Horizon Zero Dawn benchmarks: what sort of efficiency you possibly can anticipate on PC

11.08.2020

Horizon Zero Dawn PC necessities

Before we start, right here’s a reminder of Horizon Zero Dawn’s PC necessities. Like its Decima Engine-sharing stablemate Death Stranding, Horizon Zero Dawn wants a graphics card that helps DirectX 12 in an effort to work, and it additionally requires you to be operating Windows 10.

Horizon Zero Dawn minimal PC necessities

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500Ok / AMD FX 6300
RAM: 8GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 / AMD Radeon R9 290
Storage: 100GB
DirectX: 12
OS: Windows 10

Horizon Zero Dawn beneficial PC necessities

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770Ok / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X
RAM: 16GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) / AMD Radeon RX 580 (8GB)
Storage: 100GB
DirectX: 12
OS: Windows 10

It’s fairly a hog on the outdated storage entrance, too, however typically its minimal and beneficial PC specs are fairly manageable. Indeed, throughout my initial Horizon Zero Dawn PC performance test on my GTX 1060, I discovered it was greater than able to operating the game at a gentle 60fps on its second highest ‘Favour Quality’ setting, which is a step up from its PS4-grade ‘Original’ graphics preset.

To see how Horizon Zero Dawn fared on different graphics playing cards, simply click on the hyperlinks under. All figures are based mostly by myself testing with my Intel Core i5-8600Ok processor and 16GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM clocked at 2133MHz.

Horizon Zero Dawn PC graphics settings

You have 4 graphics presets to select from in Horizon Zero Dawn. There’s Favour Performance (which is just about the game’s model of Low), Original (reminiscent of its authentic PS4-level graphics however is actually Medium in conventional PC converse), Favour Quality (or High), and Ultimate Quality, which speaks for itself. You can discover them within the Graphics tab of the game’s principal Settings menu, and right here’s what all of them appear like of their default state:

Favour Performance

Original

Favour Quality

Ultimate

As I defined final week, there are some fairly huge variations between the 4 presets. Favour Performance is sort of low on element, significantly in the case of the game’s natural world, and there’s not a lot in the best way of real looking lighting, both. Original improves on this to fairly a level, providing just about equivalent graphics settings to the unique PS4 model of the game, whereas Favour Quality goes even additional, including in hundreds extra element to the background and lengthening the game’s draw distance.

Favour Quality is the optimum PC setting in my expertise, as stepping it as much as Ultimate Quality simply doesn’t convey as many enhancements. You get barely fancier lighting, nevertheless it’s a a lot smaller soar in visible loveliness than going from Original to Favour Quality in my eyes.

How to get one of the best settings in Horizon Zero Dawn

As talked about earlier, anybody with a GTX 1060 / RX 580 or above ought to have the ability to get Horizon Zero Dawn operating easily at 60fps on Favour Quality settings at 1920×1080 with out a lot bother (supplied you’re not topic to the game’s in depth technical issues). However, in case your graphics card is a bit of bit older than a GTX 1060, otherwise you simply wish to attempt to increase your body charge a bit of bit with out having to drop down a whole graphics preset, these are one of the best settings to both change on or flip down to assist enhance efficiency.

I must also word that whereas the game’s inside benchmark has confirmed to be a fairly correct indicator of in-game efficiency for the Nvidia graphics playing cards I’ve examined, the identical can’t be mentioned for my crop of AMD playing cards. Whereas my Nvidia outcomes tended to be round 5-8fps slower in-game in comparison with the typical body charge determine I noticed within the benchmark, nearly each AMD card I examined ended up being at the very least 10fps slower than the benchmark, if not barely extra.

For instance, once I examined my AMD Radeon R9 290, – which is the minimal graphics card in Horizon Zero Dawn’s PC necessities – the benchmark mentioned it was able to hitting a mean of 59fps on Original settings at 1920×1080, however my in-game expertise was nearer to 45-50fps. As a end result, I wouldn’t take the benchmark as gospel in the case of efficiency.

Lower the Render Scale

Before we even get to Horizon Zero Dawn’s graphics settings, it’s value noting that its show settings even have quite a lot of options that may assist to extend your PC’s efficiency. The two huge ones are the Adaptive Performance FPS setting and the Render Scale possibility. The former helps you to set your goal body charge, equivalent to 30fps, 40fps, 60fps or larger, and the game will then mechanically adapt to attempt to keep it. When I attempted this with my R9 290, although, this made the game look very fuzzy and low-res because it tried to hit 60fps on Original.

Consequently, I’d advocate utilizing the Render Scale possibility as an alternative. This will render the game at a proportion of your goal decision – equivalent to 90% of 1920×1080, for instance, or 80% of 2560×1440 – earlier than scaling it again as much as your chosen goal. This may help take among the load off your GPU with out having to accept a decrease decision. 90% of 1920×1080, for example is technically 1728×972, which continues to be larger than the following decision setting down of 1600×900.

Set an FPS Limit

If your graphics card simply isn’t fairly as much as doing 60fps, then you possibly can at the very least lock the body charge to 30fps, 40fps or 50fps relying in your choice. It’s not perfect, however at the very least it can cease your body charge from veering wildly up and down if you’re in-game, serving to to create a smoother expertise total.

Turn down Shadows

Over within the Graphics tab of the Settings menu, the primary possibility it is best to take into account turning down is the game’s Shadows. This is likely one of the greatest strains in your in-game efficiency, and turning it down from Medium to Low bumped up my common body charge by one other handful of frames, and switching it off solely game me a lift of round 5-7fps with every part else set to the game’s Original preset.

Keep the FOV settings to 70 levels

One of the brand new options for Horizon Zero Dawn’s PC port is the flexibility to widen the game’s Field Of View. It’s set to 70 levels by default, however you possibly can enhance all of it the best way to 100 if you happen to actually wish to zoom the digital camera out and drink in all its beautiful environments.

70 levels

80 levels

90 levels

100 levels

Alas, growing the game’s FOV settings additionally places a further pressure in your graphics card, and I discovered my common body charge usually fell by round 5fps or so once I switched it from its default 70 levels as much as its prime 100 levels setting. As a end result, if you wish to attempt to hold a gentle body charge, I’d advise conserving the digital camera reined in if doable.

Turn off Motion Blur

It received’t enhance your body charge by very a lot, however switching off Motion Blur will at the very least assist to make digital camera actions really feel a bit smoother, and it received’t really feel so juddery if you happen to occur to expertise an sudden slowdown.

Turn down Anti-Aliasing and Ambient Occlusion

Individually, turning down the game’s Anti-Aliasing and Ambient Occlusion didn’t have a big impact on my game’s body charge, however collectively (and mixed with switching off the Shadows setting) I noticed one other respectable bump to my in-game efficiency pace. Again, we’re solely speaking a handful of frames total, however typically that’s all you should make a game really feel easy and barely much less juddery than it was earlier than.

If your PC continues to be having bother, then you definately’ll most likely should accept dropping right down to the following graphics preset, as there aren’t any extra particular person settings that may present a fast and straightforward repair to enhance your PC’s body charge. Still, as I discussed above, anybody with a GTX 1060 or above ought to have the ability to run Horizon Zero Dawn with out situation at 1920×1080 (when it’s not crashing), so that you’ll hopefully solely must make use of these settings if you happen to’re under the beneficial PC spec.

To see how as we speak’s graphics playing cards fare with Horizon Zero Dawn, simply click on the web page hyperlinks under or scroll again as much as the listing of examined GPUs above. There, you’ll discover precisely what sort of graphics efficiency you possibly can anticipate at 1920×1080, 2560×1440 and 4K, and which high quality preset you’ll want to pick to get one of the best speeds.

And if you happen to’re trying to play Horizon Zero Dawn on an ultrawide gaming monitor, then you’ll want to try our full ultrawide review proper right here. For now, although, let’s get on to these graphics playing cards.