Turn 10 and Microsoft recently launched the open beta of Forza Motorspot 6 Apex on Windows 10 and it gave us a chance to see how it compares against the Xbox One version. Forza Motorspot 6 Apex marks the first instance that the series will be losing its console exclusivity and will be heading to Windows 10 later this year. However, how is the transition handled? Is Forza 6 really all that different when compared to its console counterpart?

To begin with, Turn 10 Studios have added a plethora of graphical settings in the game. Players can change the Dynamic Rendering Quality, Shadow Quality, Particle Effects and more. The Xbox One version used an EQAA solution for making the on screen image free from jaggies; however the PC build uses MSAA which is not only an expensive but a much better solution than AMD’s custom EQAA solution. As a result, the image quality is much sharper compared to the console version. Furthermore, the quality of screen space reflection, reflection on the front mirror and the vehicle’s bonnet are much clear and crisper when compared with the Xbox One version side by side.

Further improvements on the PC build include slightly better lens flare quality. This is something that is not clearly evident right away and most players won’t even notice it. The PC version further widens the graphical gap from the Xbox One version by employing a higher level of anisotropic filtering resulting into better looking tracks and generally better object detail.

Although the Xbox One version looks amazing; it runs at 1080p and 60 fps after all, there is no denying that the PC build is the superior version here. But it will be almost impossible to notice the differences unless you are running them side by side. You really need to zoom in so that you can catch the discrepancies such as better shadow quality and object filtering.

As far as requirement goes, the developers recommend a Radeon R9 290X / GeForce 970 and an Intel Core i7-3820 @ 3.6Ghz to run the game at 1080p and 60fps. During the test we ran the game on a GeForce 970 and i7 5960x and had no issues in reaching 60fps during day races. During the night as well as the races set in rain, we hardly saw any frame drops giving us a mostly 60fps performance throughout.

Forza Motorsport 6 Apex is running on DX12 and to be honest we are still waiting to see the full potential of the API. It obviously offers better CPU performance but there is more to DX12 than just that. We are pretty sure that the graphical upgrades that we are seeing in Apex could have easily realized with DX11. It may also be a possibility that the Xbox One version was already using an API that was close to DX12 to begin with so Apex on the PC was merely a case of adapting it to the PC environment without actually taking full advantage of DX12.

We will keep a track on how Forza Motorsport 6 Apex develops on the PC in the coming months. So stay tuned for more Forza Motorsport 6 Apex right here on GamingBolt.

The AMD Radeon Software 16.5.1 has officially landed and among other games its been specially optimized for is the upcoming Forza Motorsport 6: APEX. According to a release that came along with the driver update the updated software will allow the racing game and others to sport 27 percent better performance compared to the Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.4.2 and AMD Radeon R9 Fury X.

For those who want to download the driver you can get it from here, though you should know there are some problems that people have claimed to have found with this new update. It’s likely those will be ironed out or patched in the near future.

Below is the full list of known issues. If you want to download the driver in anticipation for Forza Motorsport 6: APEX then you should also do a bit of reading up on the game. Check out our full wiki here in order to learn all you need to be prepared when it launches.

Support for:

• Forza Motorsport 6: Apex
  • Performance increased up to 27% versus Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.4.2 on AMD Radeon R9 Fury X⁽¹⁾

Known Issues

• A few game titles may fail to launch or crash if the AMD Gaming Evolved overlay is enabled. A temporary workaround is to disable the AMD Gaming Evolved “In Game Overlay”.
• HDMI Scaling options may not be available in Radeon Settings on some system configurations or some applications may ignore the HDMI Scaling options setting.
• The option to enable/disable AMD Crossfire technology logo may be missing on some system configurations from the Gaming, Global Options tab in Radeon Settings.
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt inventory and character pages may exhibit flickering in AMD Crossfire technology mode.
• Radeon Settings game manager does not display icons for Origin Games.

(1) Testing conducted by AMD Performance Labs as of April 3, 2016 on the AMD Radeon Fury X, on a test system comprising Intel i7 5960X CPU, 16GB DDR4-2666 Mhz system memory, Radeon Software Crimson Edition driver 16.4.2 and Radeon Software Crimson Edition driver 16.5.1 and Windows 10 x64 using the game Forza Motorsport 6: Apex. PC manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. At 3840×2160, Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.4.2 scored 47.58 and Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.5.1 scored 60.69 on AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, which is 27.5% faster performance. Test results are not average and may vary.

The beta for Forza Motorsport 6: Apex will be available today for all Windows 10 players out there. It will be available through the Windows Store with an 18.8 GB download. Players can take their time though – the beta will run throughout the Summer and will have updates like wheel support.

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is a free to play version of the popular Xbox One racing simulator. It features 63 cars and six tracks with Turn 10 Studios billing it as a “lighter” version of the original game. Micro-transactions will be included which is a given with its free to play status. They are optional though so you won’t have to spend anything to unlock everything by the looks of things.

Scheduled for release in mid-2016, Forza Motorsport 6 Apex is part of an initiative by Microsoft to bring more Xbox One exclusives to PC. Other Forza titles will release on PC alongside Xbox One in the future with the rumoured Forza Horizon 3 to be the first.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Cars And Tracks

Development

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex was officially announced as a game that was geared specificallly to Windows 10 on January 3, 2016 thanks to a brand new reveal trailer. At the same time as the announcement of the game, both Turn 10 Studios and Microsoft said that many of the same features and the same engine that was used in the original game would be able to be ported into the game.

During a March 4, 2016 reveal trailer of the different things the DirectX 12 API can bring to the PC, Forza Motorsport 6: Apex was one of the games highlighted as being made to look quite a bit better than what we had seen from this type of game before. The game was packaged in with a number of Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive titles and showed a bit of footage from the upcoming game. The DirectX 12 is said to have 20 percent more GPU performance, up to 50 percent in overall CPU usage than DirectX 11. The video puts the two APIs in a kind of side by side comparison that shows the differences, including some pretty powerful lighting changes.

There have been some questions about how Apex is going to be coming to Windows 10. This game will only be offered through the Windows 10 Store. Microsoft was also asked whether or not this kind of free to play design would eventually be playable cross-platform. As of April of 2016, Microsoft said it has no plans to offer the game on any other platform than PC. Part of the rationale for this is because this is a slimmed down version of Forza Motorsport 6 that already exists on PC and the Xbox One. That larger version has more than 400 cars available while Apex has just over 60.

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is due out on Windows 10 some point during the spring of 2016 but the game does not have an official release date.

Story

While there is not a traditional story mode for Apex, there is a kind of career mode that will have players going through 12 different events on a kind of racing calendar. Like other features in Forza Motorsport 6: Apex, this career mode will be scaled down from what players have seen in the original Forza Motorsport 6.

Gameplay

Microsoft and Turn 10 studios announced that Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is a slimmed down version of the larger Forza Motorsport 6. While some of the gameplay is quite similar to the original game, with some changes that make it a “lighter” version, there are also some new features being brought to the title for Windows 10. Among those that will be included in this new version of the game will be a new objective and scoring system that will allow players to compare their own accomplishments with those of their friends.

While this is a slimmed down version of the game people, there are going to be some features that they have seen in the larger version of the game on offer. Among those is a system Turn 10 has specifically perfected for the Forza game franchise called the Drivatar system.  This is a system which analyzes friends of players driving their own cars and then changes the AI based on that data. There are said to be other features that are exclusive to the Forza car franchise such as the Forzavista car line.

Because this is a free-to-play game, there are a few features that are certainly common to those kinds of games that will be included in this title as well. That means players will be able to make a number of in-game purchases. This will allow those who want to unlock certain cars on offer in the game earlier than they would normally unlock them, will be able to pay in order to do this. Microsoft has said players will not have to pay for any kind of advancement in the game. Players can earn every unlock for the cars and the tracks if they play the game enough. This means this is not only is the game free to play but players who don’t want to spend any money on the game won’t ever have to if they want to play quite a bit of the game.

Cars And Tracks

While the original Forza Motorsport 6 has more than 400 different cars players can drive, Microsoft has said Apex is going to be a slimmed down version for Windows 10. In total, the company has said there will be just over 60 cars people can drive with and there will be a little over 20 tracks that players can race on. At the moment, the cars that will be available in the game. Some of these cars will be unlocked right from the start, while other cars and tracks will be unlocked as the players go through the game. None of the specifics have said which cars will be available and which will need to be unlocked.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game

After over ten years of Xbox exclusivity, the Forza Motorsport franchise is finally making the jump to PCs with Forza Motorsport 6: Apex, the free to play version of the sixth entry in the franchise, which released on Xbox One last year. Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is going to be the first time PC players get to play Turn 10’s genre defining racing sims- and they’ll get to go hands on with the PC debut of the franchise sooner than they expected.

Apex will be entering open beta starting next week, on May 5. This means that starting Thursday, as long as you have a PC running Windows 10, you can download the beta client for free and see how the new free to play structure translates to a game like Forza.

The requirements necessary to run the game are:

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.70 GHz or AMD FX-6300 3.90 GHz
• RAM: 8 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory
• GPU: GeForce GT 740 or Radeon R7 250X
• HDD: 30 GB Available Space
• DX: DirectX 12

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex Recommended System Requirements (1080p @60 FPS)

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i7-3820 3.60 GHz or AMD FX-9590 4.10 GHz
• RAM: 12 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 4 GB Video Memory
• GPU: GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290X
• HDD: 30 GB Available Space
• DX: DirectX 12

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex Ultra System Requirements (4K @ 60 FPS)

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.00 GHz
• RAM: 16 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 6 GB Video Memory
• GPU: GeForce GTX 980 Ti or Radeon R9 Fury X
• HDD: SSD 30GB Available Space
• DX: DirectX 12

Let’s just hope that Apex fares better than a lot of Microsoft’s other ports of their Xbox One games to PC have.

Following the announcement of Forza Motorsport 6: Apex for Windows 10, Turn 10 Studios revealed to IGN that future titles in the franchise going forward would be supported on both Xbox One and PC.

What does that mean for Forza Horizon though, especially since Forza Horizon 3 could likely the next big title in the series for this year? Though design director Andy Beaudoin didn’t confirm whether this would actually be the case for Horizon, he did indicate that “as a franchise, we’re going to embrace that.” Which essentially means that all Forza titles will go the same route. Whether this year’s Forza Horizon does or not remains to be seen but it’s possible.

Forza Motorsport 6 isn’t the only Xbox One exclusive that’s releasing for Windows – Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is out now for PC and Quantum Break will be releasing this April on both Xbox One and Windows 10. Thoughts on more exclusives making the jump? Let us know in the comments.

The one Microsoft franchise that had always been exclusive to just Xbox devices and nothing else had been Forza– since the franchise’s inception in 2005, Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon games have appeared only on Xbox consoles, and nowhere else. Even flagship Microsoft franchises like Gears of War and Halo have shown up on other platforms, such as PCs. Forza, though, has always been a true Xbox exclusive.

That changes now- Microsoft have announced Forza Motorsport 6 Apex, a free to play version of last Fall’s hit Xbox One entry in the long running franchise, which will hit Windows 10 PCs this Spring.

“Arriving in the Windows Store this spring, Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is a free, curated standalone experience for Windows 10 that provides fans with a diverse tour of what Forza Motorsport 6 has to offer, including trademark innovations iconic to the Forza franchise, such as Drivatar opponents and Forzavista cars, as well as new ways to play and compete,” Microsoft said. “The experience also takes advantage of DirectX 12, delivering breathtaking visuals at up to 4K resolution, and was playable for the first time at the Xbox Spring Showcase on an Intel Unleashed Custom.”

The PC version comes with over 60 cars and over 20 tracks, so it’s not quite the full experience, but it’s still an indication that future Forza games may come over to Windows PCs too. Maybe Forza Horizon 3 this year is next? Please?