Horizon Forbidden West PC: best settings, VRAM, DLSS,

Greater than two years after its launch on PS5, Horizon Forbidden West is now obtainable on PC. The unique sport, Horizon Zero Daybreak, has change into a mainstay for efficiency testing on PC, and it’s one of many pillars of our GPU opinions. The sequel ups the ante in an enormous method with extra graphics choices and a extra demanding world general.

I’ve been taking part in the sport over the previous week, drilling down on the perfect settings, evaluating DLSS, FSR, and XeSS, and testing the bounds of efficiency. Horizon Forbidden West lives as much as the usual set by the unique launch, although weaker GPUs with solely 8GB of reminiscence will wrestle with excessive graphics settings and resolutions.

Greatest settings for Horizon Forbidden West PC

Horizon Forbidden West has a ton of graphics choices. After digging by way of them, listed below are the perfect settings for Horizon Forbidden West to steadiness efficiency and picture high quality on PC:

• Texture High quality: Medium
• Texture Filtering: 2x Anisotropic
• Shadow High quality: Low
• Display Area Shadows: On
• Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
• Display Area Reflections: Low
• Stage of Element: Medium
• Hair High quality: Medium
• Terrain High quality: Medium
• Water High quality: Low
• Clouds High quality: Medium
• Translucency High quality: Default
• Parallax Occlusion Mapping: On
• Depth of Subject: Excessive
• Bloom: On
• Movement Blur Energy: 0
• Sharpness: 5
• Lens Flares: On
• Vignette: On
• Radial Blur: On
• Chromatic Aberration: On
• Anti-Aliasing: TAA or upscaling

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It is a place to begin. In Horizon Forbidden West, you’ll see your graphics modifications up to date in actual time as you regulate settings — no restarts required. That is the record I’d begin with, however undoubtedly take the time to regulate additional on your personal PC. Tweaking isn’t a problem in Horizon Forbidden West as it’s in different PC releases like Dragon’s Dogma 2. 

Above, you possibly can see how my beneficial settings stack up in opposition to the Very Excessive and Very Low presets. You’re getting a lot of the high quality of the Very Excessive preset with considerably dialed-back settings and with an enormous efficiency bump in addition.

A few of the settings listed below are difficult. As an example, the Texture High quality setting doesn’t refer to only textures. It improves the standard of the terrain, as properly. You possibly can see this in motion if you happen to stand beneath a rocky patch of land and cycle by way of the choices. The upper settings add extra particulars to the feel but additionally make the terrain extra advanced in its geometry.

As well as, the Display Area Reflections setting doesn’t consult with reflection high quality. As a substitute, it’s a draw distance — how far the reflections are solid — for reflections. You possibly can see how that makes a distinction within the video above. For settings like these, I opted for the bottom setting doable with out turning off the graphical function outright.

Horizon Forbidden West PC system necessities

Sony’s releases on PC embody a number of completely different ranges of system necessities, together with efficiency estimates for every. Much like a sport like Ratchet and Clank Rift Aside, you’ve gotten 4 tiers for Horizon Forbidden West, they usually’re a superb illustration of the efficiency you possibly can count on.

There are two huge notes right here. The primary is VRAM. As I’ll dig into within the subsequent part, GPUs with 8GB of VRAM will wrestle with this sport. You possibly can see that from the Beneficial tier and up, all the GPUs begin with 8GB of VRAM, topping out with the 20GB obtainable within the AMD RX 7900 XT.

The opposite be aware is cupboard space. Horizon Forbidden West requires a ton of house at 150GB, however extra importantly, it requires an SSD. We’ve seen this a number of occasions with earlier PlayStation 5 ports to PC. Video games designed for Sony’s console require an SSD, and Horizon Forbidden West isn’t any exception.

Is an 8GB GPU sufficient for Horizon Forbidden West?

Horizon Forbidden West will problem 8GB graphics playing cards, notably if you happen to’re taking part in at a excessive decision. After operating by way of the preliminary space of the sport at 4K with the Very Excessive preset, I topped out at over 12GB of VRAM utilization. Even trendy GPUs just like the RTX 4060 with 8GB of VRAM will encounter some points with Horizon Forbidden West, notably when pushing past 1080p.

Fortunately, there are methods to scale back VRAM utilization. Utilizing the beneficial settings above, I used to be in a position to get down to eight.1GB of VRAM utilization at 4K — an excellent enchancment contemplating how excessive of a decision I used to be taking part in at. The 2 predominant culprits listed below are Shadow High quality and Texture High quality. As talked about, Horizon Forbidden West makes use of the latter setting for each texture element and geometry complexity, so turning these settings down can enhance efficiency on 8GB graphics playing cards fairly a bit.

You’re not giving up a lot with the Medium setting for Texture High quality, both. You possibly can see within the video above that the Medium Setting appears to be like very near the Very Excessive setting, whereas the Low setting appears to be like the worst by far.

If you happen to’re operating an 8GB GPU, you’ll know if you happen to’re operating into VRAM issues if you happen to expertise stuttering within the sport. Usually, it will occur as you’re operating across the open world. The 2 issues you are able to do to enhance efficiency are flip down Texture High quality and Shadow High quality, in addition to scale back your decision. Turning on an upscaling function like DLSS or FSR might help, too.

Learn how to repair stuttering in Horizon Forbidden West

I didn’t expertise extreme stuttering when testing Horizon Forbidden West, however there are nonetheless some experiences of stutter on-line. I think the primary offender is VRAM. 8GB GPUs will most likely run into stuttering points at increased resolutions and settings, so if you happen to’re utilizing a GPU just like the RTX 4060 or RX 6600 XT, you’ll want to show down some graphics settings.

Particularly, Texture High quality and Shadow High quality hog quite a lot of VRAM, so chopping in these areas might help. Decision is huge issue, as properly — you’ll wrestle to run the sport at 1440p with an 8GB GPU. Decision scaling might help right here, however you’ll want to mix it settings cuts in Texture High quality and Shadow High quality.

Be sure that to put in the newest driver from Nvidia, AMD, or Intel, as properly. All three distributors have drivers with specific help for Horizon Forbidden West, so that you’ll want to put in the present drivers to get essentially the most out of the sport.

DLSS, XeSS, and FSR in Horizon Forbidden West

Horizon Forbidden West helps a buffet of performance-boosting options. The star of the present is Nvidia’s DLSS 3, which mixes Tremendous Decision upscaling with Body Era, the latter of which is just obtainable on RTX 40-series GPUs. If you happen to don’t want a efficiency enhance, you’ve gotten entry to Nvidia’s Deep Studying Anti-Aliasing, as properly. That is an Nvidia-promoted PC launch, so it shouldn’t come as a shock that DLSS is out in full power.

You’ve got different choices, although. AMD’s FidelityFX Tremendous Decision 2.2 (the newest model) is accessible within the sport, together with Intel’s XeSS. I’d put the choices in that order, too. DLSS is the perfect, FSR is available in second, and XeSS is in final place.

You possibly can see why within the video above. FSR 2.2 will get across the sputtering instability we see in video games like Starfield, but it surely’s very mushy. The lack of element is especially noteworthy in Forbidden West, the place dense vegetation and violent winds typically expose the constraints of AMD’s upscaling tech. Nonetheless, it’s higher than XeSS within the sport.

XeSS appears to be like higher near the digicam, sustaining the same stage of element as DLSS, however look within the distance, and also you’ll see the issue. There’s a distracting shimmer, and it’s not simply current on high quality particulars like we typically see with FSR. It’s throughout the entire scene when something will get too removed from the digicam, even at 4K.

I’d keep away from XeSS within the sport, a minimum of proper now. DLSS and FSR present a bigger efficiency enchancment, and though FSR is softer general, it’s not distracting like XeSS is.

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