Gears 5: pre-load now open, system requirements, AMD optimizations and more

[Shawn Knight]

Something to look forward to: One of the most anticipated titles of the year, Gears 5, is nearly upon us. To celebrate the occasion, Microsoft and The Coalition have shared a wealth of new information about the game. Let’s dive right in.

The pre-download process for Gears 5 on all platforms is now under way, allowing prospective players to go ahead and download the game now so they’ll be ready to play the moment it launches.

Speaking of launch, the Gears 5 early access period has been moved up to September 5 at 9 pm (in your local time zone). For regions with multiple time zones, the earliest time zone will dictate your launch window. For example, in the US, that means the early access period starts at 9 pm Eastern / 8 pm Central / 6 pm Pacific.

Note that you’ll need the Ultimate Edition of the game to get early access.

The duo have also published the final minimum, recommended and ideal specifications for playing Gears 5 on the PC. They are as follows:

Multiple publications are also reporting that The Coalition worked closely with AMD to optimize the game for its hardware. According to Mike Rayner, technical director with The Coalition, the two have a strong relationship that dates back to Gears of War 4.

“We have moved nearly all of our post processing shaders to Async Compute in Gears 5, which means improved frame rates from our previous titles, plus more room to pack in even more graphical quality,” Rayner said.

Multithreaded Command Buffering, meanwhile, should help to reduce latency by ensuring that instructions from Ryzen processors reach Radeon graphics cards faster. A post-launch update will add support for AMD FidelityFX, a dynamic sharpening filter that boosts detail in low-contrast areas.

“AMD engineers worked with us to optimize everything from the CPU to the GPU and we’re really eager to get all of this awesome performance and great visuals into fans’ hands,” he added.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/81670-gears-5-pre-load-now-open-system-requirements.html

 

[ZackL04]

The recommended GPU’s are kinda funny

AMD 570 or 5700

Nvidia 970 or 1660ti

Quite a performance spread there....

 

[scavengerspc]

Minimum and Recommended for each.
The 970 and RX 570 are quite close performance wise but I agree the gap between 1660ti and RX 5700 is quite big.

Maybe the performance on nvidia is much better than on AMD hardware.
Which would be hilarious.

 

[rrwards]

I wonder if the OS requirement is heavily enforced. If I'm not running the latest 2019 update, will the game refuse to start? Or is it more like "we won't provide support for systems not running the latest version of W10"?

 

[Vulcanproject]

Bleh, let's see if it's worth even downloading on game pass. I played the original game and Gears 2 to death, after that the execution and my interest of the sequels fell off a cliff.

3 was polished but it didn't match up to the heights of the second game, the slope was slippery from this point on. Judgement was completely forgettable and 4 was ok, but non essential. It looked nice and ran well on PC, but I can't really think of much else I would recall from it.

Hopefully there is some new injection into the formula and it stirs something from the early games a decade ago.

 

[neeyik]

I wonder if the OS requirement is heavily enforced. If I'm not running the latest 2019 update, will the game refuse to start? Or is it more like "we won't provide support for systems not running the latest version of W10"?

It's possibly due to HLSL Shader Model 6.4 - which is currently only supported by AMD and Intel; in the case of the former, it's only supported by their GCN 5.0/RDNA architecture. It's possibly used during the compute stages of the rendering pipeline to accelerate performance on those GPUs.

Edit: or it may well just be for the bug fixes that 1903 brought for the Direct3D12 pipelines, which benefits all GPUs/systems, not just the AMD/Intel ones above.

Edit 2:

Radeon R9 290 - SM 6.3
Radeon RX 580 - SM 6.4
GeForce GTX 760 - SM 5.1
GeForce GTX 1080 - SM 6.4

Okay, so the 1903 requirement isn't for SM6.4 then, so it must be for the D3D bug fixes.

 

[amstech]

The Unreal Engine 4 runs great on just about any hardware, even mid spec PC's should fair pretty well.
That might explain the spread.

 

[Uncle Al]

This one is an EXCELLENT excuse to park your tail and see how it all pans out before sinking your $$ into a game that might not work or will severely underperform!

 

[Chesterfried]

This one is an EXCELLENT excuse to park your tail and see how it all pans out before sinking your $$ into a game that might not work or will severely underperform!

Windows store bugs are to be expected, but if Gears 4 is any indicator, in game performance should not be an issue.

 

[ForgottenLegion]

5820K & 1080 Ti, still good, no need to upgrade : )

 

[rrwards]

5820K & 1080 Ti, still good, no need to upgrade : )

What does someone get out of bragging about having more money than other people? It contributes nothing.

 

[EEatGDL]

I wonder if the BSODs you got with Intel CPU + NVIDIA GPU when turning on async compute in Gears 4 was due to underlying issues with Intel or NVIDIA. The BSOD always said it was some watchdog timeout in the CPU. I have confirmation from friends that this can be replicated with Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Skylake, and Kaby Lake CPUs.

 

[Ravalo]

5820K & 1080 Ti, still good, no need to upgrade : )

*bottleneck intensifies*

 

[IceIceAyu]

5820K & 1080 Ti, still good, no need to upgrade : )

*bottleneck intensifies*

Oh I got a bigger bottleneck right here
2500k + rx570

 

[ForgottenLegion]

What does someone get out of bragging about having more money than other people? It contributes nothing.

Where's the bragging? I'm not sure where you're getting that from.

Infact I'm stating the opposite. My old hardware will be able to run this game just fine seeing as the 1080 Ti is just about on par with the 2080 in non RTX scenarios.

 

[Ravalo]

Oh I got a bigger bottleneck right here
2500k + rx570

Oh you’re challenging me?

A6 7400k (4.2/4.4 ghz) + rx 560

 

[mbk34]

Where's the bragging?

I suspect it's just the choice of hardware. For gaming, the 1080 Ti used to be the most expensive GPU around and the 5820K was one of the most expensive CPUs. The standard 1080 was seen as much better value and the i7 4790K was much cheaper and performed better at gaming and also didn't need the more expensive X99 motherboard to support it. But, as you say, both parts are now a bit behind the times.

 

[ForgottenLegion]

I suspect it's just the choice of hardware. For gaming, the 1080 Ti used to be the most expensive GPU around and the 5820K was one of the most expensive CPUs. The standard 1080 was seen as much better value and the i7 4790K was much cheaper and performed better at gaming and also didn't need the more expensive X99 motherboard to support it. But, as you say, both parts are now a bit behind the times.

As I recall the 5820K wasn't much more than the top i7 at the time. That's why I went for X99.
It was certainly much cheaper than current i7 pricing.
Motherboard was a bit more expensive for sure, around $100 but the additional features you got helped make up for the premium.

I actually went from a 980 Ti to the 1080 Ti when the price dropped/there was a good deal.

It's actually worked out well and aside from the minor upgrades along the way it's given me a good run and seems to have a decent amount more life left to go

 

[scavengerspc]

5820K & 1080 Ti, still good, no need to upgrade : )

So here we see another advantage to buying upper/top shelf hardware.
Years after they were originally for sale and still a strong system.

 

[Lounds]

5820K & 1080 Ti, still good, no need to upgrade : )

Just been looking it's very similar to the Ryzen 5 1600 and 2600 in terms of performance. Some games it edges out slightly but overall very similar. Would be interesting to see how they perform overclocked against each other.

 

[Danny101]

Was that game play visuals? Looks good if it is.