Forza is a series I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, the Horizon games are simply outstanding, with me having reviewed Forza Horizon 3, Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Horizon 5 for the site and giving them a 9, 9.5 and 9.5, respectively. On the other hand, Forza Motorsport 7 was still a 7.5, but it certainly had flaws. Indeed, the game essentially killed the main series of Forza titles until now. Introducing Forza Motorsport. No, not the one that came out in 2005.
So, before we start, this is a review-in-progress at the time of writing. I never thought I’d be doing an in-progress of a racing game, but Forza Motorsport made me do two things. The first, I went and played more Total War. The second, linked to this, is that I ordered a new graphics card. Meet my new Radeon RX 7900 XTX, an admittedly significant upgrade on my previous Radeon RX 5700 XT.
Why did Forza Motorsport make me do those two things? The reason for both is simple: Turn 10 has not done an excellent job in terms of performance. While I could fault my old card at first, I had to run the game on a tiny resolution, not my native of 3440×1440. It barely chugged along on anything more than low settings. In-race now, it’s as smooth as a button on even the max settings, but there are still issues.
Performance is still an issue. I’ve launched the game four times since installing my new GPU, and each time, the game has had to optimise its shaders. This hasn’t been a change of location on my PC; it’s still installed on an SSD, so I can’t see a need for the optimisation beyond the first launch after the GPU. The problem I have here is that it isn’t a short wait. I would argue that at least two races were lost each time I waited. It adds up if you can’t get mammoth sessions in and have to drop in and out a lot.
Another performance-related issue is just outside of the race. Forza Motorsport shows many clips of your driver walking to the car, clips of cars racing past a known point on the track, and other similar things. These may as well be on an etch-a-sketch. At first, I thought it was due to issues with my computer, but this most certainly can’t be the case now. While these aren’t major issues, they take out of the experience. I have to admit, now I have a GPU powerful enough to give me that experience; it certainly is one.
Forza Motorsport looks outstanding. The game features a level of detail that goes above and beyond, and I can only liken it to that of Gran Turismo 7. The few cars I have been able to get hands-on with look immaculate; the attention to detail, the reflections, and the lighting all make for nothing short of visual joy. The same can be said for the audio, from what I’ve experienced so far, with the same attention that the visuals got.
If I have any issue in terms of detail, there is very little to praise regarding the damage system – specifically the aesthetics of it. You could essentially fire yourself off of the Grand Canyon, and all it does look like is that you’ve been on a particularly rocky road, where the stones are loose and prone to chipping your paint job. While nothing major, it does indicate a lack of ambition to push that bit further; at least, that’s how I perceived it.
I can’t say much more now because I want to get more time in. Rest assured, I’m plugging away and racing ever more cars, ready to finish this review. I’ll also have some screenshots of my own by then!
