Is Nvidia Neglecting Older Cards? Plus, Better AMD Drivers Needed

Every aspect of Project CARS that I've touched so far has been stunning. I've enjoyed going through the various cars and admiring them on the starting line. Along with the incredible visuals, sound is slap-up and gameplay certainly won't disappoint.

While the game scales down well to play on slower hardware and consoles, diehard race simulator fans will want the life-like visuals to get fully immersed. Though we have still to encounter what AMD Radeons can do in Project CARS, we accept a clear pic of Nvidia's line upwardly and can therefore predict best case scenarios for AMD.

Those wanting to tackle any weather conditions at 1080p while nevertheless maintaining a 30fps minimum volition be shocked to learn a GeForce GTX 780 Ti is required.

Our exam with 20 AI controlled opponents has the criterion starting at the filigree where frame rates are normally at their everyman, something to go on in mind. Equally the pack thins out, frame rates tend to recover though this isn't necessarily reflected in our results. Put in other words, our exam shows a worst case scenario which is of import as yous don't want frame charge per unit lag when trying to execute the perfect overtaking maneuver.

Nvidia: Kepler (old) vs. Maxwell (new)

An interesting result nosotros observed was the GeForce GTX 970 performing slightly faster than the GTX 780 Ti in clear weather and much faster when information technology's raining. Fifty-fifty more than surprising, the GeForce GTX 960 was slightly faster than the GTX 780. That'due south a stab in the heart with a sharp pencil for Kepler owners right in that location.

For months we've been hearing Kepler owners complaining about the lack of optimization as Nvidia appears to be focusing solely on Maxwell. If nosotros look back at our GeForce GTX 960 review in January we come across that in most every game tested the GTX 780 crushes the GTX 960.

Given the suspiciously poor Kepler operation information technology will exist interesting to encounter how AMD's Radeon R9 290 series tin can compare if and when AMD gets a decent driver out.

Equally we often discover these days, those gaming with high-end GPUs volition exist best off with an Intel Cadre i5 or Cadre i7 processor, while AMD's affordable quad-core processors should really simply be paired with mid-range to low-end GPUs.

Finally, for all those angry Radeon owners out at that place we wish we had discussion every bit to when AMD will be releasing an updated driver. All nosotros can tell you lot is AMD appears to exist working hard on a solution and we hope a driver fix comes shortly. When that happens, nosotros'll update this article accordingly.