Horizon Zero Dawn Benchmark Test & Performance Analysis

[mandelore]

FPS scores look "off" for a 2080 ti?

2560x1440 scores look too low for a 2080ti. I'm gaming at 3440x1440 with a single 2080 ti and 9900ks and at max settings pulling 90-100fps with FOV at 90.

Only when adding a reshade do I see fps drops into the high 70's

 

[rtwjunkie]

I’ve got 88 hours in the game with no crashes. I get a hitch or stutter every few hours of play, but it’s not enough to negatively impact my enjoyment of the story.

I set everything on High setting at 2560x1440 and get between 57 and 60 fps whenever I bother to look at the top right corner of the screen. the game averages between 16-18 GB of RAM and between 7 and 9 GB of VRAM for me. The 1080Ti is for me still a solid option while I await the 3080 or 3080Ti.

Horizon is one of the best looking games ever. Play the first hour and you'll see.

It really is! That’s not why I am playing it (the story is what gets me, and this one is well-written), but I can’t help but be impressed at the visuals.

 

[W1zzard]

FPS scores look "off" for a 2080 ti?

Depends on the location I guess. How far into the game are you?

 

[Vayra86]

This game is a great example of why we need better video cards on PC. 8GB VRAM is played out and better textures and rendering aren't happening on PC because of it, I won't buy another card without 16GB (and I hope I'm not very disappointed this fall). 75fps at 1440p with a 2080 Ti is painful, I'm ready for a 120fps card. Let's hope nVidia or AMD can deliver something 60 percent faster.

Did you read more than just the bars that say FPS in them?

We don't need better GPUs, this game's optimization is abysmal and its not a VRAM problem, game was tested on 11GB.

Until they fix this, I won't give them a cent for this lackluster port.
The texture pop-in on the benchmark is another pretty shocking revelation. Why even call it a benchmark then, if the content it serves gets dynamically scaled to performance? I mean, I get that's fine for console peasantry, but I don't like being lied to.

 

[Frick]

A modern game I'm actually interested in! I'm even thinking about upgrading the GTX760.

 

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

The snow deformation does not look like working at the moment as well.

I agree with Wizzard. The game definitely looks great. The clutter of debris, the high polygon count of mesh assets, the abundance of modern rendering techniques.. It has the performance feel close to AC Odyssey. I booted up Witcher 3 lately, and it does look aged compared to this

Check out Witcher 3's terrain on the latest DLC Blood and Wine in Ultra settings close up. Strip the grass and you get a flat terrain map reminiscent of battlefield 2:

Compare that to HZDs much more detailed terrain in the open world at close up:

'

 

[dirtyferret]

I’ve got 88 hours in the game with no crashes. I get a hitch or stutter every few hours of play, but it’s not enough to negatively impact my enjoyment of the story.

I set everything on High setting at 2560x1440 and get between 57 and 60 fps whenever I bother to look at the top right corner of the screen. the game averages between 16-18 GB of RAM and between 7 and 9 GB of VRAM for me. The 1080Ti is for me still a solid option while I await the 3080 or 3080Ti.


It really is! That’s not why I am playing it (the story is what gets me, and this one is well-written), but I can’t help but be impressed at the visuals.

How are the controls for mouse and keyboard? Better then Assassin's Creed Odyssey?

 

[rtwjunkie]

How are the controls for mouse and keyboard? Better then Assassin's Creed Odyssey?

About the same, maybe a little less intuitive. I feel sometimes when rolling to avoid getting killed and changing arrows or bows I need a third hand. And Shift button zooms in momentarily and gives about 1.5 seconds of concentration, but so many keys are on the left side there I frequently hit something wrong.

So while there is lots of combat, you spend much time without fighting, and then the keys are fine. Mouse controls are great though. It feels like just the perfect amount of getting on target, no over or under acceleration, and very precise.

 

[INSTG8R]

How are the controls for mouse and keyboard? Better then Assassin's Creed Odyssey?

My only issue is controlling the “mounts” they seem to have a mind of their own. I still haven’t figured out how to effectively stop them.

 

[W1zzard]

About the same, maybe a little less intuitive. I feel sometimes when rolling to avoid getting killed and changing arrows or bows I need a third hand. And Shift button zooms in momentarily and gives about 1.5 seconds of concentration, but so many keys are on the left side there I frequently hit something wrong.

So while there is lots of combat, you spend much time without fighting, and then the keys are fine. Mouse controls are great though. It feels like just the perfect amount of getting on target, no over or under acceleration, and very precise.

100% agree with this

 

[mandelore]

Depends on the location I guess. How far into the game are you?

Im about 50-ish percent into the game. Heavily populated areas I get short drops into the 80 fps range but for the most part its a pretty nice range between 90-100fps. I do have motion blur off so Im not sure if that could be affecting anything (Although its usually an fps boost having it enabled)

 

[ARF]

The difference in performance between RTX 2080 Ti and Radeon VII is too low - only 27% at 3840x2160.

Normally, it's 35-40%.

 

[metalfiber]

I'm averaging 75 fps, no hiccups and smooth and that's with a 8700K and a 2080ti. Every setting is at it's highest no motion blur and rez at 2804x1577 DSR.

 

[BiggieShady]

IIRC guys at Digital Foundry had their GPU on PCIE bus at 8x by mistake and the performance drop from x16 to x8 was unusually high... indicating PCIE bus being very busy with RAM to VRAM transfer constantly .... I doubt it's overeager streaming, more likely remnants of code optimized for PS4 shared memory architecture ...

 

[Ja.KooLit]

I just installed the game and to my surpise, just change display settings to ultimate quality and did some benchmark.

More than 20gb of ram usage lol. As per inbuilt benchmark, average is 77fps, min 33 max 144. Guess the game is capped at max 144 fps.

edit. so I did again another benchark. average fps went up with HDR on and FOV set at 90. Ram is not max at 10gb of ram usage.

 

[itsmehuey]

anyone with razer blade 15 adv (2019) with rtx 2070 got optimal settings for a good mix of graphics quality and performance (with less / no stuttering)?

 

[INSTG8R]

anyone with razer blade 15 adv (2019) with rtx 2070 got optimal settings for a good mix of graphics quality and performance (with less / no stuttering)?

I’m using this recommended setup Be aware AF is currently broken in game hence the enforced AF but. It sure you can. l

 

[itsmehuey]

I’m using this recommended setup Be aware AF is currently broken in game hence the enforced AF but. It sure you can. lView attachment 165698

Thank you. I tried enforcing AF in nvidia control panel and it caused some graphical glitches. This is with the latest stable drivers. Do i need to turn off AF in the game’s graphical settings as well when i enforce them in the driver?

 

[INSTG8R]

Yeah I don’t think you can actually force the AF because it’s DX12 I know I can’t wasn’t sure about NV cards. But it’s currently broken so I don’t know that the in game settings make any difference sorry I kind cut off the end of my sentence about that.

 

[BiggieShady]

More than 20gb of ram usage lol. As per inbuilt benchmark, average is 77fps, min 33 max 144. Guess the game is capped at max 144 fps.

Wow, can you test Digital Foundry's claim I mentioned in my previous post and detect any spikes on PCIe bus usage ('GPU BUS Usage' metric in MSI Afterburner) over 50%? Most games never saturate PCIe bus over 20%.

 

[Ja.KooLit]

Wow, can you test Digital Foundry's claim I mentioned in my previous post and detect any spikes on PCIe bus usage ('GPU BUS Usage' metric in MSI Afterburner) over 50%? Most games never saturate PCIe bus over 20%.

I did what you ask me by running benchmark. I did not see spikes on PCI Bus usage. it is hovering between 7 to 11. Never have a really chance to play since I was abit busy. Ill see again by playing the game and I will update here

 

[Condelio]

As always, reading your conclusion is the best review i can read for a game by far. technical and gameplay wise. Very precise writing! Thanks for all your hard work!

 

[brutlern]

I just installed the game and to my surpise, just change display settings to ultimate quality and did some benchmark.

More than 20gb of ram usage lol. As per inbuilt benchmark, average is 77fps, min 33 max 144. Guess the game is capped at max 144 fps.

edit. so I did again another benchark. average fps went up with HDR on and FOV set at 90. Ram is not max at 10gb of ram usage.

The reason you had 20gb usage the first time is because you jumped straight into the game right after doing the shader optimization which has a nasty memory leak. ALWAYS restart the game IMMEDIATELY after doing the shader optimization. This was know on day 1 (actually literally hours after launch people were already confirming this)

Thank you. I tried enforcing AF in nvidia control panel and it caused some graphical glitches. This is with the latest stable drivers. Do i need to turn off AF in the game’s graphical settings as well when i enforce them in the driver?

Sometimes when you mess with the game profile (like changing AF) it causes graphical glitches. You have to force another shader optimization (Also a bug known from day 1). To force it, you can just reinstall the gpu driver (which will automatically cause a shader optimization pass when launching the game) or follow instructions on pcgamingwiki:

1. Open <path to game>\LocalCacheDX12\ in Windows Explorer.
2. Delete PSOCache.bin.
3. Launch the game and allow shaders to re-compile.

 

[Fizban]

I just installed the game and to my surpise, just change display settings to ultimate quality and did some benchmark.

More than 20gb of ram usage lol. As per inbuilt benchmark, average is 77fps, min 33 max 144. Guess the game is capped at max 144 fps.

edit. so I did again another benchark. average fps went up with HDR on and FOV set at 90. Ram is not max at 10gb of ram usage.

It's not capped at 144. My laptop maxed at 158 fps.

 

[Ja.KooLit]

It's not capped at 144. My laptop maxed at 158 fps.

View attachment 165890

alright. probably then @1440p was capped at 144 max. I dont know. probably just the initial one. I didnt really noticed yesterday when I tried again.