Forza Motorsport launched in a less-than-stellar state, with performance problems, bugs, and graphical glitches galore. Turn 10 is aware and working on some of those issues, but Forza’s community is also hard at work improving how the game looks.
According to Gabriel Corrêa’s Reddit post, they may have discovered a way to improve Forza Motorsport‘s shipped ray tracing capabilities by a fair margin. After snooping through files, Corrêa explained how they pieced together that Motorsport’s configuration still used low-definition textures even when set to Ultra. Corrêa also shows they fixed the rendition of wheels at extreme speeds, along with other issues discovered combing configuration files.
“I compared the files in FM with those in FH5 and found these problems,” wrote Corrêa. “512×512 cubemap texture (how can they promise realistic reflections if the texture of the reflections has no definition?), shadows/paintings of opponents/skybox all in low definition even in ULTRA, wheels becoming a .PNG with blur instead of the 3D model, several LOD levels but with super low change metrics (a texture at 200m had no definition due to LOD adjustments) and many other problems that were adjusted based on values from FH5 and Assetto Corsa.”
As Digital Foundry pointed out in its technical review (hosted on Eurogamer): “Early preview footage from the game – as well as some of the shipping game’s real-time cinematics – showcase expanded RT reflections, with the environment displayed as well.” These expectations were not hit in regular gameplay, even on PC, with the game’s real-time ray tracing instead launching in its subdued, less impressive form.
On YouTube, Corrêa goes into more detail about their “nerfed” Forza fix. The footage demonstrates the better reflections, textures, and wheels all in action.
Official fixes for Forza Motorsport are coming
While Corrêa’s “unnerfed” ray tracing implementation is very welcome indeed, Turn 10 isn’t sitting on its laurels either. As per the studio’s announcement, Forza Motorsport players should expect patches soon. Among those fixes include: “tweaks to the gameplay systems, features and quality of life improvements, as well as new content that will be introduced every month.”
Forza Motorsport had a suite of far more comprehensive ray-tracing features. Turn 10 specifically mentioned Global Illumination (or RTGI) in an earlier version of its FAQ, only for it to never materialize. This, combined with Forza Motorsport‘s seemingly broken and/or partial RT implementation, suggests that Turn 10 may end up delivering big graphical updates to the game later down the line. Forza Horizon fans may recall something similar happened with Forza Horizon 5‘s in-game ray tracing, too.
