F1 2018 PC Performance Review

Graphical Settings – They are not the same for AMD and Nvidia

F1 2018 provided its users with a range of display options, supporting arbitrary refresh rates, ultra-wide aspect ratios like 21:9 and HDR options out of the box. Like most racing games, F1 2018 can benefit greatly from the use of ultra-wide displays, which can give drivers additional peripheral vision and increased immersion. 

By default, F1 2018 runs with TAA and 16x Anisotropic Filtering, at least on every graphics card we tested. Options for a checkerboarded TAA are also available, though we haven’t had enough time to adequately test this option (Denuvo-related game lockouts are the worst). Like most modern games, the use of 16x anisotropic filtering has a limited performance impact, with lower options delivering a negligible difference to in-game framerates. We recommend that PC gamers keep Anisotropic filtering set to 16x.  

When running in HDR, F1 2018 features a “Peak Nit Adjustment” option, which allows players to define the peak brightness of their display, a handy feature for users of lower-end HDR monitors. Tobii Eye Tracking support is also available to those who own supported eye-tracking hardware. 

F1 2018 is unlike most modern PC releases, shipping with different default graphical options for Radeon and Geforce hardware users. While the game’s Ultra Low, Low, Medium and High presets remain the same, the title’s Ultra High presets use different versions of Ambient Occlusion, with Radeon users defaulting to ASSAO while Nvidia/Geforce users default to HBAO+. 

We will look into this graphical option on page six, as it has the potential to have a significant graphical impact and similar impact to overall GPU performance. At best, this feature provides an optimised high-end Ambient Occlusion option to both Radeon and Geforce users, but without proper testing, the reasoning behind this irregularity remains unclear.  

Below are all of F1 2018’s advanced graphical options, and what they are set to when playing under the game’s Ultra Low, Low, Medium, High and Ultra high Presets.