Our 8K test system
PC built by Stormforce Gaming
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z-790P LGA 1700
Processor: Intel Core i9-13900K, 24 cores / 32 threads
CPU cooler: Corsair iCUE H100i 240mm ELITE CAPELLIX Liquid CPU Cooler
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090
storage: 1.0TB Seagate FireCuda 530 M.2 NVMe SSD
case: Corsair iCue 5000X RGB
Ram: Corsair Vengence 32GB DDR5 4800MHz
screen: LG 55NANO966PA
Horizon Forbidden West is coming to PC, giving you yet another reason not to buy a PS5. I've bought every generation of PlayStation consoles since the OG model, but since Sony has moved on to (belatedly) porting most of their exclusive games to PC, I've bought new consoles when I can wait until launch. It doesn't seem worth the jump. The games I want to play come to me.
So I was very happy to hear that. Horizon Forbidden West It was planned to be ported to PC. I was looking forward to playing it, as I'm a big fan of the original game I played on PS4.
Of course, as a visually impressive first-party game from Sony, we were also interested in how it would perform on our 8K rig. As you can see in the spec box on the right, our rig hasn't changed much in over a year. That's because it's still a powerful machine, and importantly, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, which does most of the work when gaming, is still unbeatable. It's still the best graphics card money can buy.
Amid rumors that Sony plans to release a more powerful PS5 Pro console in the near future, targeting 8K resolution with a combination of more powerful hardware and upscaling technology. Horizon Forbidden West 8K on PC may give us an idea of what future PlayStation games will look like.
It also hints at what obstacles Sony will face if the PS5 Pro actually targets 8K resolution. Even though the RTX 4090 GPU has been out for almost two years, it's still more expensive than its original launch price, hovering around $2,000/£2,000. The PS5 Pro will likely be more expensive than the standard PS5, but it's unlikely to be half the price of Nvidia's GPUs. This is before adding the cost of other required PC components. Basically, you can't afford to buy his 8K gaming console at a price commensurate with its mainstream success right now. That's the scale of the challenge facing Sony.
spoiled for choice
One of the best things about Sony's efforts to bring games to PC, aside from giving you an excuse not to spend money that the PS5 doesn't have, is that they usually offer great PC-centric options like It comes with options. Support for Nvidia's upscaling technology and support for ultrawide monitors.
Horizon Forbidden West continues this record, with the PC port being handled by Nixxes Software, which has been responsible for many PlayStation to PC ports in the past.
This latest release is especially noteworthy because it not only supports DLSS 3 for Nvidia RTX graphics, but also competing upscaling technologies in the form of AMD FSR 2.2 and Intel XeSS.
All three of these features allow games to run at lower resolutions while upscaling images to display games at higher resolutions without putting extra strain on your PC's graphics card.
This primarily allows less powerful GPUs to reach resolutions that enable graphical effects that they normally cannot handle. The powerful RTX 4090 can also reach demanding 8K resolutions (7680 × 4320) in certain games while maintaining playable frame rates.
By being compatible with the three major upscaling tools, Horizon Forbidden West This gives users more choice (both FSR and XeSS work with a variety of GPUs, but DLSS is exclusive to modern Nvidia GPUs). It also gives you the opportunity to see which upscaling technology performs best.
First of all, DLSS
First, I tried playing Horizon Forbidden West It has an 8K resolution of 7680 x 4320 and the graphics are preset to 'Very High' which is the highest quality offered. With DLSS turned off (the game runs at native 8K), our 8K test rig managed to run. Horizon Forbidden West An average of 32 frames per second (fps).
Considering this is a graphics-intensive game, running at a resolution of around 33 million pixels with top-notch graphics, this is pretty impressive and a true testament to the RTX 4090 and the rest of the components inside. It is a proof of power. This rig was built by Stormforce Gaming, bringing together the talents of Guerrilla Games (the game's developer) and his Nixxes Software.
I think 30fps is the lowest frame rate for games you can play, so if you want to play Horizon Forbidden West At native 8K resolution, that's certainly possible. Removing graphics presets sacrifices graphical fidelity, but increases frame rates.
Of course, you don't need to spend around $2,000 on a GPU to get 32fps in your games. So I turned on DLSS and set it to “Quality”. This minimizes the amount of upscaling performed to maintain as much image quality as possible. This bumped up his average frame rate to 45fps, and his maximum frames per second to 60.7fps.
There is one thing to note about my results. This can be seen in the graph above. Horizon Forbidden West doesn't have a built-in benchmarking tool, so I had to use MSI Afterburner to record framerates and play the same sections over and over again. I chose sections of the game with wide open spaces, water effects, and combat encounters, and tried to make each playthrough, which lasted approximately 8 minutes, as similar as possible. However, my playthrough was not the same as some things changed, such as enemy attacks. This explains why there is some discrepancy between the results. Still, you should be able to see the difference each setting makes.
Next, I turned on “Frame generation”. This is a new feature exclusive to DLSS 3 and Nvidia's RTX 4000 series cards. It uses AI to generate frames and inserts them between regular frames rendered by the GPU. The goal is to make games feel even smoother with higher, more stable frame rates while maintaining image quality.
As the graph shows, this further increased the number of frames per second for the game. I then left frame generation on and tested his other DLSS settings.
With DLSS set to Ultra Performance, I reached 59.3fps at 8K. This is essentially the 60fps goal we aim for in these tests, which strikes a good balance between image quality and performance. At Ultra Performance, the RTX 4090 renders games at a much lower resolution, then upscales to 8K using DLSS. This reliance on upscaling can result in image quality that lacks sharpness, detail, and can exhibit graphical artifacts. . The good news is that DLSS 3 is a huge improvement over previous versions, and the impact on graphics quality is less noticeable these days.
Thanks to DLSS, you can now actually play it. Horizon Forbidden West In 8K. But how will AMD and Intel's rival technologies fare?
AMD FSR 2.2 tested
AMD's FSR 2.2 technology is not as mature as Nvidia's DLSS 3, but it has some notable features that DLSS doesn't have. It's open source and doesn't just work with AMD graphics cards, but Nvidia and Intel GPUs as well.
This makes it much more accessible than the newer, more expensive Nvidia GPU-only DLSS, and for many people, this flexibility makes up for the lack of performance.
As you can see from the results above, FSR 2.2 significantly improves the frame rate compared to running. Horizon Forbidden West Natively it's 8K, but it can't keep up with DLSS 3 results at each quality setting.
The best results I managed were with FSR set to 'Ultra Performance', reaching an average of 55.2fps. While it's below DLSS 3's best results, it's certainly not bad, and the game performs nearly twice as well compared to playing it natively.
In addition to not being able to reach the same maximums as DLSS 3, the image quality of AMD FSR 2.2 on Ultra Performance is not as good as DLSS 3 on similar settings, with some flickering and ghosting becoming noticeable while playing. Ta. .
Intel XeSS results
Finally, we tested Intel's XeSS technology. There's also a version of XeSS designed to run on Intel Arc graphics cards, but like FSR, XeSS can be used with a variety of GPU brands, so there's another upscaling tool gamers can try . As with most things, the more choice consumers have, the better.
XeSS hasn't been around as long as DLSS or FSR, so it hasn't been able to compete with either Nvidia or AMD's solutions, as you can see from the results above. There's also no “Ultra Performance” mode, so setting XeSS to “Performance” will reach its highest framerate, averaging 50.6fps. This gives you a fully playable experience at 8K, but at Ultra Performance he is noticeably slower than when playing using DLSS.
However, you still get a decent fps improvement over native 8K. Intel is one of the biggest proponents of artificial intelligence, so I'm pretty sure he'll see XeSS performance improve as the technology matures. Another big advantage is that it can also be used with Intel's rival GPUs.
Conclusion: DLSS for the win (again)
Once again, DLSS 3 has proven to be the best way to run games at 8K and 60fps with minimal compromise.
Not only can the RTX 4090 achieve an average of 59.3fps while playing; Horizon Forbidden WestHowever, it looked great with minimal impact on image quality.
This may not be all that surprising. DLSS has been around for quite some time, and Nvidia has put a lot of effort into improving the technology with each release.
Also, Nvidia's penchant for proprietary technology means it needs the latest RTX 4000 series GPUs to take full advantage of it, but this at least means Team Green has access to things like Tensor Cores. This means you can take advantage of exclusive GPU features. AMD and Intel have more open implementations, so you can't easily target specific hardware, but FSR and XeSS are available to a wider range of PC gamers.
Also, although FSR does not perfectly match the performance of DLSS, Horizon Forbidden West, and if you don't have an Nvidia GPU, this is a great alternative. You can expect a lot from XeSS.
So it's great to see upscaling technology making 8K gaming possible on PC, giving users more options. So if Sony is actually working on a PS5 Pro meant to run games like Horizon Forbidden West To compete at 8K, you will need to develop your own upscaling technology (or adapt FSR or XeSS).
