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I discover myself agreeing with Ed’s Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora evaluate so carefully that we might as nicely have plugged our USB dreadlocks into the identical magic tree. That is certainly an extraordinarily Ubisoft Recreation, with all of the busywork and go-here-shoot-that roteness that entails, and though it throws some genuinely beautiful visuals into the cut price, these additionally come at the price of steep {hardware} necessities.
That mentioned, good efficiency ain’t out of the query, not less than not for contemporary CPUs and graphics playing cards. It would simply take some digging by way of the graphics menus – digging that I’ve now accomplished, so be part of me as my blackened fingers bash out a handy information to Frontiers of Pandora’s PC efficiency and greatest settings.
(Perhaps a phrase or two about benchmarking earlier than we begin, thoughts. Frontiers of Pandora does have a built-in benchmark device, however because it was disabled for the primary few days that we had pre-release code, and was solely later enabled with warning that it had issues with FSR 3 and XeSS upscaling, I’ve caught purely to in-Recreation testing. This concerned manually operating and gunning by way of a very demanding patch of the open world and recording the common framerate. Alright, interlude over, that was enjoyable wasn’t it.)
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora system necessities and PC efficiency
Apart from the large asks that Frontiers of Pandora makes of your GPU – a GTX 1070 at the least! – the calibre of CPUs listed right here makes for equally shocking studying. It actually doesn’t appear that way back that the Intel Core i7-8700K was a correctly top-tier chip, but right here it’s supposedly solely sufficient for upscaled 1080p. That is the most recent big-name Recreation to particularly demand SSD storage, too.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora minimal PC specs
For 1080p / 30fps on Low graphics, and AMD FSR set to High quality:
- OS: Home windows 10 / 11
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 / Intel Core i7-8700K
- RAM: 16GB dual-channel
- GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5700 / Intel Arc A750 (with ReBAR on) / Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070
- Storage: 90GB SSD
- DirectX model: DX12
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora really useful PC specs
For 1080p / 60fps on Excessive graphics, and AMD FSR set to High quality:
- OS: Home windows 10 / 11
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X / Intel Core i5-11600K
- RAM: 16GB dual-channel
- GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT / Nvidia GeForce GTX 3060 Ti
- Storage: 90GB SSD
- DirectX model: DX12
Leaving the really useful Core i5-11600K in my check PC, I did not less than discover that the minimum-rated GPUs received’t merely scrape together with a bit of additional central processing. The Intel Arc A750 really averaged a full 60fps on the Low preset at 1080p, and that was with none upscaling in any respect – simply common TAA. Medium high quality solely dropped it to 56fps, too, with Excessive producing 48fps. I’m additionally not satisfied you’d want FSR (or Nvidia DLSS, which can be supported) for 1080p / 60fps on these really useful graphics playing cards. I attempted an RTX 4060, which is much less highly effective than an RTX 3060 Ti, and bought 58fps on Prime quality and TAA. Upscaling would assist forestall drops under that, but additionally isn’t important for going larger, and there’s a good quantity of framerate variance in Frontiers of Pandora no matter what {hardware} you’re packing.
I’d nonetheless name its PC efficiency secure in broad phrases – I haven’t crashed as soon as in hours of play, and the one stuttering appears to happen proper you load in, after which there’s none in any way. That is nonetheless a technical toughie, although. My RTX 3070 may solely common 60fps on non-upscaled Extremely high quality by sticking to 1080p; the identical preset on 1440p produced simply 38fps, needing High quality-level DLSS to step in and assist it again as much as 63fps. And whereas the mighty RTX 4070 Ti may deal with 4K / Extremely, it too wanted High quality DLSS, averaging 62fps with the upscaler switched on.
Not that DLSS appears unhealthy right here. In reality, it’s wonderful, and will be activated in order to solely apply its best-in-class anti-aliasing with none upscaling trickery. DLAA with out the identify, mainly. You are able to do the identical with FSR, as this this one of many first video games to totally utilise FSR 3: each its AA-only and its body era modes. The latter will work on most up-to-date GPUs, very a lot not like DLSS 3 and its RTX 40 sequence requirement, in order that’s another choice for claiming some further frames.
With a few ray tracing choices and full help for ultrawide (21:9 and 32:9) resolutions, on prime of all its upscaling prospects, Frontiers of Pandora is actually kitted out for PC. Simply, perhaps not all PCs. I haven’t been capable of get it playable on the Steam Deck, for what’s it’s price; though it’s launchable by way of Ubisoft Join, I’ve had bother getting it to recognise button inputs, and truly making an attempt to load a save invariably leads to a crash. I’ll give it just a few extra tries however contemplating the minimal specs, I think this could be one other Starfield scenario even when it begins operating.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora greatest settings information
I’ve been citing preset efficiency however as is customized, I don’t really suggest utilizing them as they’re. Particularly not Extremely, which runs considerably slower than Excessive – as in, 38fps vs 50fps on the RTX 3070 at 1440p. Since Medium and Low nonetheless present respectable visuals for additional velocity positive aspects (60fps and 65fps respectively), we’re going to see if we are able to’t drop some particular person settings for further efficiency, whereas protecting those that give Frontiers of Pandora its lush, hyper-detailed look.
Right this moment’s guinea pig GPU would be the RTX 3070, nonetheless operating at 1440p, so the intention of the Recreation is to search out the settings that almost all enhance on that 38fps all-Extremely common.
Temporal upscaler: Right here’s the place you may select between TAA, Nvidia DLSS, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS for each upscaling and anti-aliasing. Should you simply need AA and native decision, depart the Scaling mode possibility (see under) on Off.
When these settings are in AA-only mode, DLSS is greatest, or FSR for those who lack an RTX graphics card. DLSS performs simply as quick as TAA, matching its 38fps common, and though FSR is barely slower with 35fps, it nonetheless appears sharper and cleaner than each TAA and XeSS.
Body era: If you choose FSR as your temporal upscaler, you even have the choice to allow body era, which creates entire new frames to fit in-between the rendered ones for a sizeable FPS increase with little computing value. This works even with the precise upscaling element switched off, permitting to show that 38fps end result into 61fps on the flick of a swap. I couldn’t spot which frames had been fakes, both.
Nevertheless, there’s a catch: generated frames don’t contribute to enter smoothness as rendered frames do, so for those who do…nicely, mainly what I did, that 61fps stage of efficiency will nonetheless really feel prefer it has the sluggishness of 38fps. As such, body era is greatest enabled when you’ve already achieved quicker efficiency by different means.
Scaling high quality: No matter whether or not you choose DLSS or FSR, I’d go for the High quality setting right here. Extremely High quality doesn’t present the identical framerate increase, and Balanced is barely quicker, however isn’t fairly as sharp whenever you squint. My RTX 3070 reached 58fps on High quality FSR and 62fps on High quality DLSS, so the positive aspects are nonetheless appreciable.
Scaling mode: Once more, put this on Off if you’d like native rez. In any other case, go for Fastened, the setting I used for the outcomes listed above. The one different possibility, the apparently 4K-optimised Biased, is fairly redundant. It doesn’t look any higher than Fastened, and might carry out worse.
Movement blur: A minor change, efficiency clever, as flicking this from On to Off nudged the RTX 3070 as much as 39fps.
Depth of Area: Low and Off had been each 1fps quicker than Excessive.
Shadow high quality: Low produced 39fps, and Very Low 40fps, so that is the least impactful of the (a number of) shadow-governing settings.
Solar contact shadows: This may be safely lowered, all the way in which from Very Excessive to Low. This solely made a 3fps distinction within the RTX 3070’s favour, however nonetheless, the visible distinction is straightforward to reside with.
Spot shadows: One other 40fps end result, or 2fps uptick, got here from dropping this to Low.
Spot shadows decision: 40fps from Very Excessive to Low means this could be price reducing when your PC is admittedly choking, although Excessive or Medium present higher balances between velocity and high quality.
Shadow proxies: Go away this off, because it mainly replaces the aforementioned shadow rendering choices with an uglier various. There’s a little velocity increase available from it – I bought as much as 41fps – however you will get the identical by reducing the opposite, better-looking shadow settings.
Specular reflections: A stealthy ray tracing implementation. I bought a not-insignificant bounce as much as 41fps with this on Low, although Very Low is best for pre-RTX GPUs that lack ray tracing help.
Diffuse reflections: One other ray-traced impact, although this one is so arduous to note it’s greatest to crank all the way down to Low no matter you graphics card. This pushed my RTX 3070 as much as 42fps by itself.
Surroundings reflection high quality: I bought a mere 1fps extra from dropping this to Low.
Volumetric clouds: 40fps, as soon as once more, from switching Excessive to Low.
Volumetric fog: That is price reducing – I bought as much as 42fps by swapping Extremely for Low.
Further streaming distance: There was a small 2fps acquire in it for the RTX 3070 as soon as I halved this from 10 to five, however then, there are many large, sweeping vistas in Frontiers of Pandora, and pop-in by no means appears good. Attempt to hold this one turned up.
Object element: This, however, is cuttable. Dropping from 18 to 10 was sufficient for a lift as much as 42fps, with little in the way in which of visible high quality loss.
BVH high quality: That is primarily one other setting for ray-traced reflection high quality, although I discovered there’s solely a 1fps distinction between the 2 choices (Excessive and Low).
Microdetail high quality: As this impacts issues like foliage density, reducing it’s fairly dangerous to Frontiers of Pandora’s wild aesthetic. The worst I may convey myself to set it to was Medium, and that solely bumped the RTX 3070 up 2fps, so aiming excessive is greatest right here.
Particle element: I noticed no efficiency distinction in any way between Excessive and Low, so Excessive it’s.
Scatter density: This may keep up as nicely, as Extremely and Medium carried out identically.
Dither fade: Go away this on. It helps cover texture pop-in, and turning it off solely bought me a measly 1fps bonus.
Highlight projection decision: Since there was only a 1fps distinction between the Extremely preset’s 512 and a severely lowered 128, I’d say that is one setting you may carry on the excessive aspect.
Destruction high quality: I made positive my benchmark run included some (properly particle-rich) explosions simply to do this out, although the efficiency impact is minimal. Low bought me 39fps, solely 1fps larger than Excessive.
Terrain tessellation: As soon as once more, simply 39fps from dropping this all the way in which from Extremely to Low.
For a Recreation with a lot to cut and alter, Frontiers of Pandora solely has just a few settings that may majorly improve efficiency by themselves, and so they’re all associated to upscaling. These are completely price making the most of when enjoying at 1440p or larger, however first, let’s check out what you can name one of the best settings for native decision:
- Temporal upscaler: Nvidia DLSS/AMD FSR 3
- Scaling mode: Off
- Movement blur: Off
- Depth of discipline: Low
- Solar contact shadows: Low
- Specular reflections: Low
- Diffuse reflections: Low
- Volumetric fog: Low
- Object element: 10
- All the things else: Excessive preset equal
Whereas I usually recommend utilizing the very best doable preset as a place to begin, and making particular person modifications to that, right here I reckon Excessive is a better option than Extremely. Since so few settings have a huge impact on their very own, Frontiers of Pandora wants a extra complete sequence of cuts, and the Excessive preset will immediately present a giant increase to efficiency whereas nonetheless protecting shut sufficient to Extremely on general constancy. From there, it takes just some extra tweaks to settings which can be greatest off on Low (versus Excessive or Medium). This setup had my RTX 3070 averaging 58fps, a 52% enchancment over its Extremely preset efficiency, and truly seemed somewhat sharper due to utilizing DLAA as an alternative of TAA.
Nonetheless, that was at 1440p, and at this decision it makes extra sense to go the entire upscaling hog. With DLSS on High quality (and Scaling mode set to mounted), that 58fps turned 88fps, almost tripling the unique Extremely exhibiting. FSR wasn’t far behind both, averaging 85fps.
That leaves one query: to generate frames, or to not generate frames? There’s further smoothness available from FSR 3’s body gen – it turned that 85fps into 102fps, in my case – although if I’m already getting near 90fps with upscaling alone, personally, I’d reasonably go for the superior sharpness of DLSS. Nonetheless, in case your GPU lacks DLSS help (or if upscaled efficiency is just getting you into the 50-60fps vary) then sure, you would possibly as nicely throw in FSR 3 body era.
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