With Gran Turismo 7 right around the corner and the next iteration of Forza Motorsport due later this year, it’s about time we talked about graphics - eye candy.
Whilst neither of these franchises are sims, both have shown they can push their respective hardware to the limits. For instance, Forza Motorsport 7 ran at 4k 60fps (albeit with clever supersampling) on a Xbox One X, which dragged along it’s ancient CPU from 2013!
The PlayStation 5 will allow users to play GT7 in 4K at 60fps on launch, and it’s not too far fetched to expect 120fps in the future. The PlayStation 5 can output 4K up to 120 fps, but that doesn’t mean that the frame rate can be maintained and Polyphony have not released anything official about increasing the frame rate of GT7 in the future.
Whilst we don’t know the specification of Forza Motorsport 8 yet, we should expect it to be comparable to GT7 in terms of graphics and frame rates.
Here’s an official video from Sony, showcasing the Daytona International Speedway
This is without doubt the best looking version of Daytona I have ever seen in a racing game. The level of detail of the stands, the surrounding area of the track, the lighting, detail of cars, and even the level of detail of the driver’s gloves are incredible.
With all of the above taken into account, should we expect more from sims?
AMS2 is the best looking sim to be had right now and it’s rendition of Daytona does not stand up to GT7. Yes Daytona looks awesome in AMS2, but the sheer amount of detail in GT7 is startling.
Apart from ACC with all the graphic settings turned up (if you have some kind of supercomputer) and Assetto Corsa with an insane amount of mods, all other sims look at least a generation old. To be fair, most are at least a generation behind in graphic fidelity.
Many will argue that there’s far more going on in a sim, more complex physics, tyre modelling, and so much much more. And those of you who make that argument are right, there is a lot more going on within these sims, but does that mean we should compromise on the aspects of these sims?
So whilst there is the argument that sims have so much more going on than graphics, most of the major sims are using technology that is 14 years old (DirectX11).
Unfortunately, money talks. iRacing is the most played sim, you know there’s always players online and grids usually fill up at most times of the day. On any usual day there are around 10k players online at any time.
iRacing has one tenth the number of GT Sport players on a daily basis. In February 2021, Polyphony Digital celebrated 9.5 million players. With this amount of revenue and the backing of Sony, they are able to employ larger development teams and extract every last ounce of performance out of a PlayStation.
With that all being said, should we expect better graphics in our favorite sims? Or are graphics lower down on the demands you want from a sim?
Whilst neither of these franchises are sims, both have shown they can push their respective hardware to the limits. For instance, Forza Motorsport 7 ran at 4k 60fps (albeit with clever supersampling) on a Xbox One X, which dragged along it’s ancient CPU from 2013!
The PlayStation 5 will allow users to play GT7 in 4K at 60fps on launch, and it’s not too far fetched to expect 120fps in the future. The PlayStation 5 can output 4K up to 120 fps, but that doesn’t mean that the frame rate can be maintained and Polyphony have not released anything official about increasing the frame rate of GT7 in the future.
Whilst we don’t know the specification of Forza Motorsport 8 yet, we should expect it to be comparable to GT7 in terms of graphics and frame rates.
Here’s an official video from Sony, showcasing the Daytona International Speedway
This is without doubt the best looking version of Daytona I have ever seen in a racing game. The level of detail of the stands, the surrounding area of the track, the lighting, detail of cars, and even the level of detail of the driver’s gloves are incredible.
With all of the above taken into account, should we expect more from sims?
AMS2 is the best looking sim to be had right now and it’s rendition of Daytona does not stand up to GT7. Yes Daytona looks awesome in AMS2, but the sheer amount of detail in GT7 is startling.
Apart from ACC with all the graphic settings turned up (if you have some kind of supercomputer) and Assetto Corsa with an insane amount of mods, all other sims look at least a generation old. To be fair, most are at least a generation behind in graphic fidelity.
Many will argue that there’s far more going on in a sim, more complex physics, tyre modelling, and so much much more. And those of you who make that argument are right, there is a lot more going on within these sims, but does that mean we should compromise on the aspects of these sims?
So whilst there is the argument that sims have so much more going on than graphics, most of the major sims are using technology that is 14 years old (DirectX11).
Unfortunately, money talks. iRacing is the most played sim, you know there’s always players online and grids usually fill up at most times of the day. On any usual day there are around 10k players online at any time.
iRacing has one tenth the number of GT Sport players on a daily basis. In February 2021, Polyphony Digital celebrated 9.5 million players. With this amount of revenue and the backing of Sony, they are able to employ larger development teams and extract every last ounce of performance out of a PlayStation.
With that all being said, should we expect better graphics in our favorite sims? Or are graphics lower down on the demands you want from a sim?
