Forspoken Won’t Run on AMD Polaris GPUs

Tsing

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AMD users who want to test out Square Enix and Luminous Productions' new fantasy RPG on older hardware may be out of luck. According to various reports online, AMD Polaris GPUs aren't capable of running Forspoken because they lack support for DirectX 12_1, a higher feature level of DirectX 12 that differentiates itself in categories that include conservative rasterization. Critics of AMD have been quick to point out that these GPUs "only" came out in 2017 and that NVIDIA's older Maxwell GPUs (est. 2014) can run Forspoken fine, as they include the required support. Forspoken is said to be such a demanding game that there's no reason why anyone should attempt playing it on anything other than modern hardware, however.

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While it is unusual and a little early to omit the pre DX 12_1 API's completely, keep in mind that the last huzzah for Polaris was the RX 590 which came out 5 years ago. It wasn't a high end card when it was new, and it is less so today.

I mean, it was roughly equivalent to a 2016 gtx 1060, a 2014 GTX 980 or a 2013 GTX 780 ti.

Expecting it to run brand new titles well was likely going to be a stretch, with or without 12_1 support.
 
Honestly, we're just at that point now where certain hardware from the last 5-10 years may not be able to do certain things. I had a similar issue with Spider-Man Remastered on my 4930K where I was never able to get RT to work without it crashing the game and that was with a 3090 and a 3090 Ti. It sucks but that's how it is. It's actually a reason that I'm spending a chunk of this weekend rebuilding a 3700X rig. On the flip side, it's not that hard to upgrade to a low-end current GPU. I just checked BB and you could get an RTX 3050 8GB for $280, a Radeon RX 6500XT for $160, or RX 6600 for $260. There are options.
 
I don't think they're missing much on that game. One reviewer video I watched was having stuttering issues with a 2080 and a 9900k.
 
Ranulfo said:
I don't think they're missing much on that game. One reviewer video I watched was having stuttering issues with a 2080 and a 9900k.
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Probably because it's using Unreal.

1674857126069.png

Granted, I know it can happen with any engine but Unreal has gotten downright notorious about it at this point.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
Probably because it's using Unreal.

View attachment 2281

Granted, I know it can happen with any engine but Unreal has gotten downright notorious about it at this point.
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I think it depends on how it is implemented.

If they try to speed up level load times (or save on VRAM) by not loading textures until they are needed, this happens.

Ideally you want to load all textures and shaders before the level loads, but this may not be possible in a large open world game.

At the very least they should spend some time figuring out how to load them when you get close but arent there yet, so that they load a while before you need them, and don't cause render interruptions.
 
I'm a glutton for punishment at times but not even I would try to run this game on my old RX570.
 
It goes without saying that higher end cards get you more years of use. Like a 1080 Ti is still a viable card for 1080P and light 1440P gaming, while the low to mid tier cards from 2016-2017 just won't cut it anymore. Polaris was definitely mid - uppermid tier.
 
Riccochet said:
It goes without saying that higher end cards get you more years of use.
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I’ve always meant to go back and work it up — is it better to spend big and sit on it for a long time, or do lots of cheaper upgrades along the way.

You get better performance early on buying big that you don’t get going cheap, but you get feature inclusions and updates going the other way.
 
I'd say the 980ti or 1080ti is when it became a good bet that the top end would be a better deal in the long run. AMD maybe goes back to the 5870 to 7000 series. Some of those cards held out pretty good for 4-5 years I think.

The 780/80ti didn't do well though. But look at the Nvidia mid range of 2014/15, the Maxwell gen. The 960 2GB/4GB was replaced in 1.5 years with the 1060 6GB.
 
Ranulfo said:
I'd say the 980ti or 1080ti is when it became a good bet that the top end would be a better deal in the long run. AMD maybe goes back to the 5870 to 7000 series. Some of those cards held out pretty good for 4-5 years I think.

The 780/80ti didn't do well though. But look at the Nvidia mid range of 2014/15, the Maxwell gen. The 960 2GB/4GB was replaced in 1.5 years with the 1060 6GB.
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I wouldn't say the 780ti was a bad deal.

It was equivalent in performance to a non-ti 980 that came after it. And then roughly equivalent to a 1060. It was faster than my 2013 6GB Kepler Titan, and my stepson used that for 1080p gaming up until I bought him a 2060 Super 3 years ago at Christmas.

A 780ti would have served whoever bought it well right up until Nvidia discontinued support in October 2021 (albeit at lower and lower resolutions). That's 8 years. Not a bad run IMHO. Though that said, towards the end there in 2021 you might have been better off getting the same level of performance out of a cheaper, lower power GPU.
 
Brian_B said:
I’ve always meant to go back and work it up — is it better to spend big and sit on it for a long time, or do lots of cheaper upgrades along the way.

You get better performance early on buying big that you don’t get going cheap, but you get feature inclusions and updates going the other way.
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I'd say the 1080 Ti was the last bargain high end card at $650-700 when it launched. The 2080 offered the same performance for $800+. And then prices went stupid. So it's hard to say what value something like the 3070 offered since they were selling for $1000 at launch, even though MSRP was $499.
 
Riccochet said:
I'd say the 1080 Ti was the last bargain high end card at $650-700 when it launched. The 2080 offered the same performance for $800+. And then prices went stupid. So it's hard to say what value something like the 3070 offered since they were selling for $1000 at launch, even though MSRP was $499.
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Prices have definitely gone up, but that's true for both the high end and what you might consider entry-level.

Used to be you could play PC games fairly comfortably on something priced around $200. Not anymore.
 
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