Horizon: Forbidden West PC Release System Requirements Lists Out

[btarunr]

PlayStation Studios put out the system requirements lists for the upcoming PC version of "Horizon: Forbidden West," the second chapter in the popular post-civilizational action RPG franchise that debuted with "Horizon: Zero Dawn." The game had originally released as PlayStation 5-exclusive in 2022, with the Windows PC version slated for March 21, 2024. The game is a continuation of the fascinating story of "Horizon," set in the distant future, after an apocalyptic event that caused a swarm of robots that consume matter for sustenance, to nearly wipe out humanity.

Looking at the system requirements lists, it doesn't look like developer Guerilla Inc, leading the PC port, is interested in PC-specific technologies, although the original content is pretty resource heavy from the PlayStation gameplay to begin with; and even with the game assets adapted to PC, one can expect the game to be fairly taxing on the PC. To max out the game, or experience it at 4K @ 60 FPS, its developers call for a graphics card with performance in the league of GeForce RTX 4080 or Radeon RX 7900 XT, with 16 GB of memory, and at least an Intel Core i7-11700 or AMD Ryzen 7 5700X 8-core/16-thread processor.



To experience it at maxed out settings with 1440p resolution at 60 FPS, you apparently need a GPU with the performance level of GeForce RTX 3070 or Radeon RX 6800; with a Core i7-9700 or Ryzen 7 3700X. The 1080p @ 60 FPS experience calls for a GPU as fast as the GeForce RTX 3060 or Radeon RX 5700; with a low-mid range 6-core processor; while at the very entry level, you're expected to have a GTX 1650 or RX 5500 XT for 720p @ 30 FPS. It's evident that the game isn't really using real-time ray tracing. Pay attention to the disk space requirement, as the game needs 150 GB of it, indicating that the developer has crammed the game with higher-resolution game assets than the PlayStation release.

When it releases on March 21, "Horizon: Forbidden West" will be available on Steam and Epic Games Store.

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[Onasi]

150 gigs, huh? Asset compression is truly a lost art it seems. I know that not compressing saves some CPU cycles, but come on.

 

[londiste]

150 gigs, huh? Asset compression is truly a lost art it seems. I know that not compressing saves some CPU cycles, but come on.

Why do you think assets are not compressed?

 

[theouto]

Besides the storage requirement (jesus fucking christ), it looks to be a solid PC port! No mention of needing upscaling either!

Nixxes, you are a blessing to the pc community.

 

[Asni]

Lower fps target (4k30fps vs 1080p60fps) with higher cpu requirements without any RT implementation. Lol.

 

[Onasi]

Why do you think assets are not compressed?

Because it became the normal practice in AAA during the previous gen with a move to BD. Started with sound (Titanfall was the first to boast uncompressed sound to improve CPU perf, I believe), then everything else. Made sense with anemic CPUs of XBone and PS4, less so now.
Hey, maybe I am wrong. But if it's 150 gigs AFTER compression, then, to quote @theouto, jesus fucking christ. This is untenable then. SSDs aren't currently getting cheaper. I could believe it though, I remember Guerilla boasted some insane polycount on their mecha-dinosaurs in previous game, just completely unnecessary numbers.

 

[DarkDreams]

Lower fps target (4k30fps vs 1080p60fps) with higher cpu requirements without any RT implementation. Lol.
View attachment 337731

It is different overall quality presets: Medium vs High

 

[Kohl Baas]

Because it became the normal practice in AAA during the previous gen with a move to BD. Started with sound (Titanfall was the first to boast uncompressed sound to improve CPU perf, I believe), then everything else. Made sense with anemic CPUs of XBone and PS4, less so now.
Hey, maybe I am wrong. But if it's 150 gigs AFTER compression, then, to quote @theouto, jesus fucking christ. This is untenable then. SSDs aren't currently getting cheaper. I could believe it though, I remember Guerilla boasted some insane polycount on their mecha-dinosaurs in previous game, just completely unnecessary numbers.

I read it somwhere that the single megatexture used by Rage (2011) would amass a whopping 2TBs uncompressed. Capacity is one thing, but to move that uncompressed data, you need bandwidht as wide as Milky Way. Today I think it's a reasonable balance between capacity, bandwidht and compression (CPU).

I tend to use older gen SSDs to get higher capacity for the expanse of raw bandwidht because AFAIK you get like 1-2s tops in loading time for having a PCIe5 SSD instead of PCIe2 but you can bouble if not tripple the capacity for the same price going slower.

 

[Asni]

It is different overall quality presets: Medium vs High

Without ray tracing, the difference is meaningless. You cannot really have higher cpu requirements at half the framerate.
Btw, 1080p and 4k have different quality preset, 1440p60fps and 4k30fps don't.

 

[Chrispy_]

Someone should tell the art department that Aloy had a gender change and is now supposed to have the face of an age 15 chubby ginger boy.

This is clearly old artwork from zero dawn:

 

[Luminescent]

Being interested in this game i worry Nvidia could ruin it with exaggerated hard to see graphic "improvements"
The last port, Horizon Zero Dawn, had a setting for sky quality, again, SKY quality that had a huge impact to performance.
So Medium preset could be PS5 graphics and Very High preset some added stuff that can hardly be spotted and exists to sell 1000$ gpu's
I hope it's not the case and i can play at 60fps 1440p and i don't need to upgrade GPU.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Looking at the Recommended/Medium requirements and comparing to playing HZD on an i7-4790 + 5600 XT at 1080p/60, this requirements increase seems reasonable. With some decent graphics settings it could still be 1080p/60 playable on this system (probably more dependent on CPU demands) but this looks promising.

 

[A Computer Guy]

RX 5500 XT 8GB worked pretty well on HZD for PC. For those that got the 8GB model entry level gamers rejoice!

 

[londiste]

The last port, Horizon Zero Dawn, had a setting for sky quality, again, SKY quality that had a huge impact to performance.

Didn't Zero Dawn have a hugely complex clouds system?

Edit:
Something like this: https://www.guerrilla-games.com/med...lumetric-Cloudscapes-of-Horizon-Zero-Dawn.pdf

 

[sepheronx]

Someone should tell the art department that Aloy had a gender change and is now supposed to have the face of an age 15 chubby ginger boy.

This is clearly old artwork from zero dawn:

View attachment 337748

 

[Robin Seina]

Why do you think assets are not compressed?

Because on PS5 Installed game takes just 101GB?

 

[vbq7qK68eyYAH4iR]

Because on PS5 Installed game takes just 101GB?

Does that include the expansion and updated textures/features that were done for the PC release? My understanding is this isn’t just a repackaged version of the PS5 game.

 

[trsttte]

150 gigs, huh? Asset compression is truly a lost art it seems. I know that not compressing saves some CPU cycles, but come on.

The game world is huge and very detailed (even more than the PS5 could handle, watch the Digital Foundry review, there's really a lot of details. Are they worth it? A different conversation...

Someone should tell the art department that Aloy had a gender change and is now supposed to have the face of an age 15 chubby ginger boy.

This is clearly old artwork from zero dawn:

View attachment 337748

That was just on the demo, a specific frame grab mind you

Because on PS5 Installed game takes just 101GB?

Including the DLC? Either way, the PS5 has some dedicated compression tech that they can't rely on on PC so there's that.

 

[Prima.Vera]

I hope they do a full DLSS implementation with the same or better quality than the one in Starfield. That game has the best DLSS implementation at date.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I hope they do a full DLSS implementation with the same or better quality than the one in Starfield. That game has the best DLSS implementation at date.

I think Horizon uses a new enough game engine that foliage can actually move. Like sway in the wind. So temporal upscaling technologies may have a little harder time of it as opposed to Morrowi uh, Starfield.

 

[Onasi]

I think Horizon uses a new enough game engine that foliage can actually move. Like sway in the wind. So temporal upscaling technologies may have a little harder time of it as opposed to Morrowi uh, Starfield.

New is relative, The Witcher 3 had dynamic foliage almost a decade ago, Crysis 3 even earlier. But, uh, yeah, NetImmerse Gamebryo Creation Engine is sure a tad older. Bethesda is running on decades of tech debt at this point.

 

[Luminescent]

Why some people care if DLSS or Ray Tracing gets in a game ? i also saw at some point digital foundry discussions about this and even people here are disappointed if a game doesn't use all the trickery of Nvidia and AMD.
If a new game is announced the first thing they ask, "does it have ray tracing and dlss ?" what about story, gameplay ?
If it looks amazing and works on relative cheap GPU's then why would i care what technologies are used ? I am starting to think these people are either stupid or on payroll.

 

[Onasi]

If a new game is announced the first thing they ask, "does it have ray tracing and dlss ?" what about story, gameplay ?

It’s AAA titles. Excuse me, AAAA now if we believe the Ubisoft and MS talking points. You don’t play those for story or gameplay. You play them for purrdy graphics. What are you, expecting good games after years of development and hundreds of millions of dollars? Get out of here with that. Just consume products and get excited for new products.
No, but seriously, there is nothing interesting about big budget titles anymore. They are just slop. If you want cool ideas, gameplay or story-wise, you go to indies, AA, obscure Eastern European or Japanese studios, that sort of deal.

 

[londiste]

If it looks amazing and works on relative cheap GPU's then why would i care what technologies are used ? I am starting to think these people are either stupid or on payroll.

RT directly helps with the first and DLSS/FSR/XeSS with the second.

 

[Chrispy_]

That was just on the demo, a specific frame grab mind you

Oh right, so for the release she's not a chubby ginger teenage boy? I don't have a PS5 so I've been avoiding coverage of HFW to avoid spoilers.

I don't really care, when playing the game you spend 99% of the time staring at Aloy's back, but I thought it was funny how they managed to break continuity by having the main character look completely different when there was no technical reason to make any changes to the character model in the first place.