Forza Motorsport 6: Apex Test GPU

Genre: Racing, Simulator
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
developer: Turn 10 Studios
Release date: 5 May 2016 of the year

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is not a direct port from the XBox One, at launch the game features 12 themed racing Showcase Tour events that will introduce newcomers to a wide range of cars and unique video footage with commentary from James May and Richard Hammond and there are 63 cars represented in Apex. Forzavista mode, Drivatars system of smart opponents, 20 exciting tracks in the locations of Brands Hatch, Spa-Francorchamps, Rio de Janeiro, Sebring, Yas Marina and Top Gear, among which there are variations with weather effects and night racing.

The game is distributed via the Free 2 Play system, but has internal microtransactions. The game is also exclusive to Windows 10 

This subsection of our review highlights the main graphical aspects of this game. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphic settings and the quality of development of the main visual aspects.

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is only supported Windows 10. Other operating systems are not currently supported by developers and are unlikely to receive support. 

The priority and primary graphics API for Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is DirectX 12.  

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex runs on the proprietary ForzaTech engine, which takes full advantage of DirectX 12. The engine was designed for use by Turn 10 Studios in its own games.

We were unable to find detailed information other than our own visual observations.

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex has a fairly wide range of graphic settings. We have both basic and advanced settings. It should also be noted that during the game the settings themselves can change depending on the performance, so if we want a constant picture, we set the settings manually.

Below we have provided screenshots of the game at various graphics settings, where our readers can see the difference between the minimum and maximum graphics quality settings. 

The difference between the settings is visible to the naked eye.

The graphics in Forza Motorsport 6: Apex are not bad, the special effects are rich, and the tracks completely copy the originals. But it’s true that there are some shortcomings in the graphical component, which are most likely related to the limited capabilities of the xOne. This is a partial model of car damage and a slightly simplified environment (for example, the trees are flat and more reminiscent of billboards), although during the race these disadvantages are little noticeable.

Next, we will move directly to gaming tests and determine what impact this game has on modern computer hardware.   

Our graphics cards were tested at separate screen resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1600 and 3840x2160 at maximum graphics quality settings allowed by Forza Motorsport 6: Apex. AMD CrossFireX SLI is not currently supported by the game. as well as in all games with DirectX 12 support. 

 The game has a non-disabled maximum frame limit of 60 FPS, but this problem is partially solved by a 144 Hz monitor, as a result of which the frame limit increases to 73. Dynamic rendering quality in "ultra" is not available on 2 and 3 GB solutions, as well as 3 and 4 GB in 4K, so in this case, for these video cards, the mode was used "high".

Testing at very high quality settings 1920x1080  

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 7850 or GeForce GTX 760 level showed acceptable FPS.  The optimal solutions would be video cards of the Radeon HD 7950 or GeForce GTX 680 level.

Testing at very high quality settings 2560x1440

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 7950 or GeForce GTX 680 level showed acceptable FPS.  The optimal solutions will be video cards of the Radeon HD 7970 or GeForce GTX 780 level.

Testing at very high quality settings 3840x2160

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon R9 290 or GeForce GTX 780 level showed acceptable FPS.  The optimal solutions would be video cards of the Radeon R9 290 or GeForce GTX 980 level.

Testing of video memory consumed by the game was carried out by the program MSI Afterburner. The indicator was based on results on top video cards from AMD and NVIDIA with separate screen sizes 1920x1080, 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 with various anti-aliasing settings.

Testing at maximum memory quality settings GPU

The recommended amount of video memory usage for a resolution of 1920x1080 will be 3076 MB of video memory, for a resolution of 2560x1440 - 4096 MB of video memory, and for a resolution of 3840x2160 about 6144 MB of video memory. 

We tested processor dependence on 16 models of basic configurations that are relevant today. The test was carried out in those places where the value of the video card for the game is minimal and its load was less than 99%, this time at a resolution of 1920x1080.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 

The processor performance in the game is sufficient for all models.

Loading of processor coresat maximum quality settings 1920x1080 Intel% 

Loading of processor cores at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 AMD% 

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex uses up to 6 computing threads.

The test was carried out on the basic configuration of Core i 7 5960X@4.6 GHz with 32 GB DDR4 2400 MGz pre-installed memory. The entire used operational memory was taken as an indicator. The RAM test on the entire system was carried out on various test benches without launching third-party applications (browsers, etc.).

Testing the game's RAM consumption at various quality settings 

As we can see, with various quality settings, the amount of RAM consumed in Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is within 6000 megabytes.

Testing system RAM consumption  

If you have a 6 GB system, Forza Motorsport 6: Apex consumes all 6 GB of RAM (almost impossible to play). In the presence of a system with 8 gigabytes, the RAM consumption of all RAM was almost 8 gigabytes (periodic unpleasant freezes are observed). With a 16 GB system, the total memory consumption was almost 8.7 gigabytes. And with 32 gigabytes of RAM, the system consumes 9.6 gigabytes of RAM.