with an arcadey racing feel and new a Nemesis system, which can see rivalries form as races progress and proceedings take a violent turn.

Like most other Codemasters developed racing titles, GRID uses the EGO engine, bringing with it the racing pedigree that delivered titles such as DiRT Rally 2.0 and F1 2019 in recent months. Beyond that, GRID has become the first PC racer where Codemasters has fully committed to DirectX 12, making the game Windows 10 only and perhaps the most advanced EGO engine game to date. 

This isn’t F1 2019 or Assetto Corsa. If the Nemesis system wasn’t a large enough hint, GRID is a game that isn’t about fully accurate racing simulations. Racers should be trading some paint, or otherwise making a nuisance of themselves on the racetrack. Players should be annoying other drivers enough to form rivalries and making risky enough manoeuvres to hardcore sim racers grit their teeth. GRID relies more on fun factor than enthusiast-level accuracy, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

While GRID utilises the highly capable EGO 3.0 engine, one thing that’s worth noting from the getgo is that GRID lacks support for many of the features that F1 2019 offered. Don’t expect to see FidelityFX or F1 2019’s wide array of Anti-Aliasing options. While GRID takes some steps forward, it also takes a few steps back in other areas, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing in all cases. If anything, it makes the game better suited for its intended audience. 

In this analysis, we will be looking at GRID (2019) on a range of modern GPUs, over various CPU core counts and across the game’s wide array of graphical presets and other options. We will tell you how to get the best performance out of this game and discuss some of the game’s praiseworthy features and its downsides. 

 
Contents


– PC System Requirements and Graphics Options – Cut-down R1 2019 options? 
– Graphical Settings Comparison – All Presets Compared
– Graphical Settings Comparison – All Presets Part II
Rain or No Rain – Performance as changeable as the weather? 

– CPU Performance – Core Scaling and the power of DirectX 12
GPU Performance Scaling – RDNA/Navi VS Turing at 1440p

– 1080p Performance
– 1440p Performance
– 4K Performance
Need a quick performance boost? Do this!

– Conclusion

GPU drivers

When testing GRID 2019’s PC version, we opted to use the newest drivers from both the Radeon and Geforce camps. These drivers are AMD’s Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 19.10.1 driver as well as Nvidia’s Geforce 436.51 driver.

Testing Methodology

OC3D is a website that is dedicated to PC hardware, so you better believe that we test every game on a wide range of hardware configurations. This commitment to variety means that we will be using both Intel and AMD based testbeds as well as a range of GPU offerings from both Nvidia and Radeon. 

Our primary test system uses Intel’s X99 platform, containing an Intel Core i7 6850K at a fixed clock speed of 4GHz. This testbed will use 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 memory and will be powered and cooled by an HX1200i PSU and an H110i AIO liquid cooler respectively, with everything sitting inside a Corsair 460X chassis. In this system, we are using an ASUS Strix X99 motherboard.

The system below will be used to conduct the majority of our game testing. This system will be used in this review unless otherwise stated.

 


Game Test Rig

Intel i7 6850K @4.0 GHz
ASUS X99 Strix
Corsair Vengeance LP 4x8GB DDR4 3200MHz
Corsair HX1200i
Corsair H110i GT
Windows 10 x64 “May 2019 Update

 

GPU Selection

No gaming test suite would be complete without a large selection of GPUs. At OC3D out current test suite covers Nvidia’s RTX 20-series and GTX 10-series alongside AMD’s RX Vega and RX 500 series graphics cards.

Starting with Metro Exodus, we began testing new PC games with Nvidia’s latest RTX series of graphics cards. In our testing, we currently use the mid-range RTX 2060 and uber high-end RTX 2080 Ti entering our graphics card lineup. In time we hope to have a Radeon RX 5700 graphics card for RTX 2060 VS RX 5700 comparisons. 

With this performance analysis, OC3D’s main review staff has been able to work together from across the UK to deliver wider levels of performance testing than is common for our gaming content. This has enabled us to add a wider range of GPUs to our test suite for this review. 


Radeon RX 5700 Series – Navi (RDNA)

– Powercolor Radeon RX 5700 XT Red Devil 
– Powercolor Radeon RX 5700 Red Devil

PowerColor Red Devil RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT LE Cooler

Geforce RTX 20-Series


– Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition
– Nvidia RTX 2080 SUPER Founders Edition
– Nvidia RTX 2070 SUPER Founders Edition
– Nvidia RTX 2060 SUPER Founders Edition
– Nvidia RTX 2060 Founders Edition

nVidia RTX 2080 and RTX 2080Ti ReviewnVidia RTX 2060 Review


Geforce GTX 10-series

– Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition
– Nvidia GTX 1070 Founders Edition
– ASUS GTX 1060 Strix Gaming OC

 

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AMD RX Vega Series

– AMD Radeon VII
– AMD RX Vega 64
– AMD RX Vega 56

AMD RX 500 Series

– AMD RX 580 Strix OC

Keyboard & Mouse

To control this setup, we will be using Corsair Strafe RGB keyboard with Cherry MX Silent keys alongside a Corsair M65 RGB mouse, matching the general theme of this RGB illuminated system.  

Cherry MX Silent Keys are ideal for gaming, coming with similar characteristics as Cherry MX Red keys, but with quieter operation. This comparative silence will help keep players immersed in their games, without the distracting clicks that are present in other Cherry key switches.  

 

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