Forza Horizon 3 test GPU

Release date: 2016
Game genre: Racing
developer: Playground Games
Publisher: Microsoft
Platforms: PC, Xbox One

Forza Horizon 3 is a computer video game in the racing simulator genre and the third part of the famous Forza Horizon series, which has become a favorite race for many players around the world. A reputable studio called Playground Games is working on developing a continuation of the famous series.

It won't be long before the game is released; the whole world will see the new chapter of Forza Horizon on September 27, 2016 on personal computers, as well as on the Xbox One console.

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 Horizon 3 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 Horizon 3 is DirectX 12.

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex runs on the proprietary ForzaTech engine, which takes full advantage of DirectX 12. The engine was developed for use by Turn 10 Studios in Forza games. Playground Games took it as a basis and made some improvements, adapting the game to the open world and modern hardware.

While working on Forza Horizon 3, the developers used a technology called photogrammetry. Its peculiarity is the ability to transfer images from photographs in high quality to finished 3D models. This is why the objects in the game look so realistic and as close to the real world as possible.

Developers are especially proud of gaming clouds. On this occasion, Ralph Fulton (creative director of the studio) says: “We have created a completely new technology for capturing the Australian sky, using a unique 12K HDR camera. She filmed the sky for the whole summer, and the data went to our computers, which processed the information. The clouds in our game are simply amazing. You’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Forza Horizon 3 is one of the first console games to use High Dynamic Range Imaging technology.

Forza Horizon 3 has a very sufficient range of graphic settings. We have both basic and advanced settings available. According to this approach of the developers, the game looks like a full-fledged PC project, and not a console port.

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. 

Above were comparisons of quality without restarting the game, a little later we will add with restarting, where the difference is more significant.

Activating smoothing almost completely eliminates all surface irregularities.

The graphics in Forza Horizon 3 are simply stunning, as is the game itself. Vegetation, car models, game locations, dynamic changes in weather and day and night - all this is done at a very high level. In fact, this is now the best representative of this genre on PC.

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

Our video cards were tested at separate screen resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1600 and 3840x2160 with graphics quality settings of High Ultra. AMD CrossFireX and SLI for now are not supported by the game. 

As we can see, video cards (especially AMD) have problems using video memory in games in Ultra mode, which has a detrimental effect on performance. We also draw your attention to our test section for video cards - it is somewhat heavier than most locations in the game.

Testing at high quality settings 1920x1080

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 7970 or GeForce GTX 750 Ti level showed acceptable FPS. The optimal solutions would be video cards like Radeon RX 460 or GeForce GTX 770 4G.

Testing at ultra quality settings 1920x1080

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon R9 Nano or GeForce GTX 780 Ti level showed acceptable FPS. The optimal solutions would be video cards like the Radeon R9 Nano or GeForce GTX 970.

Testing at quality settings high 2560x1440

With these settings, video cards like the Radeon RX 460 or GeForce GTX 770 4G showed acceptable FPS. The optimal solutions would be video cards like Radeon R7 370 or GeForce GTX 770 4G.

Testing at quality settings ultra 2560x1440

With these settings, acceptable FPS was shown by video cards of the level Radeon R9 Nano or GeForce GTX 970.

Testing at quality settings high 3840x2160

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon R9 380X or GeForce GTX 970 level showed acceptable FPS. The optimal solutions will be video cards of the level adeon R9 290 or GeForce GTX 970. 

Testing at quality settings ultra 3840x2160

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon R9 Nano or GeForce GTX 980 level showed acceptable FPS. The optimal solutions will be video cards of the level adeon R9 Fury X or GeForce GTX 1060. 

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 and 2560x1440 with different anti-aliasing settings.

Testing at quality settings ultra memory GPU

The recommended amount of video memory usage for a resolution of 1920x1080 will be 6144 MB of video memory, for a resolution of 2560x1440 - 6144 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. Below is a video of the test segment:

Testing at quality settings ultra 1920x1080

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

Loading of processor coresat quality settings ultra 1920x1080 Intel % 

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

Forza Horizon 3 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 Horizon 3 was in the range of 4200-5500 megabytes.

Testing system RAM consumption  

With a system with 8 gigabytes, Forza Horizon 3 consumed all 6.5 gigabytes of RAM. In the presence of a system with 12 gigabytes, the RAM consumption of all RAM was 7.6 gigabytes. With a 16 GB system, the total memory consumption was almost 8 GB. And with 32 gigabytes of RAM, the system consumes 8.3 gigabytes of RAM.  

It is also worth remembering that the smaller the amount of video memory on the video card, the greater the RAM consumption will be.