Forza Motorsport: Is 4K 60fps with ray tracing really possible on Series X?

Nearly five years after the last series entry, we finally have some concrete information about the new Forza Motorsport coming next year. While the eighth game in the series drops the number from its title, the presentation was all about numbers: 4K resolution and 60fps with real-time ray tracing, double the frame-rate that was shown in the 2020 teaser. Running games at 4K 60fps with RT is a tall order even for high-end PCs, so how can this be possible on Xbox Series X?

To find out, we took a look at the two teaser trailers released so far - which, according to Microsoft's blog, were shot on PC but 'also tested on Xbox Series X for the same visual quality output' - curious.

Analysing the footage reveals a few tell-tale signs of optimisations designed to deliver the GPU headroom to make RT possible in-game - starting with resolution and image quality. Prior Forza Motorsport titles have targeted native resolutions with 4x MSAA, but the new trailers show aliased geometric edges that aren't consistent with multi-sampling. That suggests that we may be looking at a cheaper anti-aliasing technique. Similarly, the game doesn't appear to be targeting a native 4K, with pixel counts resolving to 1080p in some scenes but 4K in others. There are also instances where recently revealed objects on screen have a telltale pattern of pixels on them. These signs could be explained by some level of image reconstruction, variable rate shading (VRS), or perhaps TAA.

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