Forza Horizon 5 tested on every console: how does it run on Xbox One? - Comparative analysis
Forza Horizon 5 tested on every console
We called it the masterpiece of the Xbox Series X, and it's not hyperbole: Playground Games has delivered a phenomenal game and sensational audiovisual experience for its flagship console. But Forza Horizon 5 is a cross-generational release: it must also run on last-gen consoles and meet the quality standards and user expectations for a first-party title. Initially we were skeptical about it, but Playground Games has always been optimistic, and in fact it has managed to honor the new game on every hardware, adapting it well to the specific characteristics of the various machines on which it must run.How Playground would have succeeded in this endeavor has always been our Hamletic doubt, and it was very satisfying to visit their studio a couple of weeks ago to see how the developers worked in this regard. Using a single controller and a network of Xbox consoles, we were able to see the heavy jungle introductory stage running simultaneously and synchronously across six different versions of the game, with the debug chamber used to zero out all rendering techniques that the developer developed for the game. In this way we were able to see the same gameplay scene on each console, it was enough to look from right to left on the various screens side by side: Xbox Series X in quality and performance mode, the same for Series S, and finally the Xbox One. base. What about Xbox One X? It wasn't there in that test, but there's almost never a worry with Microsoft's first 4K console.
Everything you need to know about Forza Horizon 5, and how it runs on every Xbox One version and Xbox Series.
Watch on YouTube. Basically, Forza Horizon 5 is all about scalability. The technologies developed for the game look phenomenal on the Xbox Series X, but almost all of them are also included, perhaps in an understated form, on the base Xbox One. For example, volumetric light is one of them. On Series X it is implemented at high resolution, but it is also present on Xbox One (with an added post-processing to eliminate artifacts caused by the reduction in resolution). And the new lighting system? The same. Probably the most obvious difference in basic technology is the foliage lighting: Playground has developed a system that simulates the way in which light infiltrates the canopy of trees and plants and is present on all systems. except on Xbox One.
A key aspect of Forza Horizon 5's visual aspect is the large and dense panoramas, an aspect that for obvious reasons the Xbox One is unable to reproduce with the same fidelity. The solution adopted by the development studio is interesting. The details of distant objects are rendered starting from a good distance, and this is a predominant aspect of the presentation of the scene: thus the grandeur of the open world must be seen. The ground has far fewer layers than the other consoles and therefore appears a bit flat at low speed, but above 100 km / h you don't really notice. The world's level of detail (LOD) also takes a hit, and pop-in is more frequent. Furthermore, sometimes it seems that some two-dimensional objects are immersed in a 3D world. We only notice when we go slowly or stand still. In a circuit racing it would not be a nuisance, but in an open world game it loses the atmosphere of a realistic world to explore, and this is where the big limits of the old generation consoles emerge.
But in any case they are compromises that all in all work. In fact, our initial test took place on the base Xbox One, simply because we wanted to see how Playground had progressed. Because the content is all there and the developer has come up with brilliant ways to hide the limitations, the new game is a valid chapter in the series. A big help for developers comes from maintaining 1080p resolution with 4x MSAA of the prequel. The resolution scales dynamically up to 810p. Playground uses a technique it calls "DRS Plus," which reduces the fidelity of cube-map reflections and the refresh rate of shadows before lowering the resolution. This brings us to another aspect of the FH5 on Xbox One that emphasizes quality, namely the target frame-rate of 30fps.
We'll show you more about Forza Horizon 5's cross-platform scalability soon, but in the meantime, here's a comparison gallery of all six console variants. We'll be showing you more about Forza Horizon 5's cross-platform scalability soon, but in the meantime, here's a comparison gallery of all six console variants. We'll be showing you more about Forza Horizon 5's cross-platform scalability soon, but in the meantime, here's a comparison gallery of all six console variants. We'll be showing you more about Forza Horizon 5's cross-platform scalability soon, but in the meantime, here's a comparison gallery of all six console variants. We'll be showing you more about Forza Horizon 5's cross-platform scalability soon, but in the meantime, here's a comparison gallery of all six console variants. We'll be showing you more about Forza Horizon 5's cross-platform scalability soon, but in the meantime, here's a comparison gallery of all six console variants. We'll be showing you more about Forza Horizon 5's cross-platform scalability soon, but in the meantime, here's a comparison gallery of all six console variants. We'll be showing you more about Forza Horizon 5's cross-platform scalability soon, but in the meantime, here's a comparison gallery of all six console variants. We'll be showing you more about Forza Horizon 5's cross-platform scalability soon, but in the meantime, here's a comparison gallery of all six console variants. What about Xbox One X? We believe owners of this console will be happy with this version. As with previous Forza Horizon, the experience is 4K with 4x MSAA. This time around, however, the resolution is dynamic, with a minimum of 1600p, but the frame-rate is solid at 30fps (no 60fps mode for this console). It took a lot of effort on our part to run into performance drops, but we went looking for them, so we guess the average user won't fully notice during gameplay. Compared to the base Xbox One, it doesn't just increase the resolution: the quality of the cars and world details are on another level and there's also a nice boost to the quality of the shading. The frame-rate is limited to 30fps, but we found the visual quality often on par with that of the next-gen version's performance mode. And on paper this makes sense, given that the Series X 12TF GPU has twice the compute capacity of the One X, but remember that for 60fps and the increase in details, the new generation CPU also plays a crucial role. .
Through our tests we have been able to draw up three degrees of graphic fidelity on consoles. Xbox One is on the bottom rung but still does a good job. Then there's the Xbox One X with its dynamic 4K graphics profile that's roughly equivalent in quality to the Series consoles' 60fps performance mode, but each has its strengths. In some areas, the Series X's performance mode seems to stage a much better level of terrain detail than the One X version. But in other areas the Series S's textures don't look as good as the One X's ( which also has lower dynamic resolution 810p-1080p). The Series X performance mode matches the DRS Plus 1600p-2160p profile. However, it should be noted that changes in resolution are very difficult to notice with the naked eye. And it is also impossible to find any drop in fluidity compared to the target of 60fps on Series consoles in performance mode.
The top step of the "quality ladder" is found on the next generation consoles with the quality rendering mode. , available only on them, which runs at 30fps. But thanks to very low input lag and great motion blur implementation, this 30fps mode is the best we've ever seen. All this, combined with a notable increase in graphic fidelity, yields a simply exceptional result: the transition between the various levels of mode and console details is handled with cunning, making it difficult to find in most cases. The density of the game world is another story, and this is particularly noticeable in wooded areas. Putting the same scenes side by side on Xbox One X and Series X feels like you're watching two different games. As for collisions with objects, these are of the same level on all platforms to ensure uniformity in the gameplay being the game cross-platform-play in the online.
Forza Horizon 5: Digital Foundry's technical analysis on Series X.
Watch on YouTube. While the Series S and X share the highest quality profile, the Series X version enjoys additional enhancements over the Series S beyond simply increasing the resolution. The percentage of shadows in the vicinity is a good example. Shadows become more widespread: a small upgrade over the shadow map technique but which helps to increase realism. And there's also a cone-step mapping technique at play, which adds detail and depth to surfaces. Whenever you enter a new area we recommend that you go into photo mode on Xbox Series X in quality mode. John Linneman in the attached video demonstrates Forza Horizon 5's incredible level of graphical fidelity, regardless of whether you're in photo mode or speeding through Mexico at 300 per hour. And that's where the new DirectStorage APIs come in handy. They are used to stream game data in a fast and fluid way, so as to be able to implement all this quality at those incredible speeds of movement. The Series X also has more memory than the Series S, and this has a consequence in the quality of the textures, which on Series X are of higher quality.
There is parity in hardware accelerated ray tracing. Whether you are inside the garage or in your home in Forza Vista mode, Series S and X offer this feature but only in quality mode. In these scenarios, the already excellent real-time reflections of vehicles are enhanced with 'self-reflections'. This is a small addition and we would like it to be extended to the PC gaming world (on console it is not technically sustainable).
But there are additional benefits to playing Forza Horizon 5 on next-gen consoles rather than last or mid-gen consoles, which go beyond graphics and frame-rate. Installing the game on an SSD with dedicated APIs allows you to enjoy a responsive, fluid and fast experience, and this is noticeable right from the start. The Startup Guide is a trademark of Playground games, it gives us an appetizer of all the action that awaits us in the game. On Series S and X everything is proposed smoothly, without any loading. On Xbox One X, on the other hand, there are pauses of 25-30 seconds between one competition section and the next. These transitions are instantaneous on next-gen, but there is still an initial load when the game starts, albeit much faster than the equivalent on last-gen consoles. From our tests, the time is reduced by 1/3 on next-gen.
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However, Forza Horizon 5 is a whole other level on Xbox Series X and is one of those few games that we prefer to play in 30fps quality mode over 60fps performance. The increase in graphics fidelity, the LODs that update more progressively and the enhanced graphics options make a big qualitative difference compared to the performance mode. Sure, there's no 60fps, but motion blur is the best we've ever seen at mitigating that difference. However, nothing stops you from preferring the 60fps mode which offers a mix of high and ultra graphics presets, and this is where the PC version fits into the equation. We will report further results of our tests shortly. Stay tuned!
