Nixxes is working on an update that will bring AMD FSR 3 and its Frame Generation technology to the PC port of Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition, which is available now via Steam and the Epic Games Store, Guerrilla Games has announced in a new post that was shared today on the PlayStation Blog to celebrate the release of the definitive version of its post-apocalyptic action-adventure game, which originally launched as a PlayStation exclusive in 2022. Early reception of Horizon Forbidden West’s PC port seems to be good, with the game earning a Very Positive rating from Steam users on launch day, while gaming outlets have also praised the port’s performance, including those who say it turned out better than Nixxes’ previous effort.
One early analysis noted:
- “…anisotropic filtering, which runs at 2x, 4x or 8x based on the surface on PS5…PC ramps up to 16x”
- “Level of detail and terrain quality are also improved, with more detailed brush and level geometry”
- “PC unlocks full-quality depth of field across the board, while it is only used in cinematics on PS5.”
- “…the 16x texture filtering option…provides the most noticeable upgrade in terms of visual features.”
- “…native 1440p or 1440p DLSS resolves more detail than PS5’s performance mode.”
- “120fps – whether achieved via brute force or via DLSS 3 – is another palpable improvement over the console experience.”
- “…even the lowly Ryzen 5 3600 holds up fairly well…the biggest issues in terms of stuttering on this CPU were limited to the initial cutscene…”
- “…the frame-time issues we saw with GPU-based DirectStorage in Ratchet and Clank are not visible here…”
- “…the initial load of the game is accompanied by a shader precompilation step. It takes about a minute on a venerable Ryzen 5 3600 processor, and just under half that on a top-of-the-line Ryzen 7 7800X3D.”
PC launch trailer:
Guerrilla on the PC-specific features and what’s coming:
Unlocked frame rates, ultra-wide support up to 48:9 resolutions and performance-enhancing technologies including NVIDIA DLSS 3 AI-powered upscaling and frame generation allow PC players to experience Aloy’s journey in its full glory on compatible hardware. NVIDIA DLAA is available to help maximize image quality. The game also comes with NVIDIA Reflex, reducing system latency and improving gameplay responsiveness. Intel XeSS and AMD FSR 2.2 upscaling is also supported. The team at Nixxes is working on an update to add AMD FSR 3 with frame generation.
Discussion (10 replies)
Join Discussion →Played several hours today and tonight. Fun game.
AGreed
Just a few things, that I read in some threads for folks, who might encounter strange performance issues with this game.
1. Low FPS with RTX 4090/4080: If you're using a wired USB controller, especially if its a Dual-Sense, unplug and plug back in after the game has started. Enabling Steam controller support has also been reported to help.
2. Underutilized GPU. DSOG reported as it was preparing its review and that no matter what they did, the game wouldn't peg their RTX 4090 beyond roughly 90%, even they have a high-end 7950X3D system. Turns out that doing a 2nd install of the NVIDIA driver cured that.
3. Make sure you have SMT/Hyperthreading enabled. Evidently, this game will compile shaders at launch but also use the extra threads to compile more while playing. This strategy seems to be eliminating most, if not all, micro stuttering that comes from shader compilation.
Some wwweeeiiirrrddd-@ss issues going on!
Hopefully most issues will be sorted out by the time I eventually get around to the game. That reminds me, I borrowed and played HZD near launch in Spring 2017, and months after I finished the game, there were a ton of patches that improved a lot of sh1t with the game, including quality-of-life stuff. I was like "well shiiiiiiiiiat, all of that comes waaaay too late to help me!" But I'll be in a different position this time. The position I'm usually in, where I get around to games months or years later, and by then they've been hella patched like whoa.
A hotfix for the game just came out today fixing the DualSense issue.
Nixxes is great, good company to do these ports, very on top of things.
It seems that AMD GPUs are noticeably faster in H:FW compared to their NVIDIA equivalents.
The 7900 XTX is 16% faster than the 4080 SUPER in my testing.
Not by any means a form of real testing but l last night I tried it on my laptop (mobile RTX 4080 aka desktop RTX 4070) and it did pretty well for the moment I had after getting past intro cutscenes. At 2560x1600 w/ settings on very high and DLSS Quality (no frame gen) it was averaging 70-90 FPS. Now I literally on had about ten minutes of running around to get this far but it sure looked nice. I'm really interested in seeing how the laptop with its 13900HX performs with this due to the extra cores/threads due to its strategy of using extra cores/threads for the shader compilation. I will say that the initial 1st one was quick, like seconds. I tried it again with my 4090 rig, albeit at 4K, and that was about a minute.
I admit the game is a bit one-sided, in my head I keep calling it Mad Max: Xena edition, but I don't mind since most of the games I've played in my life have been like that but with the pendulum in the other direction, but its not a trend I'm going to indulge in frequently and this and TR are about the only two games I can deal with due to how much I enjoy them. Btw I recommend that anyone who has complaints about such things watch Patton Oswalt's Netflix special that came out during/just after Covid because he's got a 10-minute skit on such things that does a great job detailing where we've been, are, and are going. His grandfather was spot on with noticing things a very long time ago. Once you see that everything seems to make a lot more sense. I've tried many times to see if someone has posted a clip on YT but none so far.
All that being said I'm having a blast with it and hope they do a third game to finish it out but hoping it's a little more balanced and also expands into new territories such as either interstellar, interplanetary, or perhaps different underground environments. There are plenty of games in the last 5-10 years that have done a decent job of space environments so they absolutely could have other games to draw inspiration from. I do think the team could pull it off but needs to find new directions.
Personally I think the theme of saving the world is more important than space. Not to say going to space for some stuff doesn't make sense. It fully does. Just that it shouldn't be where the bulk of the game is going to be.
Expansion perhaps?
And given the theme it would have to be some sort of creature Aloy rides in to get into space. What that would be I don't know. Considering she banged out a apparatus to breathe under water at any depth for any duration... I'm sure she could do it.
I was thinking that perhaps she gets abducted by, and I can't remember the name of the humans that left and are coming back, the new villians in the current game. That or with the aid of her focus and/or GAIA manages to hijack one of their ships or something to get off world.