In 2020, PC gamers followed in Aloy's footsteps on the adventures of the Horizon Zero Dawn port, traversing the vast wilderness infested with mechanical creatures, revealing the secrets of an ancient civilization, and experiencing the visual feast and compelling storyline of one of the console's most iconic titles. Now, its sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, is also officially released on PC in March, giving PC gamers the opportunity to once again follow Aloy to explore the new Westworld. The sequel not only improves significantly over its predecessor in all aspects, but also becomes a new benchmark for next-generation open-world action RPGs with its excellent quality. The game is also supported by NVIDIA DLSS 3, NVIDIA DLAA, and NVIDIA Reflex technologies on PC, bringing a silky smooth gaming experience to Gainward GeForce RTX 40 SUPER series graphics card users. In this issue, Gainward will conduct detailed tests of the game through different graphics cards, bringing players the most realistic and specific game evaluation!
A captivating post-apocalyptic adventure story with vivid characters
This game continues the story of Aloy's adventures in the post-apocalyptic world, and the sequel has a larger plot and a further expansion of the worldview. The story picks up where Aloy sets out on a journey to stop the spread of a mysterious power called the Red Corruption. This force is causing the collapse of the biosphere, rapidly engulfing the earth. In order to save humanity, Aloy must restart Gaia's artificial intelligence system.
The official consciously made trade-offs in the main plot and devoted more energy to the shaping of the worldview. By exploring new regions in the West and encountering different tribal cultures, players can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the current state of the world after the Great Apocalypse and how human civilization has continued. The game delves into deep themes such as human nature, civilization, and the conflict between technology and nature. The characterization in the game is also excellent, with each character having their own story and motivation that players can relate to. Together, these elements make for a compelling story that immerses players in a thrilling gaming experience full of challenges and adventures.
Indulge in an open world that explores and feels
Thanks to the openness of the PC platform, players can have a more free control experience in the game. Players will enter a wider and more vivid open world than the previous game. Each unique area has a nuanced landscape and ecosystem, as well as a wealth of interactive elements waiting to be explored and discovered.
Thanks to the PC's powerful hardware performance, the game has also been significantly improved compared to the PS5 version in terms of graphics performance. Players can enjoy the ruins of the ruined city, the lush vegetation of the primeval jungle, and the magnificent scenery of the snow-capped mountains, all of which will give players an immersive feeling.
Revolutionary combat gameplay with engaging side quests
The sequel also features a complete overhaul of the combat system, creating a smoother, more flashy, and more strategic combat experience. The game offers a variety of combat styles, allowing players to choose different weapons and skills to engage enemies according to their preferences. These weapons include new melee and ranged options, giving players more options for combat strategy, while also taking advantage of the environment to add to the fun and strategy of combat.
In addition, the side quests of the sequel are designed to be more in-depth and meaningful, and are more closely related to the main story than the previous game, thus helping players to understand the worldview of the game and the cultural background of different tribes more comprehensively. The new decision-making mechanic allows players to make choices based on their own morals when completing missions, and these choices will directly affect the progress and ending of the game's story. These improvements make this game not only a visual and action feast, but also a story that deeply engages players in exploration and decision-making.
Beautiful graphics and sound for an immersive experience
In addition, the PC version reaches a breathtaking level in terms of graphical performance. Every detail of the game's environment, from the lush vegetation to the bumpy rock textures, has been carefully designed and crafted to bring out a high level of realism. The design of the mechanical creatures in the game is equally impressive, whether it is a large and powerful behemoth or a small agile mechanical beast, all of which have a very high level of production, giving players a lifelike feeling.
At the same time, the game's sound design is just as good, providing players with an immersive experience. These elements work together to make it a feast for both the eyes and the ears.
Actual machine testing
In order to evaluate the performance of Horizon Forbidden West under different hardware configurations, three Gainward graphics cards were selected for testing: Gainward GeForce RTX 4060 Snow Tread, Gainward GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Snow Treading Mini, and Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Wind Chasing. These three graphics cards represent gaming performance from 1080p to 4K resolution, and not only are they powerful, but they also have eye-catching designs that make it clear that the difference in gaming performance can be clearly seen. Testing was conducted at max quality at 1080p, 2K, and 4K resolutions, and we watched for frame rate changes by turning DLSS 3 on or off. In addition, a series of screenshots of the actual game will be provided, allowing players to intuitively see the comparison of the picture effect under different settings. This test design provides a comprehensive evaluation of Horizon Forbidden West's performance across different graphics cards and resolutions, helping players understand how the game performs on different hardware configurations so they can make the most appropriate choice.
Frame rate test
1080P
In tests at 1080p, Horizon Forbidden West showed good optimization. When not using DLSS, the average frame rate of the other two graphics cards, except for the Gainward GeForce RTX 4060 Snow Treading graphics card, easily exceeds 100 fps, ensuring a smooth gaming experience. The average frame rate of the Gainward GeForce RTX 4060 Snow Treading graphics card is very close, although it does not reach 60 fps. With DLSS 3 enabled in Balanced mode, the game's frame rate has been significantly improved, making the game smooth and stable, even at the highest quality. In this mode, the average frame rate of the GeForce RTX 4060 is increased to 116.28 fps, while the average fps of the other two graphics cards easily exceed 200 fps.
2K
Next up is the 2K resolution test. The average frame rate of the three graphics cards did drop after DLSS mode was turned off, but the Gainward GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Snow Tread Mini and Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER still maintained a fairly high average frame rate of 97.82 fps and 147.01 fps, respectively, ensuring good game smoothness. When DLSS 3's Balanced mode is enabled, frame rates are significantly improved across all graphics cards, ensuring a smooth gaming experience. In particular, the average frame rate of the Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Chasing Graphics Card is still above 200 fps, providing gamers with an extremely smooth gaming experience.
4K
Finally, in the 4K resolution, we can see that the performance requirements of the graphics card for games have increased significantly. Even the most powerful Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER graphics card drops to an average of 78.29 frames without DLSS enabled. However, once DLSS 3 is enabled, even the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Snow Treading Mini graphics card will run smoothly, with an average frame rate of 69.59 fps.
The test results show that Horizon Forbidden West does a pretty good job of optimizing the graphics card. Coupled with DLSS 3 support, even 1080p and 2K graphics cards deliver smooth gameplay at 2K and 4K resolutions, boosting performance. It provides a better choice for the gaming experience for graphics card players with different configurations.
DLSS comparison screen
Next, we'll look at the game's live feed to compare the image quality with DLSS on and off.
(DLSS 3平衡/DLSS OFF)
With DLSS enabled, the game's lighting and shadow effects have been significantly improved, especially in terms of more realistic reflections. Whether transparent or opaque objects, they clearly reflect their surroundings, which makes the entire game world look more vivid and realistic, which greatly enhances the player's immersion.
(DLSS 3平衡/DLSS OFF)
With DLSS enabled, the details of the game's footage become sharper and clearer, while retaining the high quality of the image. In addition, details are more pronounced in lighting effects, for example, imperfections such as stains in the lit areas become more noticeable, which improves the texture and depth of the overall picture, making the game world look more realistic and detailed.
epilogue
Horizon Forbidden West can be said to be one of the most anticipated ported games in 2024, which builds on its predecessor and achieves comprehensive innovations and breakthroughs, bringing players a richer gaming experience. At the same time, the game not only brings all the advantages of the PS5 to the PC platform, but also optimizes it especially for the PC. Combined with DLSS 3, which is unique to RTX graphics cards, the performance of Horizon Forbidden West on PC has been greatly improved. And the higher resolution on PC also brings more detailed picture performances, which makes the PC version better in terms of overall experience compared to the console version. As a sequel to the classic game, Horizon Forbidden West cleverly blends traditional game design elements with modern technology to provide players with an innovative concept that is a feast for the eyes and senses. For any player interested in the game, this port is definitely worth checking out!
Actual machine tests show that Horizon West Desperate has high requirements for computer configuration. For a better gaming experience, we recommend using a Gainward GeForce RTX 40 SUPER series graphics card. Powered by NVIDIA's latest Ada Lovelace architecture and supported by multiple RTX technologies, including NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 and ray tracing, these graphics cards deliver more realistic and detailed gameplay. In addition, NVIDIA recently launched a beta version of an integrated NVIDIA app, which is optimized for GeForce Experience to provide users with a more convenient and simple GPU control center. While the app is currently in beta, GeForce Experience will continue to offer services. For users who want to try the beta version of the NVIDIA app, they can visit the official NVIDIA website to download and experience.
In addition, Gainward GeForce RTX series graphics cards also support the latest Chat with RTX technology, allowing users to communicate with custom chatbots and quickly get answers tailored to their content.
At present, Chat with RTX has been deployed locally, which not only improves the search efficiency, but also further improves the security of users when using it. Users can quickly and easily connect data on the desktop as datasets to a variety of open-source large language models to quickly query contextual content. And Chat with RTX supports a wide range of file formats, just specify the folder containing the target file in the application to load it.
At present, the Gainward GeForce RTX 40 SUPER series graphics cards have been officially put on sale, among which the Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Glow OC shell is a cool shell that looks completely black, but is actually with lighting effects. At the same time, the graphics card also supports ARGB adjustable lighting effects, which are synchronized with mainstream motherboards. It is also equipped with the new NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture. The core uses AD-103, and the acceleration frequency can reach 2610MHz. Bringing the perfect balance of performance and power consumption to 4K gaming, it's definitely a must-have for high-end gamers.